Maybe that’s how it started for him, too.Maybe he reallydidthink Ted was a danger.Or maybe Ted found something—something my father couldn’t risk becoming public.Something that would’ve cracked this family’s secrets wide open.
The thought gnaws at me like a pebble in my boot.
What if Ted wasn’t a threat to the family’s safety but to itssecrets?
I can still see Ted’s face in my mind—the kind eyes, the quiet intelligence.At times I thought he was the only one who truly got me.He was kind to me.And not just to me.He was kind to my siblings as well.
So what the hell did he know?
I think back to that day.
The day when my father shot me.
Then killed Ted in cold blood.
He said he did it to protect us.To protect my mother and sisters from being raped in their sleep.
But Ted was kind to all of us, and though I didn’t know it then, he was gay.He had no interest in harming my sisters.Or me or my brothers for that matter.He was a good man.An honest man.
And my father ended his life.Then he tried to convince me he had done something noble.To protect the family.For the good of the family.
Perhaps he truly believed he had no other choice.
But whatever threat Ted was, he would never have harmed my mother or my sisters.Or any of us, save maybe my father.
The phrase repeats in my head, growing louder each time, until it’s all I hear.
No other choice.
Maybe my father wasn’t just a murderer.Maybe he was a cornered man.
Maybe Ted found something out about the family—about the money, the land, the ranch, something buried deep—and my father silenced him to keep it from surfacing.
But what could it have been?
Our family’s rich, sure.Steel-baron rich.We’ve got influence, but not cartel connections.At least, not that I ever saw.
Unless that’s the point.
The best secrets are the ones that hide in plain sight.
Maybe Ted stumbled across something on the ranch.Old records.A deal gone sideways.Or maybe the Bellamys weren’t always the Bellamys.Maybe the name itself was built on someone else’s grave.
The possibilities churn, each one darker than the last.
And here I am, about to do exactly what my father might have done—follow orders to protect the family name.
The irony is so sharp it almost makes me laugh.I spent my whole life trying not to become Austin Bellamy, and now my eyes aren’t the only thing I got from him.
The difference, I tell myself, is that this time it’s rotted wood and nails.Not flesh and blood.
But the truth sits there anyway.The line between justice and survival is thinner than I ever wanted to admit.
I toss the burner onto the passenger seat and start the truck, but I don’t shift into drive.My foot hovers over the pedal, my hand frozen on the gear.
If I do this, I become him.
If I don’t, I lose everything.
