by Eden O'Neill
There simply wasn’t enough, and I personally couldn’t drag my family back into the media circus that had been the last year. The news reporters had just stopped stalking our house.
No, we couldn’t involve our parents. I couldn’t pull anyone else into this shit. It was bad enough that Wells and Thatcher were in this too. They should have been enjoying their sophomore year, and Wolf should have been enjoying our junior year. No one else should have had to deal with this.
This should have been just my burden.
I hadn’t been able to convince my friends of that, so they helped, and now, they were strained just like me.
You’re such a fuckup.
I kept fucking up.
Blinking, I patted Thatcher’s shoulder. “You need to get out of here. Go home early. Get something to eat. Sleep.”
“I’m not tired,” he gritted and went back to his searching. “I’ll find her, D.” He faced me. “I won’t give up. I promise.”
My stomach twisted.
Because I knew he wouldn’t. My friends continued to labor over something only I felt personally responsible for. My guilt ran completely heavy, but I let my buddy stay in the lab. This was his free period, so he could spend it how he wished.
I stayed with him as long as I could until I had to go to class, and on my way out of the school that day, I found him still sitting in here. Wells had joined him. In our group text, I knew they both planned to do some late research tonight. Wolf was even going to join them after an art thing he couldn’t get out of. We all had keys to the school, and the coverage of the academy was a nice way to keep our parents from asking questions.
I left my friends that night, but only because I had to go home and check on my mom.
She was where I’d left her.
I found her in the parlor, sipping tea and staring out the window. She’d returned to work after everything, but work was all she’d allowed herself to do these days. As soon as she came home, she was right back here. Last to leave, first to show up.
She told me it was just because she needed the quiet, and though I never bothered her, I did check on her. She’d kick my ass if I didn’t, claiming she always wanted to see my face.
“Hey, Mom.” I put my arms around her, and she smiled, twisting in her seat to hug me. My mom had a smile like the light, like the daytime and sunshine daisies.
It reminded me so much of Charlie’s smile it killed my fucking insides. Charlie was her half brother. The pair of them looked so much alike despite having different moms. Mom had obviously taken Charlie’s passing pretty hard. Especially since she’d lost a sister before that. It was a long time ago and before I was born. I’d never met my aunt Paige, but she’d been another casualty to this town. She’d been killed, murdered.
It was like my family was cursed. It was a curse I’d never seen due to privilege and my own self-involved shit. Before Charlie and my grandparents passing before that, I’d never really experienced loss. At least not like my mom and my dad had.
Mom hugged me tight. “Hey, baby.”
She just held me there craned over her, held me for so long. Eventually, I stopped paying attention to the time and took a seat beside her. I texted my buddies that night.
Me: Mom’s having a bad day. I can’t make it.
She was the only one I’d make the sacrifice for. She needed me.
All the guys got back to me that the absence was fine, but it wasn’t. It ripped me raw apart. It killed me she was this way.
Because of you.
The thoughts chilled me, each moment of every damn day. I stayed with my mother in silence until eventually, I gave her the space she liked. She’d never tell me. I always had to gauge that on my own.
She twisted in her chair. “Can you give the mail to your dad? It’s on the table there.”
We always ended the same way. I came in, gave her a hug and sat with her, then she asked me to bring the mail to my dad. I’d do that, then normally do more searching with the guys, but it’d gotten late tonight.
I nodded, telling my mom I loved her before I left the room. She spent evenings with my dad, quiet dinners during which he held her and told her everything would be okay. I didn’t always make the dinner with this constant searching for Mayberry, but I’d come in one night and saw that was what my parents had been doing. My dad was my mother’s rock.
And she was his.
I’d seen that on more than one occasion too. There were many secrets in this house. My dad was never vocal about the things that sometimes plagued him, but I’d caught my mother consoling him on more than one occasion. My dad wore his heart in a steel vise, and only my mother had the key.
“Dad.” I knocked before I came into his office, mail in hand. Dad was over by the fireplace, a brandy in his hand. “Mom asked me to give you the mail.”
