Page 83 of The Dearly Departed

What am I afraid of?

I turned toward Analise, a beacon of alabaster skin and untouchable hope. Her dark gaze held onto me, dancing across my mask and chest with wanton interest. I had never ever understood what it was to want sex until I met her, and now, I was grossly aware of the fact as my desire for her settled low and swelled until it brought an uncomfortable ache and a need almost too intense to contain.

Almost.

But before I had the chance to cave beneath the pressure of lust and stupidity, I took a step toward her, nearly closing the gap between our bodies, the energy of our physical connection cracking in that sliver of space. My hands itched at my sides as I bowed my head, the lenses of my mask aimed straight toward her eyes, and in that low, gravelly tone I was becoming accustomed to, I muttered, "Failure. That’s what I’m afraid of."

Then, before she had the chance to speak again, I turned, climbed into the hearse, slammed the door shut, and sped away.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Brandon Michaelson had lived a reckless life, and for all intents and purposes, he probably shouldn't have lived as long as he had, dying at the ripe old age of thirty-two.

A year younger than me.

The guy hadn't been a stranger to a variety of party drugs, and his sister told Shawn that he would start most of his days with a shot of whiskey.

“To take the edge off,” Brandon would tell her, as if waking up alone was something to cope with.

He died single but left behind the four kids he had helped to conceive, each born to a different woman.

He'd maintained a relationship with none of them—not the women or the kids.

No, Brandon’s longest, dearest relationship was with his motorcycle. A twelve-year-old Harley, bought off a friend for a couple hundred bucks and a bottle of Jack when he was down on his luck, between jobs, and needed to sell his car for some cash.

"He loved that bike," his sister told Shawn with tears in her eyes, the only member of his immediate family who cared to share anything about her older brother.

The only one who had shown up to plan his funeral.

The only one Brandon had maintained a relationship with after his parents kicked him out of the house and after their other two sisters went into no contact with him during his more recent stint with cocaine.

"You loved that bike so much that you drove it into a brick wall," I muttered to his corpse, digging a piece of shrapnel out from the top of his battered skull. "And no helmet too. Man, you must've really wanted to die."

The truth was, whether he had wanted to or not, Brandon was already well on his way to dying a slow, agonizing death. He spent his entire life drugged up and/or drunk. He bounced from couch to couch without an end in sight and couldn't hold down a job to save his life.

But the real cherry on top was that he'd been diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer a week before the wreck, which his sister learned from his suicide note. It had already metastasized, spreading to his lymph nodes, spine, lungs, and liver.

A few questionable spots had been found on his brain that they wanted to run biopsies on, but Brandon decided he had other plans.

I'd rather go out on my own terms, the note his sister had found read.

I could relate.

"You had the right idea," I muttered to a body that was proving to be quite the challenge, getting it ready for the viewing his sister had insisted on having … despite Shawn's gentle coaxing. "But if I went ahead and drove the hearse into the fucking harbor, that son of a bitch wouldn't think twice about coming after Shawn or Ike. I can handle his shit, but them?"

I shook my head, dropping another piece of broken glass into the metal bowl beside me. He'd really done a number on himself. Not that I couldn't piece him together enough to look presentable, but, boy, what a job.

"Shawn's smart. But he’s too soft," I explained in a low, mumbling tone. "He’s … emotional, you know? Too … squeamish."

I closed my eyes momentarily, the events of the other night coming to mind, alongside an aching nausea in the depths of my gut.

It had only been a month since I had agreed to Gerald's terms, and he'd already called me once.

He gave me an address to a warehouse on the outskirts of Revere, and there, he orchestrated the kidnapping and beheading of a gang member called Tick—though I seriously had my doubts that was his birth-given name—while the big fucker was still breathing.

I held the machete.

It should've disturbed me more that I felt little of that empathy Leonard had always talked about. But I couldn't say I felt all that much guilt after Dean showed me the pictures of the guy forcing his greasy dick down the throat of a girl too young to be legal … and even if she had been, from the looks of it, it hadn't been consensual.