Five Brothers
: Chapter 29

I wanted to leave with him—the second he walked away.

But how could this have not been about revenge? How could he not hate everything I reminded him of?

I sit against the wall, hugging my knees and feeling the shorts and sweatshirt that I threw on, but have no idea if it’s the Florida State one or the Hilton Head one. It’s gray.

All the times he wouldn’t look at me. Speak to me. Of course.

It wasn’t because I was a Saint. It was because I was me. Part of her. He’d look at me and see her hair. Her nose.

A tear spills over, dripping down my face. He couldn’t stand the sight of me.

I lock my fingers together and bow my head into my hands, shaking with cries I won’t let out.

He must’ve thought I was a real piece of work, playing at his house like it was some kind of fucking theme park.

But when he did look at me …

When I found him racked with pain and saw the tears.

When he held on to me at night and then quickly let me go when he’d wake up and realize.

And then go right back to wrapping himself around me the next night. And the next. And the next.

When he finally started talking to me, and wanted only me near him. Only me.

He tried not to see me. Tried not to get close. Tried not to look at me or talk to me.

He didn’t want revenge.

He didn’t want me to find out and knew I would at some point. He knew I’d hurt him when I did.

I never deserved him.

Lifting my head, I watch my curtains blow in the breeze pouring into my dark room. It can’t be much past noon, but the clouds hang low outside, making the light on my walls gray with hues of blue.

I follow the light past the fabric hanging from my four-post bed and over the keepsakes—a carousel, stuffed animals, and pictures of parties, trips, and ceremonies. Past the displays of medals and ribbons I got for every swim meet or spelling bee I participated in.

Because every artifact was like another addition to the résumé of my life that proved I was alive. That I did things. That I was accomplished, and that made me valuable.

Proving I was living my best life distracted me from the realization that this room could never fit the proof of all my failures.

And knowing now that only one matters.

Rising to my feet, I wipe a tear from under my eye and cross the room. I rip the bulletin board off the wall, followed by my rack of karate belts from when I was eight. The last five are missing, because I quit, but I still display them like it was some big deal.

I throw the carousel onto my bed, scoop up every stuffed animal, and throw any picture that doesn’t have someone I love in it into the pile. I grab hold of my sheer bed curtains and start yanking, tearing them away, balling them up, and adding them to the junk. Gathering up the four corners of my blanket, I pull the sack off my bed and stuff it in my closet. Some of it will get disposed of in the garbage, and some things I’m not sure if I ever want to see again. I just want them out of sight right now.

I stare in the mirror, seeing myself for the first time all morning. His mark is on my neck, and my lips are puffy. I fold them between my teeth, noticing how sore they are. I didn’t notice when I woke up with him this morning. I pull my phone out of my back pocket—no calls or texts.

Clutching it in my hand, I leave the room, tucking my tangled hair behind my ear as I head downstairs. My mother hasn’t come back to my room, but I know she’s in the house. Macon won’t be able to tell her and me apart in a few years. Fifteen-hundred-dollar heels, married to a banker or a lawyer …

I do the math in my head real quick, remembering that my father doesn’t think Mars is his son, but Mars was born long before Macon’s parents died. Macon was off in the military. I didn’t think it was him anyway. Thank God.

A blender whirs in the kitchen, and I head in, leaning against the doorframe and folding my arms over my chest.

My mom holds down the lid as the yellow slush spins like a whirlpool inside the machine, and I can smell the tequila and the citrus.

She stops the blender, glances up briefly, and pours a glass without missing a beat. Walking it over, she hands it to me and I take it.

Strangely enough, I feel no anger toward her. None at all.

I hold the drink to my nose, smelling the Cointreau and agave syrup. My mother makes the best margaritas. “You always were a wonderful mixologist.”

“It’s good to have a skill.”

Mine has yet to present itself.

She walks back to the island, filling a glass for herself. I don’t take a drink.

“You know, I never really thought about it, because it wasn’t like I had a choice,” I tell her, “but if anyone had ever asked me, I would’ve said that I liked you more than Dad. I still do. You know why?”

She fits the pitcher back onto the blender base and lifts her eyes to me.

“Because you eventually win,” I reply. “You always claw your way back to the top. It was the only quality I ever hoped I inherited.”

She takes a long drink, and I step forward, setting my cup down with the island between us.

She drops her eyes. “The affair only lasted—”

“It wasn’t an affair.” I tighten my fists around the back of the wrought iron chair, making my knuckles ache. “You and your friends victimized a young man who’d just lost his parents and was trying to support his five siblings.”

