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“Wyatt feels like I hate him,” I admitted, sighing and not bothering to eat. “He’s jealous of Ethan, and worst of all, he thinks less of himself.”
“Huh.”
“Huh? That’s all you have to say? Huh?”
He nodded. “I’m not sure what to say. It seems normal to me.”
/> “How is thinking I hate him or being jealous normal?”
“Maybe not for you,” he snapped back. “You are Ethan. You were always naturally good at everything in front of you. Even when you were sick you worked twice as hard and still proved you were better than me. It is normal for someone who struggles to be jealous of someone who doesn’t. No matter how great Wyatt is, Ethan is going to outshine him, and that sucks for Wyatt because Ethan isn’t doing it on purpose. He is just being himself. You, on the other hand, did it on purpose.”
“Me? I was basically crippled—”
“How long is that going to be your excuse, Liam? You went out of your way to prove to Father that you were better than me and I…I did nothing but watch because I didn’t want to screw up again as your brother. I made one mistake and you couldn’t let it go. Fine. Whatever, we were kids, I learned to live with it. But what about now? Are we much better than we were before? Yes. Will I still stand beside you even if you continue to berate me? Yes. You’re blood. You’re my baby brother. I remember the day you were born. I’m proud of that. However, have you ever been proud to have me as your older brother? No, because it’s the one title you can’t have. No matter what you do or how great you are, you will still be the second son of Sedric Callahan. It’s ironic to me actually, but had you been born first, you’d be an amazing older brother because I’d be happy to follow you, and you’d never worry if I was going to stab you in the back for the title that should go to the first son.”
I opened my mouth to speak, to say I didn’t want to be first, that he was wrong, but once again, all my words failed me. He’d stated everything perfectly as if he had been waiting years to speak…maybe he had been.
“We are going to need something a lot stronger than water if we are going to have this conversation.” He got up and searched through the cabinets until he found the cooking wine. “Good enough?”
“Good enough.” I nodded, finishing the water and outstretching my cup.
“One glass for you, the bottle for me.” He grinned before taking a drink. The fact that he could still genuinely smile…
“I’m not sure if I’ve ever been proud,” I whispered, staring at the red wine, like blood in a cup. “However, I have been grateful.”
“Grateful?”
“Yeah.” It was the truth. “I thought about it a million times. You could have asked grandfather for support. With Shamus on your side, you would have gotten the Irish support. You had the Irish wife, the birthright, the ability…they could have followed you. If they had, Olivia would never have gotten greedy; she’d have been happy to be the next head of the house and that would have been that. The moment Father was gone, you could have killed me with ease.”
“Huh.” He drank.
“Say huh, one more time—”
“This is the reason why I could never be the leader. My mind doesn’t work like that. You’ve thought of how I could be Ceann na Conairte a million times. Just a simple alliance here, murder your brother there. No biggie. You thought of that, probably with ease too. Meanwhile, I’m just trying to keep myself alive and not embarrass our family. I’m the point and shoot guy. You don’t make the point and shoot guy the Ceann na Conairte.”
He said it like it was that clean cut. “You were supposed to have all of this, Neal. The title, the power, everything; how could I not think you wanted this?”
“We’re different. All I’ve ever wanted was my family safe. A little respect and to live in more luxury than I could ever want…I have all that. Why more? See, you don’t think that way, you think I can have the world if I just clear a few bodies. I can’t explain to you why I am this way. I am. That’s it. We are a peacock and a raven.”
“So what do I do if I have two sons who are the same? What do I do if both Wyatt and Ethan don’t naturally sort out like we did?”
He shrugged. “You have two choices: pray that you are dead before they choose to kill each other, or make it hard for them to live without one another while you are still alive,”
Easier said than done.
TWELVE
“I sustain myself with the love of family.”
~ Maya Angelou
CORA
When my driver opened the door for me, the very last person I expected to see standing in front of Merry West Hospital with a tulip in hand was Declan, dressed in casual jeans and a dark blue button-down shirt, along with his leather jacket.
“What are you doing here?”
He handed me the yellow and red tulip with one hand and reached up with the other, brushing my hair behind my ears.
