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He kissed me before sitting up. “I’m going to have a talk with my father.”
SEDRIC
There comes a time in every child’s life where they have to look their parents in the eye and say enough.
I always wondered when that time would come. Or how I could look my demon of a father in the eye, whilst standing with my head held high with no fear. We are all afraid of something or someone. Shamus had always been that person. Yet, as we walked through the back woods behind our home, I felt nothing…and nothing was a familiar feeling.
It was how I spent almost thirty years running the family. There were brief moments of relief; the moment I met Evelyn, the moment each of my children were born, and the moment Evelyn came back to me. But that nothingness was always there eating away at me.
“I didn’t seek company,” Shamus spoke in the darkness, as the wind blew the leaves above us.
“I didn’t seek your presence,” I said to him, moving to stand beside the tree. I hated coming this far back in our property, but I still made the trip once a year with Evelyn, just to see the tombstones that rested right under the tress. One for my mother and one for the daughter we never got to raise.
“I told you that boy of yours was going to cock-up everything I’ve built.”
I didn’t reply for a moment, enjoying the chill of the wind as we stood.
“Why are you back here, Shamus?”
“Because death is coming,” he replied. Turning to me, I noticed for the first time he held a gun in his hand. “You have no idea what you did when you arranged for their marriage. There are rules even we have to follow.”
“Any rules I broke was because you failed to teach,” I replied. “Are you truly going to kill me out here, in the woods, in front of my own mother and daughter?”
“Not you,” he said before turning the gun onto himself.
Before I could blink, the shot echoed through the night. His body fell onto the leaves, and I couldn’t bring myself to care. Not even a little bit.
Kneeling down, I stared at him. “You should have done that a long time go.”
Sighing, I pulled out my phone. Liam was going to be pissed.
NINE
“Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die.”
—Herbert Hoover
LIAM
“I’m sorry, what the fuck did you just say?” Neal asked our father as he poured himself a drink.
“Your grandfather shot himself in the head with a nine millimeter while we were talking in the woods,” he repeated before downing the entire glass.
I opened my mouth, but for the first time in my life, I wasn't sure what the hell to say. How he could just stand there all calm and collected as if he’d just told us about the weather and not a man’s suicide. Melody, Declan, Neal and I sat there, and I allowed them a moment for the news to sink in.
“Shamus just shot himself?” Melody asked, eyeing him. “In the woods?”
“I feel as though you are implying something. Which is odd because you’ve always been so direct.” He glared at her.
Melody crossed her legs, folding her hands in her lap. “Fine, then let me be direct; did you kill Shamus?”
“No, but I planned on it. Just like the bastard to go and ruin that for me as well.” He frowned, still colder than ice.
This was the father that taught me everything I needed to know growing up.
“The Shamus I knew loved himself way too much to take his own life,” Declan added.
“We all fear something no matter how much we try to deny it,” he replied, moving to look out the window. “I can only guess it has something to do with Melody’s mother.”
“I do not have a mother,” Melody said quickly.
“Either way, Shamus’ last words were ‘You have no idea what you did when you arranged for their marriage. There are rules even we have to follow.’ So whoever that woman is, he was afraid enough to take his own life because of her.”
“None of this makes any fucking sense,” Neal groaned, rubbing his temple. “I mean I can’t be the only one totally confused.”
He wasn’t, and the fact that I was now as clueless as my brother pissed me off to no end.
“Enough is enough,” I snapped. “We’ve been behind this for far too long. I want answers. I want them yesterday. Who the hell is this woman? What does she want with our family?”
Melody sat up and turned to my father. “Shamus did two things when he got here: he insulted us, and he said you should have married Catherine Briar.”
“I’ve checked over that Briar family,” Declan replied. “They’re nothing but a small bunch of Irish thugs. They have a few dealings with ecstasy and other second rate drugs, but they can’t even hold a flame to us.”
“That doesn’t matter,” I said, looking Melody in the eye. Was she thinking what I was thinking? “If Shamus wasted his breath on it, then it has to be important. We need to get to the Briars so that we can piece together whatever the hell is going on.”
“Only problem is, after you threw Natasha into the nut house, her family went into hiding. No one has seen them,” Neal said.
“Then do your fucking job and find them!” Melody and I yelled together.
Declan shook his head but rose along with Neal, heading to the door. It was only after they’d left that I turned to my father. “Were you really going to kill him?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
He didn’t reply, he just looked out the window. “You both have a mystery to solve and I have a parent to bury.”
“You’re really going bury that bastard?”
“Rule forty-four,” he replied before walking out the door.
Melody looked to me, eyebrow raised and questioning me.
“Rule forty-four: Family is family, even when you wish they weren’t,” I explained.
She laughed as she moved beside me. “If this has anything to do with my family as well, I’m going to look into it.”
“Everyone in your family is dead.”
“Rule 171.” She smirked, and I stared at her in confusion.
“Care to share?”
She grinned, kissing my cheek. “Rule 171: even the men are family.”
I smiled. “You just made that up.”
“That doesn’t make it any less of a great rule.”
True.
“I have a bad feeling about this. All of this,” I told her.
“So do I.”
Just as I had suspected, something was coming out of Hell and straight towards us. And it was coming fast.
TEN
“I used to murder people for money, but these days it’s more of a survival technique.”
—Jennifer Estep
FEDEL
Some people think you’d have to be a real messed up son of a bitch to live the life I do. I see them walking around with their heads held up high, talking on their cell phones, pretending to be good people. But the truth is, they’re not. Truly good people, which are very hard to find, don’t think they’re good people. They believe that they’re doing what anyone else would do. The truth is, ninety percent of us are hiding from the world and our true selves. We force ourselves to do the “right” thing because we’re afraid of the consequences of doing what we really want to do.
