Page 27 of Goldrage (The Chrysophilist Trilogy #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY

JULIAN

T he estate’s hallways blur together as I stumble through them, each door looking like the last. The bottle dangles from my fingers—when did I grab the whole fucking thing instead of just a glass? Doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except drowning the voices that won’t shut up.

She’s carrying your child.

What if she’s not? Maybe it’s Adrian’s. Maybe both… I’ve heard of that. Read something once that it’s rare but possible for a woman to carry fraternal twins that have different fathers.

Fuck, the thought of sharing her, of her body taking both of us and creating life from that twisted union… My cock stirs despite everything, and I hate myself for it. Hate that even now, even after everything, the memory of her beneath me can still make me hard.

I lean against the wall, letting the cool plaster press against my forehead. The whiskey burns less now, each swallow easier than the last. But it can’t wash away the image of Aurelia as she once was, when we were both young and life had potential.

Who crushed the people we used to be?

Did I crush them? Or did Mother?

The thought coils in my head like one of my skeleton snake tattoos has slithered up my arm and into my thoughts. When did I start letting Mother make all the decisions? When did I become the boy hiding behind his mother’s skirts?

I close my eyes as the world spins. I’m… fuck, I don’t even know how old I was. A kid. Mother was crying in her bedroom—real tears, not the practiced ones she uses now. Father had been particularly brutal the night before. I’d heard everything through the walls.

“Julian, my sweet boy,” she’d whispered, pulling me into her lap. Her face was swollen on one side, purple blooming across her cheekbone like a rotting flower. “You’ll protect me when you’re bigger, won’t you? You’ll never let anyone hurt me again?”

I’d nodded.

“Good boy,” she’d murmured, stroking my hair. “Because Adrian… Adrian doesn’t care. He just watches. He never tries to stop your father. But you’re different, aren’t you? You’re my protector.”

“Yes, Mama.”

“Will you do a favor for me?”

I clung to her shirt. “Uh-huh.”

“Such a perfect little boy. My sweet angel. Tomorrow, when your father takes you and Adrian shooting, you must choose the rifle with the dark green handle. Can you remember that? ”

“Okay.”

“If your brother tries to get that one, you must get it from him, understand.”

“Okay.”

It had been a simple request, and I’d completely forgotten about that conversation until now. But I remember that day of hunting with Lucian and Adrian. I’d grabbed the rifle with the green handle, just like Mother told me. Adrian was left with one that had a black handle.

When we were out hunting with Lucian, Adrian’s rifle kept jamming, and Lucian kept yelling at him and saying he was an idiot for using it wrong.

Adrian also kept missing targets even though he was an excellent shot for his age.

I had a sick feeling because I knew something was wrong with the rifle.

I thought Mom had been trying to protect me.

I thought she knew the rifle was bad and just didn’t want me to use it.

I never questioned how she knew. I was too young to think she’d messed with it on purpose.

Toward the end of the trip, Adrian’s rifle jammed again but then went off suddenly. The stray bullet knicked Lucian’s cheek. He backhanded Adrian. The rest of that week, I didn’t see Adrian much because father kept taking him places. My brother would come home bloodied and bruised.

My stomach churns, and it’s not from the whiskey. For the first time, I’m seeing that incident clearly. Mother did something to that rifle. Whether she wanted Adrian to get beaten and punished, or if she’d hoped Lucian would get killed, doesn’t matter .

How many wedges has she driven between Adrian and me while I was too young and stupid to notice?

I push off the wall and keep walking, trying to outrun the thoughts. But they follow like rabid dogs.

Stop it.

I can’t think of my mother right now. I was thinking of Aurelia.

What if we kept her? The question ambushes me as I pass another identical door. What if I let Aurelia stay after the baby is born? We could be some kind of fucked-up family—her, me, Adrian, and a child who might actually create some peace in this house.

I can see it: Aurelia in the garden, holding the child. Adrian and me on either side of her. Sharing her like we’d shared toys as kids, except this time the toy would create more children for our legacy. She could bear both my children and Adrian’s, and they’d all grown up together.

One big fucked-up family.

I swallow more whiskey.

Christ, I’m more twisted than I thought.

But would it be so bad? To have her here? I know she wants to help raise the child. Adrian and I could take turns with her, keep her satisfied, keep her?—

No. Fuck no.

