Don’t get me wrong, the woman seems to have her own host of secrets. I suppose you can’t be involved with the Mafia and live transparently.
Not to mention, her husband is completely terrifying. The one time I met the man who Aplanians call Dr. Death, he just stared at me and then disappeared down the hall with their kids.
But his friendship with Jonas definitely makes sense.
I take a drink of my water as Cash comes back to the table, intruding on our lunch because he insists on checking up on me nowadays.
“Not hungrier,” I tell Elena, setting my glass down. “Just nervous.”
“Is his mom that intimidating?”
“No, she’s just… I don’t know. Imagine spending your life thinking about someone close to you a certain way, getting used to that idea of them and eventually coming to terms with it, only to one day have that notion totally wiped. Almost a clean slate, except you can still see the dirt they left behind in the first place.”
Cash stabs a piece of his Caesar salad. “She fucked him up that bad?”
“Apparently.”
“Parents will do that,” Elena says into her glass, and I remember her comment about her mother’s disappearance, and wonder if that’s what destroyed their relationship.
Or if it was something else entirely.
“Imagine if we sat down and wrote out every single transgression our parents bestowed onto us.” Cash looks at me, scoffing. “We’d be writing until we die.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask. “What did they do to you?”
He makes a face. “You don’t think you have some sort of monopoly on the Primrose family trauma, do you, swan?”
Heat scorches my face, and I sit back in my seat, brushing some hair off my shoulder. The summer sun beats down on us, reflecting off the rippling water around us, and I write off the sweat beading in my palm as the summer air.
I don’t think that, but my brothers were never held to the same standards as me. They didn’t need to be, because for the most part, anything they did could be easily explained away. Whereas for me, a girl, my actions in public were always being judged more harshly, and a single slipup could have detrimental ramifications.
The worst thing either of the twins ever did in our parents’ eyes was when Cash got a DUI riding his bike around campus, and Palmer opened up to the island about his sexuality.
They even managed to come to terms with the latter, as difficult as it is for bigoted Southern Baptists to do.
But me? I’d messed up once in my entire life, a decision that spiraled completely out of control and beyond the realm of what I’d intended, and Daddy not only held it against me, but used it as fuel.
Paraded my pain around for everyone to see.
Made me a bad guy, because it was easier to write off the end of my relationship with Preston Covington and my “descent into debauchery” as a colossal mistake.
If he’d owned up to it, that would’ve meant severing ties with business partners and friends. People Daddy refuses to disassociate with, even though it was my sanity on the line.
So, no. Not a monopoly on Primrose trauma, but I’ve definitely received the lion’s share.
“Well, I don’t know about you guys,” Elena cuts in, disrupting my thoughts. “But nothing good has ever come from the sudden reappearance of an estranged parent. Trust me on this; it’ll be a bloodbath, one way or the other.”
The rest of lunch is rather quiet, as we shift into stories about Elena’s daughters, and some big pharmaceutical case Cash has coming up, but I just sit back, wringing my fingers together.
Anxiety threads through the muscles in my stomach, and since I’ve eaten too much, I do my best to focus on not puking.
After a while, though, the nausea morphs into something else.
Something dark and sinister, as I think about my father and the men he let get away with hurting me.
Richard Stiles’s horrified face comes to mind; how he’d seemed so shocked on the balcony when I fought back. It was almost as if someone had told him I wouldn’t, and I’ve always wondered who.
I think deep down, though, I’ve always known.
37
The mayor’s mansion dwarfs the natural beauty around it; the grounds are traditionally landscaped, with perfectly manicured hedging and an array of pine and maple trees native to Aplana Island.
It’s got beautiful gray-stone walkways and a cherub fountain out front, making it look as stately as any other in the country despite being relatively new.
When you get to the house itself, however, the modern architecture, with its squared roof and block-style doors, it just doesn’t blend well.
Strangely appropriate, I suppose, given my brother’s the current inhabitant, and he’s always seemed incapable of fitting in.
That, I fear, is the real Wolfe curse. We were brought up with such a specific purpose, that venturing beyond it is incomprehensible.
I show up unannounced the morning after Mileena shows her face on the island, escaping the house before she can wake and drive me to insanity all over again.
Her comment from last night about the house being in her name makes me uneasy, so I’m bringing my concerns to the man who convinced me not to let the bank foreclose in the first place.
Alistair’s in a meeting when I force the lock to his front door and head to his office upstairs—I use the term meeting liberally, given my brother’s pants are around his knees while his cock is in another man’s mouth.
Though not just any man; this one I recognize immediately as Isaiah Fredrickson, aside from Tom himself, Isaiah is the last remaining name on my father’s hit list. CFO of Primrose Realty for over a decade, and the initial person to report my father as the reason behind company assets that suddenly vanished.
Smacking his palm against the ornate wooden mantel across the room, Alistair grunts and shoots me a dirty glare. “Don’t you knock?”
“Knocking is a privilege not reserved for secret-wielding swine,” I snap, pulling my Glock from the inside of my jacket.
Twisting a suppressor onto the end of the barrel, I cock and aim, putting a bullet through the other man’s neck before he even has a chance to spit my brother’s cock out.
Blood splatters against the fireplace and the white armchairs positioned in front, and across the light-blue button-down my brother has on. It sprays his neck and chin, and his entire demeanor flattens.
He swears under his breath, spinning away from the mess and stomping to the half bath connected to the office. “There are cameras in here, you nutter.”
“Oh, piss off. You think I’d come in without dismantling them first?” I walk over to Isaiah’s slumped form, wiping the silencer on the handkerchief I pull from his suit jacket.
“Could you not have waited for me to finish?”
“Worrying about you busting a nut is not on my list of priorities.” I pause, tucking the gun away. “What in the bloody hell were you doing, letting that filth touch you?”
“Ah, I didn’t realize what a snob you are, little brother.” Bending down, he scrubs his face clean with a hand towel, then clicks his tongue as he inspects his shirt in the mirror. “This was brand new, you know.”
“Add it to the list of clothing items I’m having to replace lately.”