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I wanted to kick his ass for referring to Mickie as he just had, but I was too buzzed to fight, and the cocky bastard knew it.
“It’s like a prison,” I said, feeling a swift change in my emotions. “This family is a charade.” I leaned back on the couch, depressed and defeated. “Our parents practically brainwashed all three of us to believe we were above everyone else and that nothing could touch us. We have the most selfish and toxic family out there.”
“There are worse families than ours living with the same amount of dysfunction,” he answered.
I shook my head. “No,” I told him, “that’s where you’re wrong. Our parents manipulate us mentally and physically,” I stared back into the fireplace. “If we don’t do what they want, they’ll hold us hostage financially. They own us,” I looked over at him, “and you’re too busy trying to be their favorite son to see it.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Seb said dismissively. “Maybe the grass is greener on the other side, living in the suburbs with a lovely family and a happy wife.”
I rolled my eyes at his stupid analogy, “But you’ll never fucking know because you act spineless and weak around them. You do everything they say, don’t you?”
“I did what I had to do, John. If putting the word out to the heaviest investors of Saint John’s to pull their support if you didn’t come home was what it took to get you back, then that’s what I had to do. I’ll do whatever it takes.”
I hated continually rehashing this, but it was all I could think about. It never mattered to my parents if Jim Mitchell had moved their funds around to keep the hospital from relying on their money. They knew they could get to every single donor Saint John’s had and get them to cut off the hospital. And they would’ve—single-handedly tanking the place—if I didn’t do what they demanded.
“For the good of the fucking family, right?” I eyed him. “Why would you take part in such a thing? You’d participate in strong-arming people who are donating to a hospital, doing some good in the world, just to get me to stop delivering babies and helping women who have cancer?”
“Because it was the right thing for our family,” he said. “Humans are replaceable; money is not. I’m sure your buddy, James Mitchell, could tell you that.”
To hear my brother say that money was more important than me or my work as a physician cut deeper than I imagined. How could anything be more important than human life? I’d dedicated myself to healing women with cancer and helping bring babies into the world. I’d witnessed the miracle of life multiple times a day and was in awe every time. The honor of helping bring life into the world showed me long ago that nothing was more important than humanity. And that privilege was stolen from me by people who put money above human life.
Their tactics to manipulate me had so many layers that I didn’t even know what to think anymore. My mother was the first to tell me that Mickie wanted nothing to do with me anymore, and after what had happened at the wedding, I didn’t blame her. Everyone treated Mickie horrendously, and I made no real effort to stop it. I was ashamed of my behavior; she had every right to hate me for being a coward.
Once my father called Mark and me to the room to talk that night, and the threats started flying, I knew Mickie had to get far away from me. My parents would stop at nothing to get what they wanted, and I couldn’t live with myself if Mickie were caught in the crossfire. They made it abundantly clear that they’d stop at nothing to keep her away from me, and they meant it.
Maybe that was an excuse to hide my shame for what’d happened, but my family was more ruthless than I imagined, and everyone knows people like my parents have no qualms about getting rid of their problems.
Chapter Fifty
John
I stared out at the ocean. The shimmer and sparkle that once stole my mind away from the stress of the world no longer had the same effect on me. Hell, I didn’t even know who me was anymore.
I had tried so many ways to get out of this box I’d somehow locked myself into, but just like being buried in a casket six feet under, I’d come up with nothing to leave and reclaim my life again.
Sometimes, I felt like I was a prisoner of my mind and thoughts; other times, I deflected and blamed my parents for everything that had taken place since January, when Mark was supposed to marry into his miserable life, not make me worse off than he could’ve ever been if he’d just married Pollyanna and bit the Aster Family bullet.
I’d tried to call Mickie just to hear her voice again, and when it went to voicemail, hearing those few words, It’s Mickie, leave a message, echoed through my hollow insides and caused more pain than I expected.
I remembered a time when her voice soothed every nerve in my body, and I couldn’t contain my dick from jumping at the sound of it, but now, it was like getting stabbed in the heart with a hot poker.
Damn it, I fucking hurt, but who was I kidding? My shame for abandoning Mickie was like a boa constrictor squeezing me to death, and I deserved it. Maybe I was punishing myself.
“John?”
I didn’t turn. My mother’s voice had been like nails on a chalkboard to me for months. Once she realized how angry and caged I felt after locking me in this prison of a life with my family again under the threat of ruining everyone and everything I held dear, she backed off with her demands, forced etiquette, and all the other customs I was used to at home. She tried to be softer, but nothing she did worked in her favor, and she knew it.
“Good afternoon, sweetheart,” she said, patting my knee and sitting in the wooden beach chair beside mine in the sand where she and my father typically enjoyed nightcaps or caught the occasional sunrise over the ocean. “We have the loveliest view on the shoreline, don’t you think?”
I rolled my eyes behind my sunglasses.
“Better than Manhattan,” I said curtly.
“I’m glad your father recommended we come out early this month. The Hamptons are just perfect in May, don’t you think?”
“I don’t really fucking care, Mom,” I said. My mom hated it when I used the F word, but she could never hate the word more than I hated my life right now. “It’s all the same to me.”
“You just said it was better than Manhattan,” she tried to say playfully.
