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When the doors opened into his entryway, my eyes caught on a pair of my discarded heels.
I’d left them there after an exhausting day of photo shoots. They were one of my favorite pairs of shoes. Still, after everything that happened, I decided only to have Lucian bring the essentials back to my apartment.
Why hadn’t Damon put them away after all of this time?
Moving into the main living space, I found the rest of my knickknacks as I’d left them.
Nothing changed.
Well, except one thing. I walked over to the bar. There sat a giant basket of all of Damon’s favorite sodas and a note from Lucian.
No more benders. You don’t drink, remember?
Besides. Fuckers like you can’t handle them.
Let me know when you’re back in town.
-LM
PS: I took all your alcohol to keep temptation from getting the best of you. Also, fix this shit with my sister. Both of you are assholes.
I couldn’t help but smirk at the last part of the message. Then, I focused on the bender and alcohol part.
He’d looked so unkempt when he showed up at the studio, and I never commented past saying something snarky.
My stomach dropped as realization hit me. “Oh, Damon. What have you been doing to yourself?”
He’d made a vow to never drink because of the abuse he and his family endured at the hands of his alcoholic father.
Why would he break it?
I shook my head, not understanding any of this.
“Idiot man, all he had to do was let me in, fucking talk to me. I would have been there for him no matter what he was dealing with.”
Releasing a deep breath, I knew there was only one option for me to do. Damon shouldn’t be alone, especially not at a time like this. I had to find him and help him, even if he didn’t want me to be there for him.
CHAPTER NINE
Damon
“The sun shines on us today as we put Stuart Butler Pierce to rest.”
Holding in a heavy sigh, I glanced up at the sky, hearing Father Connor’s words.
I wasn’t sure if the crystal clear weather was the Almighty’s way of saying I was free of my past or a fuck you from my grandfather telling me he went out on his own terms.
Technically, he hadn’t since he went out in an anticlimactic way. No fight, no rousing battle, only a heart attack due to cardiovascular disease.
It was the high-fat foods and candy bars that did him in.
For nearly a week, rain pelted the New England area. The hurricane the forecasters predicted to come in as a direct hit lowered to a tropical depression but soaked the area with torrential downpours, which left me putting this funeral off until today.
I scanned the area around me, completely unsurprised by the lack of attendees at the service. When a man who’d amassed billions through nefarious means and then fell from his high pedestal, no one wanted to associate with that man and risk soiling their name.
A small group of Grandmother Josephine’s friends sat off to the side. They were here out of loyalty to her, not to pay respects to the asshole in the coffin. She probably wrangled promises out of them like she had done to me.
At least our oaths to the woman who deserved so much more than she’d gotten in life ended with this last act.
