by Cora Brent
Not only have I provoked Liam Cassini by exposing a truth he’s been hiding, but I’ve also given him ammunition to extort Trent.
And I have little doubt that’s what he has in mind. There was too much bad blood between them already and now they’re at war over the fate of the brewery. Liam is capable of terrible things and the twins are now caught in the crossfire.
The film of tears in my eyes gets angrily blinked away. This is not a time to fall apart.
The girls don’t need to be picked up from preschool for another three hours. Trent had conference calls scheduled for most of the day. He always works at his house and I know that’s where I’ll find him.
With my heart in pieces, I ring his doorbell and he answers quickly.
“Hey.” His smile disappears when he inspects my face. He reaches for me with alarm, pushing my hair away, cupping my chin. “Baby, what happened? What is it?”
I jump into his arms and sob on his shoulder as he holds me.
Then I tell him everything.
13
Trent
With effort, I quit pacing back and forth because Gretchen is already upset enough. She sits on the sofa, the lone piece of furniture in my bare living room, and the sight of her face wracked with misery just rips me to shreds.
I’m struggling to come to terms with the revelation that Mara and Caitlin were fathered by my brother. I think back to the day when he showed up here and remember the shrewd flash in his eyes when he spotted Gretchen and the twins. It was the look of a man who is used to using and abusing people to get his way. If Liam would happily destroy his own teenage brother then he likely wouldn’t have many qualms about wrecking the lives of two little girls who mean nothing to him.
Even if they are his children.
Liam and Jules must have made a deal. Something like he’d fork over some financial support if she kept the twins’ paternity a secret. For the life of me, I can’t picture Jules Aaronson getting dirty with my brother. Back when I lived in Lake Stuart, Liam never showed the slightest interest in any member of the Aaronson family. He laughed when Alex Aaronson went to prison. He would tell Danny to fuck off whenever Danny came around looking for me. As far as I know, he never spoke a word to either Gretchen or Jules.
I drop to my knees in front of Gretchen and separate her knees, sliding between them to look her in the face. “He lies.”
She nods.
“Don’t believe whatever shit he told you about Jules.”
Her chin trembles. “I know. But it doesn’t matter. She’s gone and he’s their father. He could take them if he wanted to.”
The thought makes my stomach flip. Trying to keep Gretch from seeing my internal panic, I bend forward and brush my lips over hers. “I’ll fix this, honey.”
I don’t know if I can.
I have to.
Liam’s not getting his sadistic hands on those little girls. He doesn’t care about the twins anyway or he would have been knocking on the door long ago. The danger is that he now sees them as an opportunity to get something else, something he actually does want.
Gretchen begins to look hopeful, and then she remembers something and sucks her lower lip between her teeth. “He hates you, Trent.”
I stand and pull her up off the sofa. “Don’t worry. He can’t hurt me.”
That’s not true. Liam no longer has the authority to lock me up and throw away the key. But he can hurt me in a way that’s far worse by using the people I love.
And I do love Gretch. The twins too.
That’s why I kiss my beautiful girl softly and tell her to go home and try to relax before she needs to pick up the kids. They’ll be alarmed if they see their beloved aunt is distraught.
Her bright green eyes blink up at me. “What are you going to do?”
I put my arm around her shoulders and walk her outside. “I’m going to go pay Liam a visit, like he wants.”
Liam’s car is not parked in front of the brewery, but then again it’s now the lunch hour. It would be just like him to brutally taunt Gretchen to the point of despair and then go celebrate by pigging out on a steak.
Fine, I’ll wait. If he’s not back in an hour then I’ll go hunt him down.
A wiser plan would be to call my lawyer and get some legal input but I already know I’m not sitting in a strong position so there’s no point. The only course of action is to figure out what it will take to keep him away from the twins and make that happen.
