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How nice. Miranda kills my father and drives my mother insane, but still gets her a round-the-clock shrink to keep her stoned. Even psychopaths have to keep up appearances, I suppose.
I looked at the sweaty, disheveled mess of a human being in front of me. “What are you doing?” I asked my brother in disgust.
I meant it like, What are you doing with your life? Get a hold of yourself, man! but in his drunken state, Vincent took it far more literally.
“What do you mean, what’m I doing? I’m sittin’ here havin’ a drink, talkin’ to my brother, who apparently did not kill my father.”
I didn’t know how much he knew, so I explained, “They found the limo at the bottom of the Hudson River, with the driver’s and the bodyguards’ corpses inside. The back of the limo was rigged with a cyanide gas canister. That’s what killed Dad. Not me.”
Vincent looked distressed to hear that. He didn’t say anything, just drank some more.
I picked up some of the nearest papers lying in a pile. They were internal documents from the Templeton Group. “Who’s handling the company?”
Vincent shrugged. “I dunno.”
“This is a multi-billion-dollar business, Vincent,” I said angrily. “You’re in charge now. You have to take control.”
He didn’t say anything, just took another slug of his drink.
“Did you hear me?” I said. “You have to – ”
“I NEVER ASKED FOR THIS!” he exploded, throwing the glass across the room, shattering it against the wall. “I NEVER ASKED FOR ANY OF THIS! I DON’T WANT TO DO THIS! I just…”
Vincent held one hand up to his face and started to weep quietly.
“…I just want him to come back… I just want it to be like it was before…”
I didn’t know whether to pity him or despise him.
Miranda knew what she was doing when she killed my father. She had pulled the puppet strings masterfully. Now my mother was quite literally out of her mind, and my brother was in an alcoholic stupor of self-pity and grief.
There was nothing and no one here that could help me. I turned to go.
“If you hear from Miranda, call me immediately,” I said. “Lily and Sebastian have been kidnapped, and I know Miranda’s behind it.”
Vincent just kept quietly crying.
“Did you hear me?” I snapped.
“Yes… yes… I’ll call you…” my brother mumbled, his head leaning to the side as he slipped into unconsciousness. “…I’ll… call… you…”
I watched him slump over, then left the room.
I was going to kill Miranda for what she’d done. Not just to me… not just to my father… but to my family. Neither my brother nor my mother deserved this.
I hated them, yes.
But I hated Miranda a thousand times more.
