Pacino
Tanner’s shock at seeing me relieves me. It means he’s not involved.
“Where are they?”
He just shakes his head and moves to sit on the couch in the living room. The multiple men wearing matching leather kuttes doesn’t faze him, and he just looks up at me.
“He’s dying, Tuck.”
Sooner than you both think.
“I don’t give a fuck. Where are Father and Ryan?”
“I don’t know.”
“The fuck you don’t. Either you tell me where they have my girl, or so help me God, I’ll kill you, too.”
His eyes widen. “Your girl?”
Father walks into the room from the hallway and smiles, a clear tube over his nose and around his ears as he rolls an oxygen tank behind him. “Tucker. What a lovely surprise.”
For a man I always remember as being larger than life, he looks unbelievably frail. Nothing about the man standing before me looks remotely threatening or intimidating.
He’s lost at least fifty pounds, and he looks older than his sixty-four years. I always thought he’d survive everything. After the nuclear attacks, it’d just be him and cockroaches left standing.
“Where is she?”
“Do you really think we’d keep her here?” Ryan asks, walking up behind Father.
I just glare as I remember what he said. Home. Yeah, she’s fucking here. “If you give her back to me, I’ll let Ryan live.”
“You’re lying,” Ryan says with a laugh.
“Through my fucking teeth.”
“Good thing we already killed her, then.”
Flashes of Phoebe dead in my arms like Joanna sends me into a blind rage. I lunge at my brother, grab him, and slam him into the brick of the fireplace. His temple hits the mantle, and I can’t stop myself. Holding both sides of his head, I continue to bash his head into the stone ledge over and over. Each hit gives a gratifying crack as the fight in him dies.
At first, he claws at my arms, trying to push me away. But it doesn’t take long before he becomes nothing but dead weight in my hands, his eyes open and staring at me. Disbelieving I’d do something like this.
“He never could take me in a fight,” I spit out, releasing him and letting him fall to the ground.
My youngest brother’s blood streaks down the fireplace, and what’s left pools on the ground beneath him. He’s dead, and I’m happy about it.
“What have you done?” Father cries.
“Teaching him a lesson he should’ve learned the last time he went after someone I love.” Turning to Tanner, he just gapes at me. “You’ve always been the peacemaker. The middle brother. But if you helped them in any way, I will do the same to you.”
“You killed your brother!” Father cries, stumbling as he crouches down to touch Ryan’s head.
“Where the fuck is Phoebe?” I ask. “I’m not asking you again.”
“You killed your brother!”
Chuckling, I shake my head. “You said you wanted me home. This is what happens when you force my hand.Youdid this.”
The outrage disappears, and he uses his oxygen tank stand to straighten up. “You look ridiculous in that leather vest.”