It’s like I’m forgetting all the shit she’s done. She’d only poison the kid against me. Fill its head with lies. Turn it into another weapon to rip my heart out and humiliate me. That’s what she does—corrupts everything she touches. Look what she did to Adrian. Look what she did to me.

The baby needs to be kept away from her influence. Maybe from Adrian’s too, at least until I’m sure my brother’s truly back on my side. Can’t have him filling the kid’s head with his noble bullshit about right and wrong.

I set the whiskey bottle on a random table and scrub a hand over my face. I need some distraction.

My feet carry me to the office first, and I grab a folder from the desk without really looking at it. Consortium contracts, probably. Something to stare at while my world falls apart.

Next, I escape toward the study, needing space that doesn’t reek of Lucian Harrow’s legacy.

The hallway outside the study is guarded—Adrian’s men, standing silent like statues. Which means Adrian is inside. Maybe I shouldn’t let him wander around so much.

The door’s cracked open, voices drifting through.

I should announce myself. I should walk in like I own the place, because I fucking do. But I hear voices and decide to eavesdrop. I hover near a guard, who glances at me before minding his own goddamn business.

“You know, Adrian,” my mother’s voice carries through the gap, but it’s wrong. All wrong. She doesn’t sound like herself; her tone is too jagged. “I’ve been thinking about your recovery. It’s taking rather longer than expected, isn’t it?”

Through the crack, I can see them. Adrian on one couch, Mother on the other.

But her face—Christ, what’s happened to her face?

The afternoon light cuts across it, carving shadows that turn her into someone I don’t recognize.

Someone who looks like she’s contemplating murder.

The bandage on her nose only makes her look more villainous.

And I can’t believe she snuck out and got plastic surgery when there are more important things going on.

Adrian doesn’t look at her. His jaw’s set in a way that reminds me of how he was with Lucian—the expression he wore while Father lectured him about weakness, about control, about becoming the perfect heir.

“The doctor says I’m healing normally.” His voice is flat, controlled.

“Normally.” Mother laughs. It’s nothing like her usual warm chuckle. This is cruel and mocking. “Nothing about your survival was normal, darling. Some might call it miraculous. Others might call it… unfortunate.”

The folder slips from my fingers. Unfortunate? What the fuck does that mean? Why would she?—

“You were supposed to?—”

I burst through the door before she can finish. Both of them turn toward me, and I watch something impossible happen.

Mother’s face transforms.

The cold cruelty vanishes like it never existed. Warmth floods her features, concern softening the harsh lines the shadows had carved. The change happens so fast I wonder if I imagined the woman I’d glimpsed through the doors. If the whiskey’s playing tricks on me.

Yes. It must be the whiskey.

“Julian, darling!” She rises from the couch, gliding toward me. “So good to see you.”

I stare at her, searching for any hint of the creature I’d witnessed. But there’s nothing. Just my mother, looking at me with those concerned eyes that have comforted me through every nightmare.

Except now I’m wondering if she was the nightmare all along.

No. No, that’s not true.

“I just… I need to speak with Adrian. Alone.”

She smiles, touching my cheek with gentle fingers. “Of course, dear. I was just keeping him company. He gets so lonely during his recovery.”

She glides past, her heels clicking. The sound follows her down the hall until silence swallows it.

I stand in the doorway, staring at my brother. He hasn’t moved from his spot on the couch, but he’s tense. His knuckles are white where they grip the book he’s not reading.

I clear my throat, still feeling too hazy from the booze. I don’t know what the hell to say.

Adrian turns to meet my gaze, and what I see there pisses me off: pity. Fucking pity. Like I’m some pathetic child who’s about to learn Santa isn’t real.

“What did you hear?” His voice is careful in that way that means he’s calculating every word.

“I’m drunk,” I say like it explains everything. Maybe it does. I think I imagined the whole thing. Mother loves Adrian. The whiskey’s playing tricks, has to be. Making me see monsters where there’s only the woman who sang me to sleep.

“Julian—”

“No.” My voice is loud, and I watch him flinch. “Don’t. Whatever you’re about to say, just… don’t. I’m tired of th e bullshit.”

But Adrian leans forward anyway. His voice drops, like he’s sharing a secret that might kill us both.

“You’re going to hear me, Julian. I’m going to say it as many times as necessary.

She shot me. Our mother put a bullet in my chest and left me to die because I threatened her plans.

She’s been manipulating you, manipulating us both?—”