CHAPTER ONE
William
THE ROPE MARKS are still on the ceiling beam.
I've been staring at them for three hours. Or maybe four. Time does funny shit when you're three-quarters through a bottle of vodka, and the ghosts won't shut the fuck up.
The office is exactly how Father left it: a dark mahogany desk; a leather chair that still holds the indent of his ass; books lining the walls, half of them probably never read—just there to make him look smarter than he was. The window behind the desk overlooks the gardens, but I keep the curtains closed. I can’t stand the light. I can’t stand anything that reminds me it’s real.
That he's really gone.
That Alex really killed him.
That I'm really supposed to sit in this chair and pretend I know what the fuck I'm doing.
I take another pull from the bottle. The vodka burns, but not enough. Nothing burns enough anymore.
Three days. It's been three days since Alex stood in the drawing room and confessed to murdering our father. Three days since he said he did it to save Jason. Three days since he looked me in the eye and admitted he strung Father up to make it look like suicide.
Three days since my entire world collapsed for the second time.
The first time was when I found the body.
I close my eyes, but that's a mistake. I always see it when I close my eyes.
The office door was unlocked. That should have been my first clue. Father never left his office unlocked. I pushed it open, calling his name. The curtains were drawn. The room was dark except for the slice of hallway light cutting across the floor.
I saw the shoes first.
Black Italian leather, hanging two feet off the ground.
Then the legs. The body. The rope.
The face.
I slam the vodka bottle onto the desk, and it tips over, spilling clear liquid across the polished wood. I don't clean it up. Let it stain. Let it ruin the precious fucking desk.
Father hated mess. Would've lost his shit seeing vodka soak into the finish he polished every week with his own hands. Good. Hope it eats through the wood. Hope it destroys every pristine surface in this tomb-like room.
I try to stand, but my legs don't want to cooperate. The floor tilts sideways, and I grab the desk edge, knocking over a brass pen holder. Pens scatter across the floor like pick-up sticks.Father's favorite fountain pen, the one he used to sign contracts worth millions, rolls under the chair.
Let it rot there.
My hands are shaking. Have been for days. At first, I thought it was the withdrawal. Six months sober down the drain in seventy-two hours. But it's not just the booze. It's the anger. The rage that's been building since Alex's confession, growing like a tumor in my chest until I can barely breathe around it.
Alex killed him.
My brother. The one I looked up to. The one who held this family together when everything went to shit. The one who…
I punch the desk. Pain explodes across my knuckles, bright and sharp and almost enough. Almost.
Blood wells up from split skin. I watch it drip onto the mahogany, mixing with the vodka puddle. Father would've made me clean this up immediately. Would've stood over me while I scrubbed every drop, lectured me about respect and responsibility and not being a fucking disgrace to the Murphy name.
Funny how I can still hear his voice.
"You're weak, William. Always have been."
I grab the whiskey bottle from the drawer. Father's good Irish stock that he kept for important meetings. My fingers fumble with the cap. When did I lose this much coordination? When did I become this pathetic?
