“Come on then,” I urged. “I’ve been waiting a long time for death to stop edging me and let me have my release, so give it to me, lads. But don’t be gentle. I want it to be rough and dirty, just like the way I’ve lived. If I’m not choking on my own blood for a good fifteen minutes, then I’ll be sorely disappointed.”
Pa gave them a good thirty seconds, watching, waiting, judging. No doubt he saw their hatred, hesitation, fear and envy plain enough but when he circled the room to stand before me, it was harder to tell what he was looking at.
I grinned at him, still awaiting my death while I dragged a lungful of smoke down between my teeth and held it there, relishing the nicotine almost as much as I hated it.
“Life’s been rough on you, my boy,” Liam O’Brien said softly, almost sounding like an honest to shit daddy who gave a fuck as he stepped closer to me and fool that I was, something twisted in my chest at those words. “Ava…” he sighed and for all his faults I could see there was real regret there. He’d liked her. Been amused by her, no doubt too, with her innocence and the way she’d always turned a blind eye to so much of the dark in me and the rest of our family. But I knew he’d liked her at least as much as a man such as him could. “It’s a terrible pity what became of her. But you did her justice in the end.” He reached out to place a hand against my cheek and my siblings all shifted in their seats, no doubt so jealous over this small display of affection that they were close to combustion. “You made the men who hurt her pay. That’s what counts.”
“Didn’t bring her back,” I grunted, smoke spilling from my lips as I plucked the cigarette from them and held it loose between my fingers, somehow unable to move from that spot while my father cupped my cheek and looked at me with the closest thing to love I think I’d ever seen in him.
“No,” he agreed. “But the Holy Father will have her in a better place now. Away from this. Away from us. Away from you. You know that’s the best thing for her, don’t ya, lad?”
I hadn’t been prepared for that blow so when it struck me dead in the centre of my chest, it was a miracle I didn’t buckle. Pain and the ache of my own endless failure speared through me until my throat locked up and the screaming inside my own skull reached a pitch high enough to damage all the most vital pieces of me.
Fuck.
I knew it was my fault that Ava had been gifted a brutal end. I knew that I never should have gone anywhere near her in the first place. That I shouldn’t have dragged her into this place of sin and violence with me or fooled myself into believing that she’d be safe just so long as she kept herself on the side lines of it all. But no one else had ever dared say that to me before.
The bluntness of my father’s weapon was what shook me most, the way he wielded it so casually after luring me close with a promise of the love he’d always denied me.
“And now, you’re being gifted a woman better suited at last. One who you don’t have to try and protect from this world of ours. One who you don’t have to lie to and corrupt and tarnish the way you did that sweet girl all those years ago.”
My fingers ached for a weapon, something that I could use against the power of his words and the cold, hard look in his eyes which he used to hold me captive in that spot as his thumb scored a path up and down my cheek in this mocking pretence of affection.
“You’re the only one of my offspring yet to produce their own children,” he added. “And let’s not forget that if you’re to rule after I’m gone, you’ll be needing your own successor.”
Liam smiled then, slapping my cheek and stepping back like he couldn’t feel the rot and poison he’d just slipped into me, and he couldn’t hear the screams of the woman I’d married all those years ago bouncing offa the walls all around us.
My brothers were smart enough to remain silent even in the wake of my destruction right before them, no doubt knowing how likely I was to shatter if I was pushed even a little further in that moment. I wouldn’t care if there were guns pointed at me from all angles. Wouldn’t matter to me one single bit. I’d rip them all apart limb from limb and welcome any death they might be able to offer if they gave me even the slightest motivation to do so.
“You have twenty minutes to make the reservation on time. It’s at the Grand Avalon. Don’t keep your new bride waiting,” Pa said firmly, like nothing else had just passed between us at all.
I turned my eyes from my father and the rest of my rotten family as I strode from the room, nothing in my head but screams which grew louder with every step I took as they worked to drag me down into the dark place.
I stalked down the long hallways neither noticing nor caring if I saw anyone on my journey to the exit before throwing the double doors at the front of the mansion open and heading down the stairs to the drive where I’d parked my BMW.
I opened the door which now held a little bullet hole and dropped into the driver’s seat, taking a long drag from my cigarette before flicking it out the window and starting the engine.
The roar of the powerful car starting up gave the screaming a run for its money as I tore away from my father’s house and raced down the drive towards the setting sun and Hemlock City which awaited me in the distance.
The roads sped past in a blur of motion and I wasn’t even lucky enough to run across a patrolling cop car on the lookout for anyone breaking lockdown on my journey to the hotel, pulling up outside it three minutes early with Eminem trying his damn best to drown my pain in lyrical acrobatics which unfortunately didn’t even seem to be scraping the surface in that moment.
My fingers curled tightly around the steering wheel and I started counting in my head, working against the screams and the need to save the woman who was causing them. But that ship had long since sailed.
I was shaking. My muscles trembling from the force of my grief and self-hatred and worst of all, I couldn’t even remember Ava’s face anymore. Not really. She was all soft edges and half memories now. I couldn’t even be certain if the things I thought I remembered of her were true anymore. Had she loved strawberries or was it peaches? Was her hair to her shoulders or just below them? Had she been happy living the lie I’d let her paint for us? Had she really loved Niall the motor mechanic with the incredible bonus package, or had those lies eaten into her at night when I was late to come home once again? Had the times when she’d inadvertently seen me with blood staining my clothes or my hands really been forgotten as easily as they seemed to have been? Never to be mentioned after the moment when her eyes widened at the sight and she hurriedly turned away and took herself to bed. Did the lie of me make her happy? Had I even been happy? Or had I just been playing make believe like some kid who never quite figured out how to grow up?
I reached for my phone as I shut the engine off and the music cut out, my thumb moving to the familiar app as it hovered over the camera reel and I prepared to make myself watch Ava’s last moments all over again.
But I fell still with my thumb not quite finding it, my gaze slipping to the call list instead and before I could second guess myself, I opened it up and dialled out a number I hadn’t thought I’d need to dial in a situation anything like this one.
The phone began to ring and a stillness came over me like the surface of a pool where a crocodile lay in wait, eyeing the creatures fool enough to want a drink from it.
On and on it rang and the darkness seemed to push in deeper around me as the sun set somewhere in the sky and night began to take hold.
Finally, the call connected as I released a long breath at the sound of Brooklyn’s voice on the other end of the call.
“Hello?”