I answer it with my left hand. My right remains occupied with my erection.
“Yes?”
“Can you come home, please?” Aiden’s voice comes through calmly. “I could use your help with Luke.”
“Sure,” I say. “I’ll be there soon.”
I wash my hands, dab the rug, and go home.
As soon as I arrive, I am led into the kitchen. Kitchens are always the heart of the home, and in this instance, it is handy because ithas a floor that can be wiped clean. Fortunate, because Luke has obviously been bleeding copiously.
My younger brother is sitting on a kitchen stool looking guilty and hangdog. Aiden is on the other side of the kitchen island. He is wearing a white shirt, the sleeves turned up to his elbows, his arms folded across his chest as he looks on impassively. He doesn’t want to judge. He certainly doesn’t want to be caught judging.
Luke wouldn’t notice even if he did. Luke looks like absolute shit. He has prominent dark circles under his eyes, and our personal doctor is stitching up a cut on his head, just under his hairline. Cuts to the head like to bleed, so that explains the sanguine mess on the floor.
“What the hell happened to you?” I ask the question curtly. When Luke gets out of hand, I have no patience for coddling him. He knows better than to act out. He’s not five years old anymore. He’s a grown man in his twenties. It’s time he learned to process his emotions like the rest of us, by repressing them.
“Don’t know,” Luke shrugs.
“He’s been fighting for money again,” Aiden says. His exasperation makes sense. None of us need to do anything like fighting for money. Luke doesn’t need a few hundred bucks. Luke just needed a valid reason to get in a ring and hit people.
To be fair to him, this is a better, more acceptable outlet than some of the ones he used to indulge in when he was younger. Illegal boxing ring is better than street brawl.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Luke says. “I didn’t even want to be brought back here. That fucker you have watching me forced me to come. Just let me fucking go.”
“No,” Aiden says. “What makes you think you are any different than Teddy? What makes you think you couldn’t be next?”
“What makes you think I care?” Luke spits the words impudently.
I watch Aiden’s face shift. One moment it is completely controlled and calm. The next, it flashes with rage. His eyes brighten and narrow, his lips become taut. His jaw clenches. His brows draw down a fraction. Each one of those little mini movements would be easy to miss. Together, they are apocalyptic. Aiden has spent his entire life trying to keep each of us alive. He has suffered the loss of Teddy perhaps worse than any of us, and now Luke is casually suggesting that he does not care if he lives or dies. This is going to be nasty.
Aiden goes over to the kitchen island in one smooth motion that I don’t think I would have believed if I did not see it myself. He vaults it as if it were barely there, his active grace belying the notion that he is not every bit as athletic as Luke or me.
Instantly, there is a knife at Luke’s throat. Held in Aiden’s hand. A switchblade that came from a pocket I did not see in a movement too practiced and swift for my eyes to catch.
When Aiden speaks, his voice is low and apparently calm.
“Should I kill you then? End it now? The dirt on Teddy’s grave is barely compacted yet. It would be easy enough to dig him up and throw you in beside him, if that’s what you want so badly.”
Luke wants to say he doesn’t care, but the sheer intensity in Aiden’s face tells him he shouldn’t say that unless he wants to die here and now.
Aiden’s eyes are black. There is nothing inside him right now. I don’t know if this is a state of pure rage, or something more like a revelation of character that always abides but usually hides from view.
A lot of people think Aiden is in charge because he is the eldest. Aiden is in charge because he has always instinctively known how to wield power. If he had been born hundreds of years ago, he would have been a legendary king. As it is, he is one of many very rich men in a world that rewards very rich men with almost complete immunity from consequence and law.
Whatever animates my eldest brother is a mystery to me. I’ve seen it several times over the course of our lives. I know he doesn’t want to be like this. What he’s manifesting right now is a darkness that’s not really any different from Luke’s addiction. You could call it a familial curse, if that’s how you wanted to think about it.
It is time I intervened.
I put my hand on Aiden’s shoulder. “He doesn’t mean it,” I remind him. “He’s hurting. Like we are. He’s just much more stupid about it.”
I see Aiden come back to himself. Some of the light comes back to his eyes. They become reddish brown again, rather than completely obsidian. He is still angry, but he sheathes the knife.
The doctor has moved away from us all in this moment, standing several feet back. The needle and thread are dangling from Luke’s head. It’s a messy scene.
“You’re grounded,” Aiden says. “You’re not leaving the estate until further notice.”
“You can’t fucking ground me. I’m a grown man!”
