“I said don’t fucking call me that!” My fingers are itching to go for my weapon, but I want him to say it before I kill him.
He takes a breath. I’m aware of his men poised right behind him, but I can sense their uncertainty. Are they really going to shoot the boss’s son? Would he have given them instruction to take me out if it looks like I’m a threat to his life, or is he so cocksure that he never even considered that I might want him dead?
“Your future is the only thing I’ve ever cared about,” he says. “Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for that.” His gaze turns sad,some of the fight going out of him in the slump of his shoulders, but he’s a liar and a manipulator. His act won’t fool me anymore.
“Bullshit. You don’t care about my future. You just see immortality when you look at me. You think you can mold me into your shape, so I can continue your work. You just care about your legacy.”
I know I’m right. I haven’t doubted it for a single second.
“You didn’t want the Sinclairs to be a part of that legacy, and when you saw Ophelia and me getting close as children, you saw the future, so you did what you could to put a stop to it. You had a little girl snatched by a grown man. What did you offer him, huh? Her virginity, when she came of age? Was that enough for him? Or was there money involved, too?”
Samuel has been studying my lips this whole time, and his eyes widen as understanding about what I’ve said sinks in. He didn’t know Ophelia back then, but he knew what happened to her—everyone did—and now he’s learning that our father was involved in a little girl’s disappearance.
I see the moment he loses it. The minute all pretense at civility falls from him, revealing the true monster.
“There was money,” my father finally admits.
My jaw tics. “How did you know him? Did you go to the commune?”
“No.” He scoffs. “That paranoid bastard wouldn’t let anyone near that place. We did some business in a town two hours from there, on and off, and he told me a little about his place. I knew he was freaky, and he had these ideas that God would send him a perfect wife. I thought he’d like someone as freaky as him, so sent him pictures of Ophelia with her different colored eyes. There’s such a thing as emails, son. Encrypted, on special servers. I didn’t know where he was, and as far as I was concerned, it was all done but then fucking fate threw her back in your path again.”
“You paid a fucking cult leader money to take my friend?” I roar.
His face turns deep red at my audacity to question him, to be angry with him. “Yes, I fucking did. And I told him to fuck her virgin pussy just as soon as she turned eighteen.”
I turn to my brother and sign, ‘Get down.’
I reach to my waistband for my weapon. My father’s men move, pulling their guns and aiming at me.
“No, don’t kill him!” my father shouts, but he’s a fool.
Does he really think I’m not a threat to him? That I’m not strong enough to commit patricide? He’s wrong.
From out of the trees, a gunshot blasts, sending birds flying from their roosts.
My father and his men immediately yank open the car doors, ducking behind them and using them as protection from the onslaught of gunfire aimed their way. Samuel sees what’s happening and drops down behind a door, too, thank God, because I won’t let any more harm come to him,
I take aim at my father and squeeze off a shot, but he dives for the ground, and the bullet misses its mark. Fuck. A bullet whizzes past my ear, and I realize his men have moved on to protecting their boss. I run for the nearest tree, using the wide, gnarled trunk as cover. I almost feel guilty about harm coming to the ancient tree as another bullet lodges itself in the wood.
Malachi, Deacon, Smith, and Derrick are all positioned, surrounding the vehicles, but now my father’s men have cover, they’re too well shielded to do them much damage. It occurs to me that my father could just climb back into one of the SUVs and drive the fuck away. I can’t let that happen. I should have shot him sooner, but I’d had to hear those words coming from his mouth. I aim at one of the tires and squeeze the trigger.
The air is filled with gunfire. I can smell the acrid tang of gunpowder on the breeze. My whole attention is on my father. He won’t get out of this alive.
My father’s men return fire. One of them gets a shot in, and Smith staggers from behind the trees and falls flat on his face. Blood blooms like oil in water across the back of his shirt. As though in return, one of my father’s men is also shot and lands on his back, unmoving.
Derrick rounds the back of the vehicles, trying to get a clearer shot, but they see him coming. Before I can even open my mouth to shout a warning, he’s hit twice in the chest and staggers back.
Motherfucker. We’re losing this.
I spot Malachi on the roof of the cabin. He’s using the chimney as shelter, and the height to take aim at my father’s men. They haven’t realized where his gunfire is coming from yet, but the moment they do, they’ll turn their weapons on him. I love that guy as much as I love my flesh and blood brother. I wish I’d insisted he’d stayed at Verona Falls. At least if he had, it wouldn’t matter so much if we all died. He would have been able to take care of Ophelia with Roman, just like I’d asked. Yes, they would grieve me, but at least the three of them would have been safe. Then I realize that if I die, it means my father will live, and, if he lives, he’ll want to take revenge. He’d go after Ophelia and none of them would be safe.
My father tries to climb inside the car, but I aim at the windshield and put several bullets in it. The glass spiderwebs with cracks. If they’d been in their own vehicles instead of rentals, they’d have had bulletproof glass, but not in these. I take satisfaction in the way he uses his arm to try to protect his face in case the glass explodes. But then he pulls his own weapon and uses it to return fire.
He'll see me dead, now he knows there’s no possible way I’ll be his legacy.
Samuel gets to his feet, and my heart lurches. No, fuck. What is he doing? I don’t want him to get caught in the crossfire. If I’d known he was going to be here, perhaps I’d have done something differently. He’s almost a grown man now, at least in our world where we are expected to be killing and fighting from age fourteen or fifteen in many cases, but I still see him as my little brother—perhaps I always will. I want to protect him now, because I hadn’t when he’d been a small child. I’d been so obsessed with Ophelia, even back then, that I’d barely given my brother a second thought. Not being there for him, not protecting him, has been a guilt I’ve carried with me my whole life, and now I feel like I’m doing it again.
Of course, Deacon and the others would know Sam is my brother, but does Malachi? It’s not as though they’ve ever met, though of course I’ve told Mal about him. I’m sure Mal will put two and two together. It still concerns me though that he’ll think Samuel is a threat and will want to take him out. How would I carry on if Malachi killed my brother, or the other way around?
