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“Don’t fuck with me, Leonardo,” he snaps. “First, your updates become slower and slower. When I ask, I get notes that aren’t useful at all. Then, I hear you’re working against me. All the pieces add up, even if I don’t want to believe it.”
“Who’d you hear that from?”
“Answer the damn question! Who are you loyal to?”
“You!” The answer tastes like sour piss on my tongue. Sweat continues to dot my forehead, but I gather myself as much as I can. “You’ve been misinformed.”
Even now, I can hear Eden’s judgment in my mind. I’m following the status quo again, but did she ever think to consider that I’m just trying to survive?
He nods slowly. “I’d like to believe you.” He drops his stare in front of him.
It hits me then. That body can’t be my dad. That was just a cruel joke. So who is it? I scour the part of the body that I can see, looking for any signs. It’s clearly male. He’s wearing the same suit pants my father was wearing along with the same shined shoes.
“Do you want to know how I killed your father?” My grandfather purses his lips, still staring down. “I didn’t ask anyone else to do it. I did it myself.” He finally drags his gaze to mine, sliding the butt of his cigar back into his mouth. His face scrunches as he takes a long drag before letting out a cloud of smoke. “I know it’s not really in my nature to get my own hands dirty, but your father drove me to it. So many years he was a thorn in my side. It wasn’t for his lack of trying, though. He was just plain ignorant. Slow. Too dumb to play these games.” Peering up, he stares at the ceiling. “I had him convinced to kill himself. That part was easy. It was just a matter of talking him into it slowly. He already hated his life.”
My chest constricts. The callous way he discusses killing his own son slices through me, opening up a decade old wound. My mouth goes dry, and I can’t stop myself from hanging on every word. I’ve always wondered how deep my grandfather’s depravity went. I knew I was better off not knowing, but that didn’t stop me from being curious.
He grins, and if I wasn’t tied to this goddamn chair, I’d launch myself at him. I’d tear his head off. “He was standing on the coffee table, and I was here, just like you see me. He’d already wrapped the rope around the exposed beam and had the noose over his head by the time I got here. He’d called me to talk him out of it.”
My fingers go numb, a prickling sensation shooting up my arm.
“He asked me if I ever loved him.”
“Did you?”
He switches his gaze to me, his lip curled back. “You can’t care for unintelligent people, Leonardo. They’re senseless, gullible fucks. It’s a wonder he’d even gotten as far as he did in this world before he died.”
“Then what happened?” I encourage, letting the rage build inside me. Now that he’s started, I need the whole story. I need to put my nightmares to rest as well as all the theories I’ve developed over the years.
“I was screaming at him to do it. He was crying like the pussy he was. I could tell he wasn’t going to do it on his own. He never could do anything on his own,” Grandfather forces out, his voice like sandpaper. “So, I pushed him.” His eyes flick up as if he’s seeing it again. He doesn’t look disgusted or sad. He looks happy.
I grind my teeth together so hard it hurts. It’s nothing I hadn’t expected but the revelation still feels like a knife twisting in my gut.
Grandfather places the cigar in his mouth and puffs on it while still staring into space.
He leans forward and speaks around the thick, brown roll of tobacco. “He flailed around so much that the rope just gave away. He hit his head on the coffee table and rolled off.”
Turmoil erupts inside me like a volcanic discharge. “You let me find him?”
“You needed an example of what you didn’t want your life to be like.” He kicks the body again, and when the legs move this time, the suit pants rise up, and I can tell it’s just a mannequin. A dummy. A tool, like the head that popped up when Eden was in the water. A game, basically. “And you needed another one today. A reminder that you don’t want to fuck with me, Leonardo. Maybe I always gave you too much credit. Do you want to end up like your dad? Or do you want to end up like me?”
Tension spreads over my chest until it feels as if I might break into pieces. I don’t want to end up like either of them. I want the strength of one and the heart of the other. I want the propensity to feel things for people other than hate or what they can do for me.
Bile rises up my throat. “You,” I answer finally.
“Good. Then you’re going to take this public display of humiliation I have lined up for you, and then we’re going to continue on with our lives.”
I reel back. “Humiliation?”
He stands from the couch. “Don’t insult me. Your loyalty has come into question, and you know what that means. You must be punished. Take it like a man, and then we can put this all behind us. Remember that I have you by the family jewels, Grandson. I’ll eliminate them if I have to.”
34
Oliver
Despite having the staff ready rooms for us all, we spent the night in the fireplace room. Sometimes Eden cuddled against me, sometimes Alaric.
I wasn’t going to deny her the opportunity to sleep next to Alaric, but I was also damned if I wanted to give up the chance to be next to her, too.