She stares at me, no change in her expression.

I go on. “And you don’t care about it any more than you care that I hate you for it. All you care about is that I fall into line.”

That’s why she wanted him away from me. Oh, I can fuck Macon Jaeger all I want. I can pay him for some fun. Someday. After I give Jerome Watson a couple of kids and make his house a home. Then she’ll encourage me to have all the fun I want. Discreetly.

“I’ll meet with Jerome Watson,” I tell her.

Her eyebrows lift.

“And I will get you a settlement from Dad.”

“How—”

“What does it matter?” I blurt out. “You’ll be well taken care of.”

A small smile crosses her lips, happy that I’m taking care of business.

Oh, yes, I am.

But I’m not finished yet. “On two conditions,” I tell her. “You go to the house in the Keys until further notice. And …” I harden my voice. “You sign over the house.”

“What?” she asks.

“To me.”

“You’ve got to be kidding—”

“Or I’ll tell everyone what you did to him,” I say.

“You think that will shock them?” She looks about ready to laugh. “Like your father or anyone else in this town doesn’t have secrets of their own?”

I set my phone down on the island. “Everyone.”

Her face falls, her eyes shifting to the phone.

She breathes in and out for several seconds, her jaw clenching over and over again. “Mars and Paisleigh—”

“Will stay with me for now,” I reply. “We’ll discuss guardianship once I touch base with Dad.”

We stare at each other, and I know everything she’s thinking. Her children are leverage. She doesn’t want to give that up. Relatives will pity her—give her money—if she has children to support.

And deep down, she really does care. Not as much as Mars and Paisleigh deserve, but if something happened to us, she’d cry. Genuinely, I think.

But I also know she doesn’t want this anymore. She married him, never thinking he’d take off with someone else. She would give him a home, kids, and the respectable family image, and he’d give her the life. He’s the one who broke the deal.

She wants to be free. She’s still young, after all.

Besides, Bateman and I have been taking care of the kids 85 percent of the time for the past nine months anyway. She’s already gone.

“Okay,” she says. The tone is clipped, but she agrees.

She turns and takes out a pan, setting it on the stove. “Can I make you some lunch?”

“Pack,” I tell her. “Go now.”

She twists around, shocked.

I start to walk away. “I’ll let you know when I talk to Dad.”

I take a right out of the kitchen and head toward my father’s office, passing the hidden room under the stairs. I don’t look, and I don’t look back to see if she’s coming after me for a fight. I know she’ll leave. She wants what I promised.

And I wouldn’t fight anyway. I feel no anger. That’s for people still trying to make it work.

I walk into my father’s office, leaving the door open as I traipse over the area rug to the desk. Sitting in his chair, I yank open the bottom left drawer and sift through all the files until I come across one labeled Auto. I slip it out.

I need to find my car title so I can sell it. An old Rover won’t support us forever, and I will still need a car of some sort, but I don’t need that expensive one. And I don’t want my dad’s old car. I don’t want anything of his. I should be able to get forty thousand for the Rover. Finding it, I slip it out and set it aside, replacing the folder in the drawer.

But I spot another one labeled Financials. I pause my hand over it. I’m sure he took anything of any consequence, but then again, how would we know? My mother and I aren’t very smart with this stuff. If he hid money—assets—it would be worth a look. Then I’ll know what I can ask him for, because he won’t want my mother’s divorce lawyer discovering that on their own. Hiding assets is illegal.

Stealing a cigarette from the box on his desk, I light it as I start to sift through the papers, but my stomach sinks almost as soon as I start.

It’s going to take forever to make sense of what I’m looking at, and there are so many accounts. Things for his businesses, papers for his family’s investments, stocks, bonds, real estate, and while everything is in his name, except our house, which he gave to her, I have no way of knowing if there’s anything she’s not aware of. She didn’t stay involved. She let him do what he wanted. Trusted him with the money.

I stuff it all in a folder to keep it in my possession in case he comes back for it and pick up my phone to call Clay’s dad. He might be able to help me understand this.

But then I see the word “Assets” and pause. Peering down into the drawer, I spot another folder and pick it up.

Household Assets.

Flipping it open, I scan a slew of certificates of authenticity and insurance policies—for art, antique silver, jewelry, even items of clothing.

But I see my name.

Then I see it again.

And my heart starts racing as I piece together what I’m looking at.

I grab my phone and bring up the screenshots that I took from his email. I didn’t study everything yet, but I swipe through the pictures, remembering seeing something.

I stop. No, it was a text.

I go through the texts with his girlfriend, reading one that I glimpsed but didn’t think anything of when I originally saw.

