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“Yeah, that’s one way to look at if you only ever want to look at things superficially,” I replied. What was wrong with them? “Another way could be that she—no—we used you.”
“What?” Liam snapped, trying to breathe through his small bit of pain. “What do you mean?”
“What do I mean? Now you ask? After you send bullets flying, now you fucking ask?”
“Who sent those bullets first,” Melody snapped. “You act as if you forget that you sent dozens of assassins at us. What do you think we’ve been doing for the last year? Every fucking knock on the door, every movement at night—we have been fighting for our lives—”
“Yes, Melody, I know. We planned that part together.”
“And you have the nerve to act as if we betrayed you when you started this by—”
“You started this!” I snapped, feeling my anger explode again.
She froze, her eyes widened, and I couldn’t stand it. “Ethan, I know you were hurt—”
“Fuck being hurt!” I cut in because she still did not get it. “Yes, your leaving hurt us. Yes, it hurt me. And yes, part of me resents you for it. You abandoned all of us for your own selfishness. However, I got over it. I met Calliope; then, I had my daughter. I understood more because I wanted to escape sometimes, too. Your leaving fractured this family. But this family is always fracturing! I am cleaning up your messes, as you cleaned up your father’s, and so on, and so on. That is just the way it is. Do you really think I am so juvenile, so weak, that I would throw this family into chaos because my mommy and daddy abandoned me?”
She didn’t answer, so I just spelled it out for her. “You faking your deaths was not the problem for me! You not staying dead was the problem. Who leads this family, you or me?”
“Ethan, we left everything to you—”
“Really, then why the fuck are you both here?”
“Ethan, we wanted to protect you,” my father said slowly.
“Again, that is the problem! That is why we are at this point! You want to protect. So, you think your way is right and so you force your way. If you wanted to protect me, you shouldn’t have taken off! Protect me from the shadows? Are you gods? Thank you for your protection. But it becomes a problem if it is not what I ask for, what I need, or what I set up. You cannot be the leader of the pack and have someone else wipe your ass at the same time!”
“So, you wanted us just to watch you—” Liam croaked.
“Rule number six, sometimes in order to win, you have to lose,” I reminded him.
“Now, he remembers the fucking rules,” Wyatt muttered.
“I never forgot them! I just cannot live only by them. Rules from two generations ago don’t always work! I can’t be a puppet! And that is what they want,” I said, and my father’s green eyes snapped to me. “You do not wish for me to rule the family. You want me to be the puppet while you both rule from the background. I can never do that. Nor will I ever. If you want a puppet, keep using the one you have. Wyatt, bow down to their glory.”
“What did you fucking say?” he had the audacity to holler at me.
“Did you not hear me, traitor?” I was done mincing words or holding back. Every time I did, they did something stupid. “Can you not see how you look like a puppet? How dumb you looked going around doing their bidding over the last two months. Pretending as if you were going to work the late shift at the hospital so you can plot behind my back with them. All of that for what? What did you do? Melody pulled the trigger; Liam worked the skeptics and ground game. You, Wyatt, you were the errand boy. When they said go, you went. When they said come, you ran toward them. Taking orders from Mommy and Daddy, became Mommy and Daddy regret retiring…that’s what you betrayed me for.”
“If you had told even an ounce of the truth—” Wyatt hissed.
“Rule number nine, a secret is only a secret if one person knows it,” I shouted out, causing his fist to clench in annoyance.
“I am your brother—”
“And if you acted like it for fucking once, if you proved to me just once! If you’d been on my side for once! Then maybe I would have trusted you. But I can’t trust you, Wyatt! I tried over and over again, and each time you disappointed me. You run away. You look for excuses. You come to me and say ‘Ethan, what do you need me to do?’ I tell you to wait, the easiest motherfucking thing to do, and you go plot to kill my wife.” I clapped slowly for him. “Bravo, little brother, this one is a new level for you and me.”
“You never answered how you used us,” Melody said, her voice now very calm. “What do you mean? Why have we been fighting the last year? You wanted to keep us so busy you could rule on your own now? That is what all of this was for? You to rule freely.”
“The plan was simple. We needed to get rid of all the people associated with the Orsini family. You wanted to help, so we gave you work.”
MELODY
I could not believe it.
That was why he had done this?
No. No, there was more to this there had to be. And yet Ethan, the little boy I had screamed bloody murder, nearly died, and was kidnapped trying to bring him into this world, nodded. Admitting to me, his mother, that he had used me as bait?