After fifteen minutes of sitting in the parking lot and staring at Rosebriar Hill the thought occurs to me that I don’t need to wait out here. That building should be mine as much as it is Liam’s, probably more. Because, unlike him, I loved our father. I would have treated the company Carmine Cassini built with care and respectfully honored the family name.
No, I’m not hanging out in the fucking parking lot for another second. I’m going inside.
The main entrance is unlocked. There are bound to be employees milling around and I’m hardly through the door before I run into one.
“Trent!” Alvie Custer started working for my father in the brewery’s early days and I’m surprised to see that he has stuck around through the Liam years. Not many employees did.
Alvie’s heavily lined face cracks a smile and he pumps my hand. “It’s been way too many years, kiddo. Damn, it’s good go see you back in here.”
I return his handshake with enthusiasm even though I’m distracted. Alvie was loyal to my father and counted him as a friend. Ordinarily I’d jump at the chance to have this chat but there are other things to worry about today.
“Good to see you too.” I drop his hand and gesture to the small army of cocktail tables that are currently being carried into the atrium. “Looks like you’re getting ready for an event here.”
Alvie scowls, which not his usual inclination. “Liam’s wife is throwing him a birthday party.”
I don’t miss the contempt in his voice. “I see.”
His expression switches to eagerness. “There’s a rumor going around that you’re going to have a role in the company. Is that true?”
“Maybe.”
One of the furniture movers calls out, “Alvie, can you help us here? The boss is real specific on how he wants the room laid out.”
Alvie scowls again and shakes my hand one more time. “Hate to cut this short but I don’t want anyone to get a taste of Liam’s temper if it can be avoided.”
“Take care.” I watch Alvie walk over to the perplexed worker who is waving around an elaborate diagram and shaking his head.
I’ll wait for Liam upstairs in my father’s office.
I’ve jogged up this staircase many times before. When I was small, my mother used to pack up a basket of food and we’d come here to have lunch with my father. If she needed to run errands that would be boring for a little kid, she’d bring me here where my dad was always glad to look after me. I had the run of the place and I was probably a little obnoxious about getting in everyone’s way but no one complained. When I grew older, I’d balk at stopping by for any reason, always on the prowl for something a hell of a lot more exciting than the family business. By then the only benefit I saw from being connected to my dad’s brewery was that I had access to the final product, which I wasn’t above stealing in the name of good times up on Rosebriar Hill.
I’m sorry about that now.
I take a seat in one of the leather armchairs, likely the same one Gretchen occupied this morning. As she cried in my living room she kept repeating that she was sorry, saying she shouldn’t have come here and challenged my brother without tipping me off first. She has nothing to be sorry for. She had every right to confront Liam.
The echo of footsteps climbing the stairs reaches my ears and I recognize Liam’s plodding gait. I’m expecting him to be wearing one of his shit-eating grins when he strolls through the office door. Instead, he looks weary and guarded.
“Have a nice lunch, bro?” I don’t bother to keep sarcasm out of
my voice. We’re long past that.
He shuts the door. I can smell the booze on him now. Lunch must have been served in liquid form.
The top two buttons of his shirt are undone, freeing a splash of unsightly chest hair. He tosses his blazer carelessly onto an ottoman and settles heavily behind his desk.
Liam coughs and leans back with a grunt. “I’m sure I don’t need to repeat what the Aaronson girl already told you.”
“Nope. You have two innocent daughters you don’t give a shit about and now you’re going to use them as a bargaining chip. So go ahead and name it. What the fuck do you want from me, Liam?”
He lowers his eyes, perhaps not expecting me to cut right to the chase or maybe thinking I was going to start out by making threats, which would have been easier to oppose.
Then he scowls. “Not that I owe you an explanation, but I had no intention of interfering in their lives, especially now that their mother’s gone.”
“You had no intention of being a father either.”
“Never wanted to be. Julianne knew that.”
I jerk my thumb at the trashy painting on the wall. “I take it Mrs. Cassini doesn’t know about the twins.”
