“Did you get it?” I signed back, ignoring her and grabbing my medical kit from my bedside. Inside it, I double-checked the syringe before outstretching my hand to her. It was a rhetorical question to avoid answering her question, or rather her statement…I knew she would get it, and sure enough, she held out the drugs for me. I reached to take the vials from her, but she clenched her hand into a fist, coming up closer to me and whispering harshly.
“What do you think he’ll do when he finds out you sedated him, cremated his wife without telling him, and also started a rumor that he killed her? Wyatt, are you insane?!”
“That medication needs to be kept cool. When you clench it like that, it heats up faster,” I snapped quietly back at her, once again outstretching my hand, waiting. Her nostrils flared, and with a clenched jaw, she handed the vials over.
“Thank you, this should be enough…”
“Wyatt!”
“No fucking shit, Helen!” I yelled at her before whispering again. “Yes, he’s going to be pissed! Yes, he’s going to be ready to murder me! Yes, to everything you said! Yes, you were right! … Are you fucking happy? Can you stop the moral condemnation now?”
“Moral condemnation?” She huffed before a bitter laugh escaped her lips. She took a step back from me, shaking her head. “And here I thought I was saving my cousin from being murdered by my other cousin and his grief. Sorry, I’m the idiot. Do whatever the fuck you want… thank you for finding your suits again. Now we can just throw in you the ground without making a big show of it.”
She turned to leave, but I grabbed onto her wrist to stop her. “Whether he kills me or not, I still deserve a little bit of a show at my funeral, don’t you think…living to twenty-six in this family isn’t easy.”
She turned back to me, the look of rage on her face hilarious, but I couldn’t find the strength to laugh. I could barely find the strength to do anything right then.
“Fine, I’ll have the church choir boys sing Dies irae for you.”
A small grin appeared on her lips as I pouted like a kicked dog. “I’m not sure which is crueler, the song choice or subjecting any human being to our church’s choir.”
“Says the former choir boy.”
And just like that I was waving the white flag. “I apologize, Helen, now please stop hitting below the belt?”
She chuckled, and we both fell into silence as I let go of her wrist to fill the syringes.
“My father called. He’s thinking of coming back…”
“Did you tell him what the definition of retirement is?” I asked, taping the syringes with my index finger.
“Wyatt…”
She froze as I turned to her, knowing better than anyone else how serious I was at this moment. “Tell him not to come back. Tell everybody not to come back until Ethan tells them to come back. That is how everyone helps. Ethan might forever hate me for what I did to Ivy. I didn’t let him say goodbye… She’ll have no funeral… Now I’m dragging his love for her through the mud. I knew all of that when I did it, and I would do it again. And Ethan wouldn’t stop me, nor will he ever deny the rumors. Why? Because his feelings mean nothing in comparison to our family name, to everything our parents and grandfather, and his father before him, built. It means nothing in comparison to what our mother sacrificed. You know as well as I do, the moment people out there think we are weak…think we are wounded…is the moment all of the guns and knives come out. I know my brother, Helen. I know for a fact that he cared about her. I didn’t want to drug him. But I couldn’t let people see him like that. He’s given everything to be the head of this family. I’m protecting him. And this is the only way I know how to let him grieve and still not destroy what he’s built.”
Her eyes were filled with tears, and she fought hard not cry as she asked, “So what are we going to do while he’s grieving then?”
“Be ruthless.”
Without another word to her, I grabbed my things and began walking to the door.
ONE
“Boy, you knock on the devil's door
and he’ll slam your head through the wall.”
~ Sherrilyn Kenyon
WYATT
Why was I not moving?
What was I afraid of?
Was this even fear?
I didn’t know. I didn’t know why I was just standing outside his door. But that was what I was doing…standing. Gripping the bag in my hand tighter as I stared at the wooden door in front of me. My mind was blank, my feelings…I couldn’t feel. I was standing as if I were a toy solider positioned there.
This is insane.
Sighing, I moved to knock but stopped…remembering he wouldn’t be able to answer. I simply grabbed the handle, turned it to the right, and stepped inside, expecting him to still be in his bed in the center of the massive room.
But he wasn’t there.
“Ethan?” I called out to him. No answer. My feelings suddenly returned; all I could feel was panic. “ETHAN!”
Dropping my bag, I rushed to check the bathroom.
He wasn’t there.
Then his closet.
He wasn’t there.
I checked everywhere, even over the balcony, before finally reaching for the phone, dialing his cell. I heard it ring, just not on my side of the phone…but from the one place I’d stupidly forgotten to check.
Ivy’s closet.
With the phone still held to my ear, I moved, pausing just like I’d done to get on the phone before sliding the door open—
BANG!
It happened so fast I couldn’t even move, jump, breathe. All I could do was stand there.
“Missed by an inch.” His voice was heavy. In Boston, a few of the doctors had
