“That’s not—” she whimpered.
“And yes, Aaron’s right. I am a monster. I did hurt my brothers, especially him, because he was the biggest and I knew he could take it, but I did it to save him, to save all of them. The end justifies the means. That wasn’t on any of your notes to me, Lexi, but it should have been. Because it worked. I was right.” I smiled a horrible smile. “It was the day after I beat the shit out of Aaron.”
“You broke five bones,” he said, face a mask of hatred. “You could have killed me.”
“Yes,” I said harshly, “but he took me outside. Fishing. Then a baseball game. Dad was telling me all about how his father would spend Saturdays like that with him—the secret fishing hole then America’s pastime. The sun was brutal. My eyes were burning out of my skull. There was a policeman there at the entrance where they checked your bags.”
Graham had his arms crossed over his chest.
“I grabbed the officer’s gun,” I continued. “I was going to kill Dad. I didn’t know there was a safety on the weapon. Dad tried to smooth talk the police, but they threw him on the ground. I don’t think they believed me when I told them about the people trapped in the cellar. Dad was acting like I had mental issues and he was sorry for all the trouble. The police officer was doing overtime that day, it was hot, he didn’t want to take custody of a crazy kid, and Dad was making a good case. He could be charming, our father.” I talked rapidly before they could leave again, drinking in the sight of them, each one, even Aaron. Especially Aaron.
“I punched the officer in the face, and he arrested me. The police made Dad come down to the station while they dealt with me. A social worker got involved. I told her about my brothers, earned a one-way ticket to the foster care system for my trouble, and the rest is an incredibly lengthy Wikipedia entry.”
I turned back to Lexi.
“And now you know why I don’t talk to my brothers.”
55
LEXI
The penthouse door slammed as Grayson left.
I stood there in shocked silence.
“And now,” Aaron said to me, looking both similar to and unlike Grayson, “you understand why none of us want to be around him.”
“Stop being an asshole, Aaron.” Finn sounded exhausted.
Graham headed to the ice bucket and wrapped up ice in a cloth napkin.
I took a shaky breath.
“Grayson’s making himself out to be the hero and the victim,” Aaron spat as Finn dabbed at his bruised face. “He wasn’t just pretending; he enjoyed what he did. He is exactly like our father.”
“Dad wouldn’t have believed it otherwise,” Spencer said dully. “If Grayson hadn’t been a hundred percent committed, Dad wouldn’t have believed it, and we still would be down there.”
“No,” Graham said flatly, “we’d be dead. You can’t keep six grown men trapped in a cellar. Stuart would have killed us before we killed him.”
“Sorry your party got really fucking dark, Lexi,” Connor said. “On a positive note, this is really good lobster dip.”
“Take a to-go box,” I said weakly.
Aaron clutched his side, wheezing, as his brother tried to force-feed him scotch.
“It will take the edge off.”
My brain finally caught up to what had just happened, and I raced to grab a first aid kit.
Aaron was sitting on the broken ottoman when I returned. He grabbed my hand as I dabbed at the cut on his eyebrow.
“Don’t trust Grayson,” he warned to me. “Sure, he might have saved us, eventually, but the only reason it worked was because our father saw so much of himself in him. You don’t want to marry him, and you certainly don’t want to have kids with him.” He released me.
“Put some antiseptic on that cut on his hand,” I told Finn.
Spencer unscrewed the top of a bottle of vodka and poured it on his brother.
Aaron cursed at him while I went to the storage closet to grab a broom and dustpan.
