“Justice, what’s going on? Please, talk to me.” Concern mars that beautifully flawed face, and I instantly feel guilty because I’m the cause.
I open and close my mouth, trying to find the words to explain, but Evan, being the selfish prick that he’s always been, steals it away from me. One hand on Ally’s back, he waves a hand in my direction. “Ally Cat, darling, meet Sean Michael. My father’s bastard, and my half-brother.”
And all the fear, the shame, it all comes bubbling to surface, overflowing with my secrets and lies. I can see the repulsion in her face as she looks at me, hurt and betrayal in her eyes, highlighted by the flash of half a dozen cameras. She doesn’t feel wronged by Evan, her husband, for keeping such a massive secret, she feels wronged by me.As if all of this is my doing. As if I forced his father– myfather –to cheat on his wife with the young, naive maid and birth a son, just two months after Evan was born.
“You’re his brother?” she whispers in a broken voice. “You’re a Carr?”
“Half-brother,” I say, finding my voice, as if it makes my omission any better. “And, fuck no, I’m not a Carr.”
There’s fire in the water of her eyes. “So you knew about me? You knew who I was from the beginning?” She shakes her head, her lips twisted in disgust. “Oh my God. You knew all along. You just wanted to use me as a pawn-”
I try to reach for her, but she steps away. “No! Don’t you dare even thinkthat. Yes, I knew about you, but-”
“But what? How will you explain this one, little brother?” Evan interjects smugly. “You know what? I can’t decide what makes you a bigger asshole—the fact that you preyed on my wife, or that you’re trying to weasel your way back in where you obviously don’t belong. You and your mother were paid handsomely to stay away from us. You think changing your name somehow voids the contract? Father’s attorneys will have a field day with your ass!” He pulls his cell phone from his pocket.
“Father’s attorneys? Don’t you mean your mother’sattorneys? Since you’re so fond of hiding behind her skirt, you should know good and well that her conniving ass orchestrated that.”
Evan shrugs. “True enough. But you see, the thing about marriage is that they’re united. They are one. And we’rea family. You and your whore of a mother will forever be on the outside looking in.”
There are no thoughts. No intervention from Jiminy or any coaxing from that little narcissistic devil pressing at my temples. Just red fury and a blur of movement, as I snatch Evan by the throat and slam him against the wall. I don’t hear the women shrieking with fear as they watch on, or the clicking of cameras freezing this moment in time. I don’t feel Ally tugging at my arm, begging me to stop, or even Riku trying to pull me back before I do what I’ve wanted to do for decades. There’s only blind rage numbing my hand, as I apply more pressure to his strained throat and watch those denim-blue eyes, so much like mine, widen with fear.
I’m going to kill him.
I’m going to fucking kill him.
My childhood was stolen from me because Evan’s mother refused to allow my father to accept me. And when he arranged for me to attend the best prep school in the city, even that was taken away because Evan felt “uncomfortable” with my presence. And now he’s stolen my happiness. I don’t give a fuck if Ally is his by law. She’s mine, right down to my bones. She was always meant to be a part of me. And Evan wants to take that too.
So I’m going to take his life, like he and his bitch of a mother tried to take mine.
“Please, Justice, don’t do this! Please, you don’t want to do this!”
Ally’s voice cuts through the blood whooshing in my ears, but it sounds so far away, like a distant memory. I squeeze Evan’s neck tighter, and he tries to scream, but no sound escapes.
“Where’s your mommy now, Evan?” I spew through a painfully clenched jaw. “Who’s gonna save you from me now, huh? Huh? Answer me, asshole!”
A garbled whine escapes his trembling lips, and I squeeze his neck so hard that my knuckles turn white. I bring my face closer to his, ensuring that he can see the rage in my eyes, and that I can see the fear in his. “What was that? I can’t quite hear you through all your crying, Evan. You gonna tell your mommy on me? You gonna lie and say I was mean to you, like you did when we were kids? Or how about you tell her I’ve been rummaging through your shit and taking your things?”
A wicked smile curves my lips, and I bark out a forged laugh before leaning forward to whisper harshly in his ear. “Well, actually, I did take one thing of yours. I took it over and over again, until she screamed my name and begged for more. Until she came so hard that she fucking sobbed.”
“Stop it! Please!” Ally screams. “Somebody do something!”
“Come on, man.” That’s Riku’s voice. It’s far away, yet closer than before. I can feel his grip on my shoulders, pulling me back to reality. “Everybody’s watching. Don’t ruin your life for this fucker. He isn’t worth it.”
“Please,” a broken angel cries. “Please don’t. Please don’t do this.”
Her voice just keeps replaying in my head, begging me to stop. Begging me to spare her precious husband. Hell yeah, hurting Evan would make me feel better, but it would also destroy her. A part of her would die with him. And by making her a widow at the age of 27, she’d forever hate me. And that…that would destroy me.
I loosen my grip of Evan’s throat and let Riku pull me back, allowing Ally to swiftly move to aid her husband as he crumples to the ground, coughing and sputtering. She brushes his hair from his sweat-dampened forehead and caresses his beet-red face, crying for him. Crying for the life she nearly witnessed fade away by my own hands.
Someone rushes to help Evan to his feet, and with Ally pressed against his side, they usher him towards the exit.
“You didn’t take her,” he tries to spit over his shoulder in a strained whisper. “You just paid for her with every fucking dime you own.”
I don’t respond. I don’t even give him a second look. I just keep watching, as Ally makes her choice. Evan is the lesser of two evils. And I’m…I’m just less.
He’s the star in her life. I was just the understudy.
Just before she crosses the threshold, she turns to look at me one last time. Sunlight filters through a single teardrop sliding down her cheek, turning it to crystallized sorrow. I want to go to her, capture it in my palm and kiss it away until it dissolves into nothing. But her tears are not for me. They’re because of me.
The anguished angel slips away from me, fleeing my singular hell as fire trails behind her. Stars burn and fall from my sky, and the clouds cry, darkening in sorrow.
The sun is gone. I’ve lost her forever.
---Message 12 of 23---
Dear Justice,
Happy (belated) New Year.
I’m not sure if you’ve been receiving my emails, but as your publicist—and I still am your publicist, like it or not—I feel the need to keep checking in with you. You know¸ to update you on what’s going on here. And to let you know that we’re all worried about you.
There, I said it. I’m worried about you.
Last I heard, you were in Tokyo, and then holed up in a chateau in France. Your mother has been in touch, and told me that you were in Poland briefly, visiting your grandparents for the holidays. She’s a lovely woman, by the way. She even told the story of your unfortunate former name. Sean Connery and Michael Douglas, huh? Can’t say that I blame her.
Anyway, after Poland, the trail went cold. That was three weeks ago.
Look, I get it. You’re pissed at the world right now. But at least let me know that you’re alive so I know I’m not writing a corpse.