"You're all out of the business. Until further notice."
Mason is on his feet before the sentence finishes. "We didn't do anything?—"
"Mason." Dad's voice is sharp and immediate.
"No, seriously, Hayden made a call, one call, and we all get pulled out? That's not?—"
But Cain’s already moving, he walks to the door.
Miles stands. "Cain, just… five minutes, let us?—"
The front door opens.
The front door closes.
And that's it, Cain has spoken.
The room sits in the silence he left behind, and nobody moves for a long moment. The clock on the mantelpiece keeps going, indifferent, and the whiskey glass is still on the table with the ring it left on the wood.
Slowly, one at a time, I become aware of my brothers.
"You should have told us." Mason is the first to talk. “You fuck up, and we get benched, because you couldn’t talk to yourbrothers.” I stay quiet not sure what to say, I don’t think there is anything I can say. “What the fuck happened to having faith in the family, that means fucking nothing to you.”
I look at him in shock that he said that to me. I’m the first one to have the families back, but right now, he’s right. I didn’t have faith in them. He pushes back from the table and leaves the room.
Miles stands next, slower. He looks at me for just a second, not with anger, and then he leaves.
Declan stands, shakes his head, and leaves.
And I stand at the table in the room that is still full of people, Mum, Dad, Lileah, Trixie, Olivia and the absence of my brothers is louder than anything Cain said.
I didn't just break the rule.
I broke my relationship with not just Cain, but my brothers.
Thirty-Nine
Olivia
The room empties slowly.I’m not sure anyone knows what to say at the moment.
Everyone leaves, once the brothers left, the whole room shifted. I’ve not been around them for long, but even I could see this is the first time this much tension has come between them. I thought Mason was ready to hit someone. You could feel the anger coming off him. He looks like the brother who if you cross him, he will hit you.
Hayden hasn't moved from the table, not looked at anyone, and right now I don’t know what to say to him. I’ve never seen him so broken.
He's standing with his hands flat on the surface, looking at the whiskey glass which he hasn’t stopped staring at, and he's so still that if I couldn't see him breathing I'd think the whole room had stopped with him.
I watch him for a moment; he doesn't look at me. He moves to the back door, opens it quietly, and steps out into the dark garden without a word.
I don’t know much about this side of the family business, and Lileah said the less I know the better, so I’ve never once thoughtabout asking. With everything going on with my parents, and my money worries, I didn’t have the mind space to put anything else on my plate. And after the way Cain reacted to what Hayden did, I don’t think I want to know much about it.
I get up, and follow Hayden, the garden is cold, I can see him moving across the grass, watching where he is going. The treehouse.
I follow him up; I love this treehouse. It was a safe place for me, the place I met Hayden, and it will always be special for me.
Inside it's dark, and it smells the same way it has always smelled. Old wood and something earthy, it’s like home.
Hayden is sitting with his back against the far wall, knees up, looking out the night sky. I sit down beside him and neither of us speak for a moment. I wait for him to say the first words.