Was that everything? she asks him.

I have no idea what she’s talking about, but they must’ve just talked in person and are continuing a conversation.

There’s more, he tells her. It’s not in her or my name, though. I’ll get it back from Krisjen afterward.

Something builds, climbing my throat, and I start shaking. And then … I laugh.

I plant my hands on the desk, cigarette smoke streaming up into the air as I bow my head and break into laughter that I can’t keep quiet.

I pick up my phone and text Clay and Aracely.

I recently acquired a six-hundred-dollar bottle of wine. Get over here. Both of you.

Holy shit.

I smile. This doesn’t change my fate, but it will ensure Mars and Paisleigh can govern their own. I drop the phone to the desk, fold my arms over my chest, and take a long drag of the stale cigarette. Fucking yes.

“Oh my God!”

I jerk my eyes to the door, seeing Paisleigh.

“I’m gonna tell Mom you’re smoking.”

I blow out the cloud and grin at my little sister. “I got a better idea.” I snuff out the cigarette. “Let’s dance.”

Idon’t have to sell my Rover. My father was hiding assets, after all. Not a lot, but enough.

Just enough.

“I must say,” Jack Hewlitt says, “you could’ve gotten more at auction.”

I sign the papers, handing each to him one by one. He leans against the edge of his desk while I sit in a chair, using it to write on. “I’m not interested in waiting.”

I’ve spent the past two days liquidating two paintings, one sculpture, and the entire wine collection, and I did find a small account in my name. I transferred the funds to one my father doesn’t have access to. I haven’t asked him why he put the stuff in my name. I know why.

He knew he was leaving her. A long time ago.

And he assumed I wouldn’t notice before the divorce was final. He was almost right.

I didn’t find anything in Mars’s or Paisleigh’s names, and there’s more that I own, but I’m not going to sell everything off yet.

“No waiting, huh?” Mr. Hewlitt teases. “Leaving the country?”

I smile small. “I’m not going anywhere.”

He hands me my copy of the documents, and I shake his hand. “Nice doing business with you.”

“And you,” he says. “These will fetch a good profit. Thank you.”

A great profit. I sold them to him for much less than my father paid, and art doesn’t go down in value.

I rise, my earring swaying across my neck, and I wet my lips, because the lipstick coating my mouth feels dry like clay. I slip my forearm through the handles of my Gucci bag and take my paperwork with me.

My phone rings, and I nod a goodbye to Jack.

Fishing the phone out of my bag, I see my father’s name on the screen. I changed it to Lachlan Conroy instead of Dad months ago.

“Hello?” I answer.

“You’ve been busy.”

I shudder a little at the curtness of his voice. I almost forgot.

He always sounds like someone who’s jetting from one meeting to another. A little rushed. Distracted. Bothered. He doesn’t have an accent, but he adds one on purpose. Just on a word here and there. An inflection at the end of a sentence maybe. Sometimes it sounds Scottish. Most of the time it’s some weird concoction of British and Bostonian.

“Krisjen, listen to me—”

“No.” I walk slowly, heading to the front door of the gallery.

“We have asked for you. Mars and Paisleigh have asked for you, but now that I’m selling property you hid in my name … Now I warrant your attention?”

It’s in my name. I’m eighteen. He can scramble to get back what I haven’t yet sold, but he’ll have to find it first. The first thing I did was hide everything.

“We should talk,” he tells me.

I agree.

“Wolfe Room,” I state. “Tonight. Eight o’clock.”

“How do you know about that room?”

I hang up, walk out the door, and step onto the sidewalk. How does he know about that room is the question?

I’m glad I didn’t let him keep me on the phone. Part of me still remembers back when he was a good father, and it hurts. Paisleigh has never known that version of him.

The wind blows through my hair and across the sliver of stomach left bare in my sleeveless white blouse. I step in my heels, one foot after the other in my tight, white pants, barely noticing the boys until they’re there.

Army. Dallas. Trace.

My heart leaps in my chest. It’s been days, but it feels like years. The Bay seems so far away.

Army isn’t wearing a shirt. A major no-no on Main Street in St. Carmen, and Trace wears a green T-shirt. It matches his eyes.

I see them, they see me, and I slow, thinking they’re going to stop. Time halts as I wait for it.

But they don’t.

And neither do I.

Army passes me, his familiar eyes following me over his shoulder as he goes.

Trace and Dallas veer around me, glancing at me but continuing without a word. My heart splits.

I don’t know if I keep walking, or how I get to my car down the street, but when I look back, they’re gone.

And that’s how easily things can change.