I could feel myself going on autopilot. My mother used to say the press are like puppies—hyper, attention-seeking, eager for a bone. So always give them your attention and a damn bone. They were asking me questions, but I was sure they were all itching to question the police and fire chief about an arson suspect. Meaning my family…the O.S. didn’t fail but was a victim of arson. So long as trust in my family was still maintained, and that we still had a good image, I didn’t care who took the fall for the arson.
No... that was a lie. I did care. Which is why I already had a scapegoat.
NEAL
“Sweets, hold on,” I said to her as I stepped out onto the street. One of the guards who’d driven in behind me jumped quickly out of the Ranger Rover, hand outstretched for my keys.
“Who are you?”
“Mannix. But people call me Monk.”
“I don’t really care. What I care about is my precious. Do you know what that is?” I asked him, nodding to my car.
He glanced to my precious quickly before looking to me. “It’s a vintage Ferrari.”
I stared at the blonde-haired, lanky man-boy stepping forward. I put my hand on his shoulder, turning him to face my precious along with me. “A poor man sees an old Ferrari. This, my ginger-haired friend, is a one-of-a-kind, custom-built forest green 1961 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spyder. It’s almost as precious to me as my children. So how will you treat it?”
“Like it’s your child?” he replied.
“No,” I shook my head. “You’ll treat it like it was more important than your child. Your favorite child. Your only child. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good man.” I nodded to him, tossing the keys up for him to catch, which he did as if I’d thrown up gold, before looking toward the hospital behind me. “I’ve been back in this city for an hour and already at the fucking hospital. Can you believe this shit, Sweets?”
“Are you talking to me or the driver still?” she answered back.
I grinned, pressing the Bluetooth further into my ear as I walked forward. “You know you’re the only Sweets I have.”
“Umm,” she replied to me. Then to someone else, “Put that in the corner and leave that. I’ll unpack it myself.”
“I still don’t understand why you needed to pack anything. We could have bought anything that wasn’t already in our room here.” I said to her as I glanced over the emergency room. The smell of alcohol and disinfectant trying but failing to mask the scent of smoke and burnt flesh.
“Well, when you decide to copy Declan’s bad habit of expensive cars…we should save anywhere we can.”
I rolled my eyes at her piss-poor excuse to take a jab at cars. “Sweets, it is our duty as insanely, unimaginably rich people to spend money on obscene shit. It’s an insult to the poor if we don’t, AND it hurts the economy.”
“Did you really just say not buying expensive shit hurts the poor and the economy? You don’t give a crap about either of those things!” She laughed so hard she snorted, which in turn made me laugh as I walked up to the visitors desk.
“That is not true! I care a lot. That’s why I’m about to donate to…” I paused, picking up one of the flyers on the desk. “Half-Home!”
She stopped laughing and paused for a moment before asking, “Do you know what Half-Home is?”
I glanced at the picture on the cover of the flyer, a father and daughter hugging each other. There were no other words on it besides ‘Support Half-Home.’ “A father-daughter program?”
She broke out into a fit of laughter again.
“What?” I snapped, even though I couldn’t help but grin. The nurse behind the station looked at me, leaning forward to speak, but I held my finger up at her, telling her to wait a second.
“Half-Home is a drug rehab program! You just…” She tried to hold in her laugher as she said, “You just said you wanted to donate to a program that tries to take away the customers who are making you so very rich enough to donate.”
I couldn’t help the Grinch-like frown that appeared on my face. The nurse stood up, pointing behind me. I glanced back at the families, also on the phone but a lot more panicked, who had photos in their hands. They were scanning around for whom I could only guess was their family members.
“Sweets, I’m going to have to call you back…duty calls.”
“Spending money on obscene shit?” she questioned.
“No, pretending to give a shit,” I said to her in Korean.
“Fighting!” she replied before hanging up.
Taking the Bluetooth out of my ear and tucking it in my shirt pocket, I turned to face the nurse, who was more than annoyed with me. Flashing a smile at her and standing straighter, “Hi—”
“This is a hospital, sir. You should finish your calls outside.”
“Sorry about that,” I said, still smiling while I tapped my fingers on her desk to keep from plucking the eyes out of her little head. “I’m looking for Wyatt Callahan—”
“Do you have an appointment with Dr. Callahan?”
I need an appointment to see my nephew now? “No but—”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Callahan is very busy, and you’ll need to call—”
“Uncle Neal!”
I glanced over to right, somewhat stunned at the man in front of me, dressed in a white coat over a dark red shirt with dark grey dress pants, his hair cut and styled, and a very familiar hidden darkness on his face, even though he grinned from ear to ear.
He’s different.
“Dr. Callahan, is that you?” I grinned, hugging him when he was close, patting him on the back. “I was just being lectured on why us little
