“Shane? You hate Shane.”
She’s right. I hate Shane. I hate how he always wins. I hate how he’s always the one who Pops references with pride. I hate how he gets anything he wants. “We want the same things.”
“Which is what?”
I lower her to the bed with me so that we face each other. “To win.”
“And how do you define winning?”
“We don’t die.”
“That’s why we leave, Derek. That’s how we win. Please. Let’s run away together.”
“No running. No dying.”
“Derek—”
I kiss her, silencing her fears, before they become mine.
No one dies, including my bastard father and golden-boy brother. And most definitely not this woman, who’s the reason I’ve decided life is good, and maybe I should be too. For her.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SHANE
Morning comes, and with the promise of it being a big day, I opt to wear my gray power suit I bought to celebrate my first win in the courtroom, pairing it with a gray silk tie and gray shirt. I head downstairs and find Emily standing at the island in the kitchen. Her cell phone is at her ear, a smile on her lips that she’s glossed the same pale pink as her fitted skirt and matching silk blouse. Her long dark hair, which I happen to know smells like a bouquet of flowers, softly tumbles around her shoulders. And when she looks up at me, her eyes lighting up with the contact, in that moment, I think she looks like an angel who doesn’t know she’s trapped in hell.
“I’ll see you at the office, Jessica,” she says, ending the call and then smiling at me. “She found out about my fashion brand proposal and now she’s pitching a ‘Jessica’ fashion line, Shane. She sat up drawing sketches last night.”
“Let me guess,” I say, stopping at the counter opposite her. “There’re really expensive purses involved.”
Emily gives me one of her sweet, musical laughs. “Well, yes. There are. But there’s a lot of money in purses.” She turns somber. “I know I’ve said this, like, ten times since we woke up this morning, but I really want to go to the airport with you.”
“Someone needs to be at the office, making it look normal,” I say. “And that’s you and Jessica.”
“I can make it look normal an hour later, after I go with you to the airport.”
“I’m okay,” I say. “I promise you.”
“You think you’re okay,” she insists. “It won’t hit you until he’s on the plane.”
“It won’t hit me until I’m home tonight,” I assure her. “I have a way of compartmentalizing, especially when I’m focused on a goal, like I am today.”
“Getting us out of this.”
“Yes. Getting us out of this.” My cell phone vibrates with a text, and I fish it out of my pocket, glancing at the message from Seth, then back at Emily. “Apparently my parents are on the road with Seth. My mother forgot something at the house. And Derek’s in the garage, waiting on me.” I walk around the counter and pull Emily close, taking a moment to nuzzle her hair and inhale those flowers. “Damn, you smell good.” I stroke her cheek. “I may not be into the office until later, but call me or text me if you need anything.”
“Be careful.”
“I told you, sweetheart. No one dies. My plan is a good plan.”
“And that plan is what?”
“A work in progress. I’ll tell you all about it tonight.” I kiss her forehead and turn for the door, pulling it open to hear, “Shane!”
“Yes?”
“I love you. That’s number five.”
“I love you too, and, sweetheart? No one dies.” I leave her with that promise, and certainty, and exit into the hallway. And I don’t doubt those words until Derek and I settle into my Bentley and reality comes at me fast and hard.
“You said no one dies,” Derek says, his voice low, tight. “You forgot that cancer is less forgiving than Adrian Martina.”
“You forget what a stubborn ass our father is,” I say, starting the engine. “He won’t die until he’s ready to die. And that man isn’t ready.” I reach behind me and produce a gun case. “Because you aren’t ready to die either.”
He removes a gun from the case and tests the weight. “Beats the hell out of our hunting rifles.” He glances over at me. “What if I want to shoot you?” He points the gun at me.
Adrenaline courses through me, and my agitation is instant. I grab it, shoving it to my forehead. “Do it.”
“I could, you know. I’ve thought about it at times. And yet you handed me a gun.”
“Pull the trigger if you’re going to pull the trigger, Derek,” I order. “Man up. Be who you are.”
“Who am I, Shane? Who the hell am I to you?”
“The only person you are right now is the person holding a gun on me.”
He puffs out several breaths and releases the trigger, and we both pull back. “Who I am is the one who trusts no one.” He indicates the gun. “I would never have given this to you. You trust too easily. If you do that with Adrian’s people, you’ll get us both killed.”
My lips thin and I face forward. “The gun at my ankle is loaded,” I say. “Yours isn’t for a reason.”
He gives a bitter laugh. “You were testing me.”
“Yes.”
“And did I pass?” he queries.
“I won’t be buying you bullets anytime soon.”
I put the car in drive.
*
The short ride to my parents’ place is silent, our confrontation over the gun heavy between us, and the irony of us both testing each other is hard to miss. It’s a bit of cold comfort to know Derek didn’t pull the trigger. I wanted to know how much I dared to trust him, and the answer is, as I suspected, not much. He’s insecure, and acts rashly, with poor judgment. And our father knows that, regularly using it to manipulate Derek into doing his bad deeds. But Derek still does them.
Thankfully, we arrive at the house just as Seth is pulling out of the driveway again, allowing us to follow them without going inside and risking a houseful of Brandon personalities, leading to conflict. Still Derek and I don’t speak, and as the minutes pass, so does the bite of our gun incident. The mood shifts, still jagged-edged, still dark, but it’s not about us, the brothers, anymore. It’s about conversations we don’t want to have about how final this good-bye might become. For forty minutes this doesn’t change, until finally, we pull onto the tarmac of the private airstrip, a few feet from where Seth has just pulled in.
“Here we go,” I say, popping open my door at the same time Derek pops open his.
We both exit the car and I pocket my keys, no hesitation in either of us as we walk toward the black sedan Seth has exited along with our parents. My mother is dressed in a black pantsuit, a Chanel jacket to her knees, her hair perfect, her normal air of confidence back in place as she frets over the bags that Seth is retrieving. “Don’t forget the small one in the corner,” she says, pointing to the back of the trunk. “That’s my jewelry.”
My father, in dress pants and a pullover collared shirt, scowls at her. “I don’t know why you needed jewels for my cancer treatment.”