The thought is so incongruous with everything I know about him that I almost laugh. The man who punches heavy bags until his knuckles split. Who snorts cocaine to feel invincible. Who kissed me like he was trying to set us both on fire.
That man writes in journals.
I should put them back. Should slide the drawer closed and return to bed and pretend I never found them. These are private. Whatever's in these pages, he didn't intend for anyone to read them. Certainly not the woman he suspected of being a mole six hours ago.
I carry all three to the bed.
I sit cross-legged on the mattress, the journals spread before me. My fingers hover over the black one. The leather is smooth, warm from being tucked under the blanket.
I open it.
The handwriting surprises me first. I expected something jagged, messy, matching the chaos of the man. But it's neat. Small and controlled, each letter carefully formed. Handwriting that belongs to someone who thinks before they write. Someone who chooses words deliberately.
The first entry is dated eight months ago.
Day 187 sober. Went to the gym twice today. Hands still shake in the mornings, but less than last week. Matty came over. We watched some terrible film about a dog that dies at theend. He didn't react. Just sat there with his phone in one hand and a pack of mints in the other, staring at the screen like it was wallpaper. Didn't laugh. Didn't flinch. Nothing. That's the thing about Matty. He's somewhere none of us can reach, and he's not sending directions.
I read it again. Then a third time.
The voice on the page doesn't match the voice I've heard from William Murphy. Not the snarling, taunting man who called me princess in the basement. Not the cold, strategic leader who told me to smile at a party while my father was dying.
This voice is quiet. Thoughtful. Observant.
I turn the page.
Day 192. Jason called. Brief. He wanted to check in, but neither of us knew what to say. Asked about the business. I told him everything was fine. We both knew I was lying. He didn't push it. That's the problem with this family. We're so used to lies that truth feels like a foreign language. We can spot it, recognize the shape of it, but speaking it? That's beyond us.
My chest tightens. There's a self-awareness here that I didn't expect. A clarity that contradicts everything I've been told about William Murphy. The wild one. The reckless one. The one who can't keep himself alive.
The man who wrote these words knows exactly what he is. Knows exactly what his family is. And writes about it with an honesty so sharp it reads like a confession.
I flip forward. Past entries about training and meetings and the slow erosion of sobriety. Past observations about his brothers that are so sharp they make me uncomfortable, like I'm looking through a keyhole at something too intimate to witness.
Then I find it.
The entry has no date. Just a line at the top, written in handwriting that's less steady than the rest. The letters are stillformed carefully, but there's a tremor in them. A shake that the others don't have.
I need to write this down because if I don't, I'll drink. And if I drink, I'll use. And if I use, I'll end up like him. So I'm writing it. All of it. Everything I remember about that day. Because maybe if I put it on paper, it'll stop playing in my head.
My breath catches.
I know what's coming. Know it the way you know a storm is approaching, the air changing, the pressure dropping, everything going still before the violence.
The door was unlocked. That's the first thing. Father's office door was never unlocked. He was particular about it. Had a specific lock installed, Italian, expensive, the kind that requires a key even from the inside. I'd watched him lock it a thousand times. Turn the key, test the handle, pocket the key. Every time. Without fail.
So when I pushed the door, and it swung open, I knew.
Not consciously. Not in any way I could have articulated. But somewhere in my body, in the part of me that runs on instinct rather than thought, I knew that whatever was behind that door was going to change everything.
The room was dark. Curtains drawn. The only light came from the hallway behind me, cutting a thin line across the floor. I remember thinking the room smelled wrong. Not Father's usual smell of whiskey and cologne, and the wood polish he used on his desk every Sunday. Something else. Something chemical and sharp and human in a way that made my stomach turn.
I saw his shoes first.
Black Italian leather. The ones he wore to every meeting, every negotiation, every funeral. Polished until they reflected light. Hanging two feet off the ground.
My mind couldn't process it. Couldn't connect the shoes to legs, the legs to a body, the body to the rope. It was like looking at a puzzle with the pieces scrambled. I could see each individual element, but couldn't assemble them into something that made sense.
Because it didn't make sense.
