“You thought that was a punishment?” I grab her left wrist while Landon takes the right one and we pull her arms apart as if she’s about to be crucified.
Her feet slide in the tub as she tries to get away, but there’s no escaping us.
I bring out my knife first and slash her wrist so deep, blood explodes onto my face. “That’s for every drop of blood he shed over the years, for every time he looked in the mirror and hated his reflection because of you.”
Landon cuts her other wrist. “This is for putting your hands on him and driving him to the fucking edge. You better wait for me in hell, bitch. I’ll fucking murder you all over again.”
Blood splashes on his face and fills the bathtub, turning the water red. Grace tries to thrash, her survival instinct kicking in at full force, and she screams.
She screams so loud, Dad shows up at the doorway, but he doesn’t make a move. No, he just watches his son and his future son-in-law take the life of a woman and smiles.
I smile, too, viciously, as I slam my palm against her mouth, just like she did when Bran begged her to stop.
And then I peer down on her as her muffled screams turn into moans.
I peer down on her until she finally goes silent and her lifeless eyes stare at nothing.
I don’t believe in justice. I believe in fucking vengeance. And this woman signed her death warrant the moment she touched my Bran.
My dad and his people will make this look like a suicide, and the note she wrote is her reason. I could’ve tortured her to death or made her disappear, but no, this isn’t about her. It’s about Bran.
I hope he feels closure if he sees that she regretted her actions and was tortured by them for years to the point that she took her own pathetic life.
One demon down. A dozen more to go.
38
BRANDON
The first feeling that surges through me when I blink my eyes open is crushing relief.
Not the burning in my neck, not the sandy feeling at the back of my throat.
As I stare at the ceiling and the four holes from which light shines down on me and hear the machines beeping, my eyes burn from the sense of relief that floods me.
When I lay in my blood and watched Nikolai cry out my name and beg me not to leave him, I regretted everything. I wanted to stay, to think that I could have a future, after all.
But it was too late.
The ink submerged me and I couldn’t take being seen like that by him. I wouldn’t have been able to live it down.
So I did the one thing that could end it all.
But it didn’t end.
The second feeling comes rushing in with Mum’s voice. “Bran…?”
Guilt. That’s what’s etched on her usually radiant face, her eyes bloodshot, her lips puffy.
The guilt she projects in waves slams against my own until I can’t breathe.
“Son?” Dad is on my other side. “You came back, oh, thank fuck.”
He reaches above my head to push something.
Failure. That’s what Dad looks like. He feels a sense of failure. Like I did for almost a decade.
“Bran?” The broken sound belongs to Glyn. She’s crying, rivulets of tears streaming down her rosy cheeks.
Her feelings of grief mix with the myriad of emotions rippling through me until I choke.
What have I done?
“Honey, can you hear us?” Mum asks.
“Yeah…” My voice is groggy and choked as I try to sit up.
The three of them help me carefully, as if I’ll break if they touch me the wrong way. And I hate that I’ve put them through this. I hate that I’m the reason people important to me are struggling.
I single-handedly crushed them because I couldn’t be strong enough.
The doctors come by to check on me and ask me a few questions. The entire time, Mum holds my right hand and Glyn my left one. Dad watches from the side, looking ten years older than his actual age.
What the fuck have I done?
As soon as the doctors leave the room, I look behind them, searching for the presence I need with me the most now.
But I don’t spot a large tattooed man.
You expect him to have stayed after you showed him how much of a fuckup you are?
Mum squeezes my hand. “I’m so sorry, honey. So, so sorry.”
I stare between her and Dad. “What… What are you sorry about? I’m the one who should be sorry.”
“Bran, no.” My father shakes his head, pain erupting in his exhausted features. “There’s nothing you should be sorry about. Absolutely nothing, you hear me? We’re the ones who need to apologize for letting you down.”
“No, Dad…”
“We saw the clip.” The words tumble from his lips like an ancient destructive curse. And I feel myself teetering on the verge of another breakdown.
Only, now, surprisingly, there’s no black ink.
Mum sobs and that makes Glyn cry harder.
Dad strokes her shoulder. “Astrid, get it together, please.”
“I’m sorry.” She drags in a heavy breath and faces me on a long exhale. “I’ll never forgive myself for bringing her into our lives. For not seeing the signs and even pushing you to make her your agent, for not being there for you—”
“No, Mum, no,” I cut her off. “You were always there for me. Always. You respected my decisions and choices and never pushed me to do anything I didn’t want to do. I’m the one who hid myself. I’m the one who decided not to say anything. I never…never blamed you, so please, don’t do that. Please.”
“I can’t.” Fresh tears flow out of her. “I just can’t help thinking that if it wasn’t for me—”
“Don’t.” I shake my head. “Don’t say that, please. That’s what I used to tell myself day in and day out. I used to think that if it wasn’t for me, this family would be perfect. I don’t want to hear you having those thoughts as well.”
“Brandon, son.” Dad sits beside Mum and they both grip my hand tight. “This family can’t exist without you, you understand?”
“I don’t want it without you,” Mum says on a sob.
“Yeah, Bran.” Glyn strokes my cheek, eyes glittering with unshed tears. “I can only be here because of your care and understanding. You’ve helped me countless times. I wouldn’t have gotten here without you. So please, please, let us help you this time.”
“Let us be your family,” Dad says, and I can’t control the tear that slides down my cheek.
All this time, I thought I was the decay of a perfect family. My ludicrous jealousy and inferiority complex toward Lan ate me alive and I let it consume me, which led me to Grace. Things took a nosedive into disaster after that.
The worse my mental state got, the harder I fought to remain afloat. The more sinister my demons became, the more insistent I was about my mantra of avoiding and pretending.
At some point, my mind turned on me and I became my own worst enemy. Through it all, I grasped at straws, fighting and struggling to keep belonging to this family I was lucky to be born into.
I thought if they saw me as a weakling, as the man who said yes then denied it and claimed to be wronged, they’d be disappointed. I thought if they saw me as someone who was not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, they’d turn their backs on me.