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“I have always felt so.”
“You are nothing like your brothers.” She smiles approvingly, and I dislike that. “Bronson was such a wimp when he was a baby. He would cry so much. And at everything. I couldn’t stand it. You won’t have to worry about that. Only make sure she doesn’t coddle them. Make them hard. Discipline them hard. Or you’ll end up with weaklings.”
I force myself to relax, resting my fist below my chin, casual as I assess her every expression. “I would have drowned him,” I say without mirth.
“I nearly did,” she admits unbidden. And my veins set ablaze, but outwardly I merely chuckle. She discloses it so easily, so seamlessly. She continues, “I was alone in the house. It wasn’t my fault. I was struggling. And he would scream and scream. My mother was in England. My husband—” She sneers, derision and contempt dripping from her lips. “Off chasing another woman, of course. I was all alone to deal with them.Youwon’t have to do that.”
I zero in on her eyes, filled with accusations, bubbling with memories. Men and women enjoy nothing more than connecting over their dislikes, their hate. Toxic discussions are addictive, so I use them. Use her isolation, her self-pity, and ask, “What other woman?”
“Clay,”—she waves her empty glass of whiskey, making a large gesture with it— “your half-brother’s mother. It is not a secret anymore. Luca has told you.”
A woman scorned…
“Larger gestures after relaxed ones indicate a spike in passion.”I hear my deceased Don’s words. Jimmy Storm was the master of reading body language, every pantomime, every tic, he was a fucking hound, and he taught me about tells.
I nod at Que, and he dutifully offers her a refill of the dastardly concoction. As is her way, she accepts without offering him her attention. An elitist with her every glance.
“Konnor’s mother,” I confirm.
“Yes.Madeline.”Her name falls from my mother’s mouth like poison. “She had all the men in the District pawing after her. I couldn’t stand the little mouse. And now, your father is set on healing this memory. He talks about her with the bastard. He brings him around our house.” She stares at me expectantly, yearning for my sympathy, for my outrage. I tighten my brows. Let her vent. “Can you imagine what that is like for me?”
The bastard…
My children will be bastards.
Lifting my whiskey glass, I silently order Que to top it up, making it seem as though I am drinking generously also. “This is why you have looked so unwell?” I say smoothly.
“At leastyou havenoticed.” Her spine hits the sofa seat behind her, her position slumping. Her arms are seemingly heavier than before, but she doesn’t notice, keenly fighting the weight to finish her second glass. “It was her death anniversary a few days ago, or whatever people call it. And he had the boy around to mourn her, to wallow. I can’t stand to be in that house with that flaunted in front of me.”
I set my glass down on the table, lean back further, and ram down the regret swarming through me. She hates them…everyone.“I don’t like that.”
“I know you don’t.” Her head hits the back of the chair, her neck now too loose to control. She is slipping from reason. Her eyes begin to daze and her speech comes out slurred. “You have always looked at me as though you wanted to protect me from this entire world. Even when you were young. I am the only woman you have ever looked at like that. Not Aurora. Not that Fawn, girl. You care about your mother.”
She goes on, “But your father, well, he turned out to be a disappointment, simpering after that Australian tart, risking alliances with Nerrock and the entireCosa Nostrato do so. Well—” She releases an unruly chuckle. “I put a stop to that years ago.”
A wave of unease rises through my chest, lifting the stakes of this conversation as I ask, “How did you put a stop to it, Mother?”
She tries to smile, but the curve of her lips won’t settle, her mouth becoming hard to control. “I tried tohelphim, Clay. Lessen the hold she had on him,” she drawls. “It was brutal to see him sopathetic. I tried to make Luca’s life easier when I saw how much she tormented him. I had to do something.”
I nod.
“I had to help end it.”
I nod again, using my silence to encourage her to fill the space with carefree words and thought.
“I went to Dustin,” she states, and I hiss through my teeth, closing my eyes to her deadly confession. “I cared enough to tell him the boy wasn’t his. That Luca and Madeline were having an affair. I did it for him. For your dad. And for you. You deserved better, Clay. So, I got rid of the temptation of that child and that woman.”
Christ.
“But they kept him alive, didn’t they?” She shakes her face on anexaggeratedsigh. “Kept him alive, and here we are. I would have killed him myself if I was Dustin. That would have been easier for everyone” She points her long slender finger at me, drowning in the laced whiskey’s depths. “That is whatyoushould do. As Boss. Finish it. You should dispose of him for me.”
I am dangerously still.
Christ.
Did you just ask me to kill my half-brother?
What have you just done, Mother.
