Every time I think I know this girl—think I can forecast how she’ll react—I end by proving myself wrong. Why would this time be any different?
Like her job. I got her fired and expected her to at leastmention it during our shared lunches, had the perfect project ready-to-go when she did.
But she never said a peep. Never mentioned it once. When I had Greta casually bring up past firings, George contributed her most recent anecdote to our circle but also said she’d found a different job that same day.
That samenight.
At our shared admiration for the feat, her cheeks coloured a little and she offered a coy shrug. “Miss Industrious, that’s me.”
As labels go, it’s a good fit. A smart girl who’s perfected the art of making do.
I rest my head on the steering wheel, eyes closed, struggling to draw oxygen into my lungs, an imbecile who can’t even master breathing.
Images flash in my mind, like someone set off a strobe in there and all my nightmares got up to disco. I see my stepmother’s cracked skull, her vacant eyes. See her son, my half-brother, sitting a few metres distant, his face bloody and bruised, but still alive.
Stunned. Hurt. Fearful. But still wearing an expression of assurance that everything would work out because that’s how things always go when you’re the eldest son and heir to Creighton McManus.
I know better.
I know that sometimes things don’t work out the way you want them to, at all.
My stepmother’s face morphs, turns into my mother. The horror of the image shakes me. My father might be a stone-cold automaton but his affection for Mum seems genuine, the only person capable of making him relax, making him smile. I also know, at any moment, the image could come true. He could turn as easily as you’d flick on aswitch.
He might already have another family waiting in the wings. Who the fuck would know?
The only way to be safe is to kill him but I can’t. He hamstrings me so I only have snapshots of the business, a tiny percentage of what I need to know to take control. I thought this coming year that would change, but the threat of sending me overseas to a training camp puts a full stop on that ambition.
Without knowledge, without standing, his men won’t rally behind me, they won’t follow my vision.
As it stands, the moment my father is out of my life, someone else will seize power. Someone with a lot stronger backing than I currently have.
Beg or plead for my life, my mother’s life, and it won’t make a difference. Whoever took the reins would kill us immediately to stop disgruntled associates banding behind me, biding their time.
I’d end up the same shade of dead, just destroyed by another man’s hand.
That’s the reality of the world I joined.
Am I really going to invite George into this nightmare? If I truly cared for her, I should send her a thousand miles away. Never see her again.
And maybe I’m too selfish to do the right thing, even for the girl that I want to worship and adore, the one I see changing in front of me, blossoming with the application of a few new friends, growing stronger, knowing if anyone tries to tease her, hurt her, I have her back, would protect her the way nobody else in her life bothers to.
The girl whose early worry lines are reversing direction, easing away.
Mygirl.
I’m not even sure when the transition took place, but that’show I think of her. I’ve lost track of dozens of other lunchtime conversations since she joined our group. At first, my attention was focused on Keanen, watching him like a hawk, but once he’d gone, I turned that same attention on George.
Not directly, not all in-her-face, but listening to her when I’m meant to be talking with someone else. Noting the persuasive language she uses when she wants details, the support she offers without pause when someone appears fearful or hurt.
I hear the hesitation that means she hasn’t spoken an idea to a real person before, the way her enunciation grows laxer when she’s confident. The way she bites her nails when she’s shy. The lock of hair that never quite catches in her elastic, so always falls over her face, ending tucked behind her nibble-worthy ear.
While I pretend to stare into space, I throw glances and take in quick snapshots until I have a family album of her expressions, her postures, her mannerisms stored up there.
I know her speech patterns, know the things guaranteed to make her laugh. Or roll her eyes. Or gasp. The dirty joke during which she’ll clap a hand over her mouth in complete astonishment, loving every word.
Seems like my decision’s made.
I start the car, leaning over to grab a packet of wet wipes to clean the lingering juice from my fingers.
