Playing them both for fools. Not anymore.
“You chose to be this monster,” Adam clarified, careful to enunciate each syllable. “Your condition isn’t a new disease, an unanticipated consequence from using an exotic drug, or some strange possession. You chose this. You want this.”
“And?” Jacob blinked rapidly in an outward show of extreme patience at Adam’s stupidity.
Stupid is exactly what Adam felt. The idea that Jacob, the scion of the Thorne family, the prudent businessman and philanthropist, his fucking big brother would choose to become a monster had never occurred to him. The man Adam had known was brilliant, fearless, and vain in his responsibility for the legacy of the Thorne family. This devolution was beneath him.
“Why?” Adam’s throat had tightened and the word came out in a broken croak.
Jacob straightened. “Don’t be dense.”
“You killed Mom and Dad. On purpose.” Fresh pain spread across Adam’s chest like blood from a mortal wound.
“Stop whining. They were going to die anyway, eventually.”
“You fed on them,” Adam said through clenched teeth.
“Like a babe to a mother’s teat.” Jacob sighed and grinned.
A hundred wonderful tortures sprang to Adam’s mind, held at bay these many years only by the burden of family duty.
But now, desperate fantasies grew in Adam’s mind like a dark garden of twisted flowers denied sustenance too long. Colorful creations that would trap and teach Jacob what a monster really was. Exercises in the limits of pain and loneliness. Acts that rivaled a wraith’s soul feeding.
First, Adam had to know why. “You had everything handed to you. Born to wealth, the best education, a loving family, opportunities to do anything you ever dreamed, a girlfriend who loved you. Hell, you had plans, years in the making, to build Thorne Industries to dominate global markets. Why this?”
Jacob shrugged. “I got a better offer.”
“What could possibly be better than what you had?” You ungrateful son of bitch.
“I got Forever. This—” Jacob looked around his cell, mouth pursed in distaste. “—this will pass. The world as we know it will pass, and after everything is gone, I will still be here. Then I can do anything I want, whenever I want. That’s global power.”
“Tell me how you did it.”
“You know I won’t.”
“What if I want to join you?”
Jacob snorted. “You don’t have the kind of long-term vision necessary. You’re stuck in the past with Jena and Michael.”
“That’s Mom and Dad, to you,” Adam bit out.
“See what I mean?”
Rage burned in Adam’s chest, cauterizing the wound that was the loss of his parents. “I will end you. I swear it. I will find the way to undo this mockery of immortality, and I will tear you apart with my bare hands.” Already his hands itched, ached, to enact the madness in his mind.
“Is that any way to talk to your older brother?”
Brother? How could that…that creature call himself his brother? Just because they shared the same gene pool? Adam didn’t think so. Not anymore. Siblings could be disowned. All natural feeling of connection and obligation severed. Happened all the time.
Adam closed his eyes and willed his heart away from the wraith in the cell. Not his brother. He sought cold indifference. A removal of all feeling. Not his brother.
Jacob laughed. A light, gleeful little chuckle that poured gasoline on the fire of Adam’s rage.
Adam choked. He had to get out of there.
He stumbled to the door, tapped numbers into the panel, and tripped out into the corridor beyond.
The guards brushed silently by, eyes askance, and resumed their watch within.
Custo leaned against the opposite wall, arms crossed, waiting.
“Why are you still here?” Adam yelled. “Why aren’t you off living your own life, away from this constant nightmare? Find a woman, settle down, and have a bunch of brats.”
“That bad, huh?” Custo lowered his gaze.
“Talia was right. He chose to become a wraith. Admitted it freely, as if I should have known all along. And I should have.” Adam fisted and released his hands. They shook uncontrollably. He didn’t know what to do with them short of wrapping them around Jacob’s neck.
“Not you. It’s not in your nature to think that someone close to you can be that destructive by design. You save people. It’s what you do. It’s what you have always done.”
I was blind.
“Did you know?” Adam asked. Had Custo known all along as well?
Custo pushed off the wall and gestured toward the elevator. “No, but it doesn’t matter. I’m not here for him. I’m here for you. You’re the closest thing to family I’ve ever known. And family sticks. You taught me that every time you pulled my sorry ass out of trouble.” Custo’s mouth curved. “Remember that business with the boat?”
Family sticks. What the fuck was family? Adam sure as hell didn’t have a clue anymore.