His jaw hardens. “And I take it you don’t want your girlfriend to lose custody of those girls any more than I want to lose my brewery. And I would get custody. After all, I’ve been willingly providing financial support since the twins were born. I can easily argue that it’s not my fault Julianne Aaronson wouldn’t allow me near them. Any judge would hand them over in a heartbeat. You know it’s true. It’s why you’re here.”
“You’re one sick motherfucker, you know that? You’ve also lost your mind if you think I’m going to stand by and let you do to those two little girls what you did to me.”
He throws up his hands. “Fuck off with that. You were out of control. There was no one else around to set you straight.”
“I was a dumb kid. You exiled me to a nightmare and you fucking left me there.”
“Ah, quit the drama queen act. You shaped up, didn’t you?”
Wrath obscures my judgement and I yank my shirt off. “Yeah, take a look at how I got shaped up, you bastard! They did this. And then they did worse. Think your soft ass could have handled that treatment?”
It’s a bad move, preying on emotion, and I’m expecting him to laugh.
Liam, however, proves to be squeamish about some things and he looks away from my scars. The chair creaks under his weight. “This isn’t supposed to be your goddamn therapy session, Trent.”
I leave my shirt on the floor. I don’t feel like putting it back on. “All right. I’ll leave town. You hate my guts. The feeling is mutual. I’ll even hand over the thirty five percent interest I’ve acquired in the brewery. I’ll leave, Liam. You’ll never have to send out another hush money child support payment because I’ll take care of the girls. We won’t see each other again.”
Naturally, I’m not going anywhere without Gretch and the twins but I won’t point that out right now. Liam is primarily interested in solving his financial problems. He doesn’t care about his daughters at all. My nieces. A fierce and sudden rush of protective love threatens to give me away.
Liam doesn’t jump at the offer. He continues to stare out the window and scratches his sagging jaw. “You know, you’ve really got the Midas touch. I’ll give you that. What are you, twenty-five? And sitting on top of a fortune that should have taken decades to build. Not bad.”
“Appreciate the praise. Do we have a deal?”
His eyes shift my way. The sharp glint within is terrifying. “With your resources we could build an empire.”
“We? As in you and me? Hell no. Anyway, you’re not capable of building a goddamn birdhouse.” I shake my head. He really has lost his shit.
Liam nods to himself. “No, I think you’ll be sticking around, Trent. You’ll honor our father’s memory by investing in the expansion of Cassini Brewery. As a silent partner, of course, but if you insist on keeping an office here there’s a closet down in the warehouse you could have.”
It takes all my willpower not to leap across the desk and strangle him. “You’ve got some balls bringing Dad into this. I’ve always wondered about something, Liam. At the end, did you help him along to those pearly gates so you could get your inheritance a few days sooner?”
The accusation doesn’t even make him blink. It almost seems like he’s talking to himself. “I have a lot of ideas on how to move the company forward. All it takes is some cash.”
So that’s his plan. He’s going to keep me imprisoned in a different way, using me as a permanent ATM.
And if I stop producing…
“If I refuse, do you intend to go home to your wife and admit you’ve got two kids you forgot to tell her about?”
His lips press into a thin smile. “Now and then Whitney gets the idea that she’d like to be a mother. I could give her that chance. And when the novelty wears off, which it will, we’d have to explore another option for the twins.”
“Jesus, you’re evil.” My face burns and blood roars in my ears. I’ve never been more tempted to commit violence.
Liam would rip the girls from Gretchen and send them away where there would be no one to love them. He wouldn’t lose an hour of sleep over it.
Liam shrugs. “Or they could stay where they are. With their aunt. They wouldn’t even need to learn my name.”
With that suggestion hanging in the air, his phone buzzes on his desk and he answers.
