Page 9 of Wicked Ends (Hellions of Hade Harbor #4)

Arianna

When I was a little girl, I used to dress-up in my grandmother’s dresses and long strings of pearls, and sit and play the piano.

“Play” was a generous term for the sounds I brought out from the old grand that sat in the music room of my grandparents’ beautiful estate, but I wasn’t deterred.

My grandmother would sit and listen for hours, as if it were the most interesting thing she could think of to do with her day.

My older brother, Dale, hated my playing. He would snip the strings with wire cutters whenever he could, prompting my grandparents to call in expensive technicians, until finally, they swapped the grand for an upright with a built-in padlock.

Had they known, even then, what kind of man my brother would grow up to be? I couldn’t imagine they did. They’d have been horrified if they’d known.

When they died in a senseless car accident, leaving their considerable estate, capital, and investment portfolios to me and my brother—half for me, half for him—I’d barely registered the money.

I’d only been seventeen to Dale’s twenty-one, and the grief of losing the only two parental figures I’d ever known was too much for me to bear. It’d nearly broken me completely.

The thing that saved me?

The piano.

I avoided playing while I cried and raged and bargained with the universe to return them to me.

I avoided the music room altogether for weeks.

One night, when my brother had his horrible, loud, and drunk friends over, I’d retreated there.

My room wasn’t safe anymore, not since he’d removed the keys from all the doors in the house except his own.

Sometimes, I’d hear the handle of the door turn and someone come in while I was lying in the dark.

Luckily, whoever it was hadn’t gotten brave enough to close the door behind him and do whatever he intended to do.

So, I hid. The music room was the one place that Dale barely remembered was there.

He wasn’t musical. In fact, my brother wasn’t anything at all, except violent.

He wasn’t good at school, or sports, or arts of any kind.

He was on the police force now, training to be a beat cop.

He’d only gotten crueler as he’d climbed the ladder there.

We lived in a small, wealthy California town.

My grandparents had been saints in the community, supporting various causes and charities.

Dale had stopped all of that after they died.

He liked to party and drink, snort some stuff, pop some pills.

His parties were becoming wilder and wilder, trashing my grandparents’ beautiful estate and priceless antiques.

I couldn’t stop him. I was seventeen and couldn’t legally move out on my own.

I was trapped. Dale was the executor of the estate, and I had nothing without his permission.

At twenty-four, I would come into my full inheritance, but until then, I was stuck.

One night, weeks after they’d died, I ventured into the music room and had been shocked to find a lone key in the door. The one room my brother hadn’t remembered. I’d locked it, knowing I was safe for tonight, and sat at the piano.

The keys had felt like old friends, and when I’d started to play, I could feel my grandmother there, watching me from the chaise lounge in the window. If I turned my head just right, I could see her from the corner of my eye.

That was when I realized that the people I loved lived in my music. Colors swirled, and the faces of those I’d loved and lost were all around me. I practiced every day. It was my escape. My refuge. My happy place. I wanted to live in my memories and not in my reality.

The music room didn’t stay locked forever, sadly.

My brother soon realized his mistake. Then, there’d been nowhere to hide in my house.

I’d stayed over most weekends at Kenna’s house, until she’d moved across the country to live with her dad.

Then, I’d found a room to bunk down in at my college.

Dale normally never said anything when I failed to come home.

I forgot most of the details of those hard nights, and the many that followed, but I remembered the feeling of playing in the locked music room, feeling safe.

I remembered how, during one of my hospital visits for yet another broken bone, I finally mustered the courage to tell the doctor who had hurt me, only for the police department to send my own brother to take a statement about himself.

It was funny the things you remembered and the things you didn’t.

I remembered how my brother threatened my chance to go to college and make a future that one day, wouldn’t depend on him. I remembered what it felt like to know the walls were closing in and there was nowhere to run and no one to help you.

And I’d never forget it.