“Hello, gorgeous. Yeah, the place will be all set up for the party tonight. I’ll remind them to string the lights.” He grins at me. “Trent’s here. Yes, it is nice. My brother and I were just discussing our new partnership. Love you too. See you in a few hours, baby.”
Liam wraps up his call with his wife and I swipe my shirt off the floor.
Somehow I feel as trapped as I did at age sixteen when I was shoved into the back of a police car in my underwear.
It doesn’t matter.
I’d be willing to suffer far worse, as long as the twins get to stay with Gretchen.
Liam sees the defeat in my face and his smile broadens.
Fuck him.
He can take every penny I have and keep me running on a treadmill to guarantee I’ll make more. I can deal with it.
“I would invite you to the party tonight,” he calls out as I head for the door with my shirt balled up in one hand. “But I think you’ve got plenty to keep you busy at home. That girl of yours gives off all kinds of slutty little firecracker vibes. Go enjoy a slice of that with your dinner and we’ll talk tomorrow.”
I don’t bother responding. I head for my car so I can go home and break the news to Gretchen.
We’ll get to keep the twins for now.
But until I can think of a way out of this, we belong to Liam.
14
Gretchen
Their project at preschool today was to make bunny rabbits, gluing cotton balls to colorful pieces of construction paper. The girls couldn’t wait to show the finished results to me. When we get home we stick their cotton ball and construction paper creations to the kitchen fridge with magnets.
They are both filled with energy and exuberant chatter as we sit at the kitchen table to a snack of cookies and milk. The wall clock ticks the minutes away in the next room, torturing my ears like a doomsday countdown.
“Aunt Gretch?” Mara pauses with a half-eaten chocolate chip cookie in her hand, her eyes wide. “Are you sad?”
Caitlin’s straw exits her mouth with a pop and now she’s looking at me too.
I haven’t cried in front of them. I’m just a shitty actress. My efforts to appear calm and relaxed are a failure.
On the inside I’m screaming.
“It’s just my spring allergies,” I tell the girls and rub my eyes theatrically.
Mara puts her cookie down. “Where’s Trentcassini?”
“He’ll be back soon. He just went to the grocery store to pick
up a few things. Guess what? We’re going to make mini pizzas for dinner tonight.”
“I love mini pizzas,” Caitlin says and resumes drinking her milk.
Mara pushes her finger into the crumbs on her plate and looks at me again. I try to smile at her. She stares into my eyes for a few seconds, then frowns down at her crumbs.
Trent didn’t gloss over the details of his disastrous meeting with Liam. Yet he made a heroic attempt to sound upbeat as he explained that we would be allowed to keep the girls with us. Liam has no interest in being a father and what’s more, he is motivated to keep the girls’ paternity a secret.
Life can proceed in a state of happy bliss and the twins will be safe.
As long as Trent hands over every cent he has and finds a way to keep generating more money.
Since my face is being uncooperative and worrying the girls, I take it away from the table. The breakfast dishes are still in the sink and normally I would use the dishwasher but I feel the urge to occupy myself with something mundane right now. I fill the basin with warm soapy water and slowly wash each dish by hand.
I need to call Danny and get him caught up. Tonight his team plays the last game on the road in a series against the New York Mets and then tomorrow is a travel day. I can wait until tomorrow to call my brother. There’s not a damn thing he can do anyway.
With their snacks finished, the girls ask to go upstairs to play in their bedrooms. This will give me a chance to look through my sister’s room while they are occupied. I have little hope of finding anything. I’ve already sorted through Jules’s important papers, all of which were stored downstairs in a fireproof file storage box. I don’t even have an idea what I’d be looking for. But today the loss of my sister aches as acutely as it did the night I received that phone call.
Jules. Jules. Jules. Why didn’t you tell me?
I don’t believe Liam’s filthy words about the night they spent together.
Yet I also don’t understand.
I would have understood better had he been a stranger, some dashing newcomer who was visiting, maybe someone she reached out to in an impulsive moment of loneliness.