I did, coming over and giving it to him. He started to filter through it, asking about my day. We did this banter too after Charlie passed. My dad was always busy, but it was like time had stopped after Charlie died. Like we’d all realized how truly fragile life could be.
Dad stopped on a letter, eyeing me before studying the door. “Your mom saw this?”
I started to look at the letter, but Dad took it back.
He cursed and, without warning, threw the envelope into the fireplace.
Shocked, I took a step toward it, watching the light catch it. A name on the front highlighted in the rapid flames.
To: Mr. Dorian Riley Prinze.
“Dad?” I questioned. He placed a hand to my chest before I could save it, shaking his head. I frowned. “But—”
“Don’t, Dorian.” My father lounged against the fireplace, watching the letter curl and burn. “Some things are just better left in the fire.” His hand folded on his face. “I wish your mom hadn’t seen that. I try to take those out before she can see them. They upset her every time.”
I blinked, confused. There’d been more than one letter? To me?
But from whom?
I walked over to my dad, standing with him by the hearth.
A large sigh left him. “It’s your grandfather,” he stated, causing me to blink again. Dad nodded. “Grandfather Prinze. For some reason, my father thinks he has the right to speak to you.”
I twitched. Grandpa Prinze? I shook my head. “I thought he was dead.”
Or maybe I’d hoped he was. We never talked about him in this house.
Another secret.
For a long time, I hadn’t known the truth about my father’s father, and once told, I’d never heard the words again. The man had become a ghost, and I never pushed the issue after my parents finally did sit down and explain to me why I’d never ever in my life meet him.
My lips parted. “What does he want?” The letter had been to me, not my dad.
My father’s face hardened, then with his big hands he squeezed my shoulders. “My father is cancer,” he said, sighing. “And it doesn’t matter what he wants.”
He left me after that, his hand rubbing the back of his neck. His office door clicked behind him, and I simply stared at the letter in the flame. The letter curled, off to the side, and for some reason, I grabbed the poker off the fireplace.
I pulled the thing out, half of it burnt to hell, but I blew the ash away.
I didn’t know what made me pocket it or take it out of my dad’s office, but I did note one thing.
This was the first time I’d ever really defied my father.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Dorian - age 17
I really had no idea why I stole the letter, but I did read it that night. It talked about me, how my grandfather wanted to see me.
“I think the boy has a right to know who his grandfather is, son,” the letter said. “Maybe you should let him decide whether or not he wants me in his life.”
The man was a rat fucking bastard if he thought he had any rights to me, not after what he’d done to our family. That was even outside of the abuse I knew he’d subjected my father
to. There was a reason my dad never ever put hands on me. I hadn’t even gotten a spanking growing up.
And that was because of Grandpa Prinze.
The man was an abuser, and the admittance had made me respect the hell out of my father. He told me himself why he didn’t and never would put hands on me, and really, he’d never had to. My father’s presence alone had been enough to keep me in line.
He’d never had to hit me.
The physical abuse of my dad, though, turned out to only be the cusp of my grandfather’s dark deeds. There was a reason he’d been in prison a good portion of my life. My parents kept the reason as to why close to the cuff until I was about thirteen. They’d wanted to protect me from the reality of what my grandfather truly was.
A monster.
I knew that as true as I was reading the letter he’d sent me. As I took in the fine cursive, I realized exactly why I had taken it. I needed to know about the man’s audacity, why he could possibly think he could or should see me. Fuck no, I didn’t want to see that motherfucker, and I actually ended up starting my own little fire in my bedroom’s fireplace that night. I got it nice and big, ready to see that letter turn to nothing but ash. I had full intentions of burning the letter and even held it over the flame.
Something had me squeezing the remains, though, and eventually pulling it back and putting out the fire. I later found out what that something was when I found myself outside of Wolf’s room that night.
I tapped the window like I always did, and he woke up, letting me in around 3 AM.
“You know you can use the goddamn door,” he said, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. I half-expected to find a girl in here with him. He tended to bring them up and sneak them out before morning.
I dashed my eyebrows. “This is way more dramatic, don’t you think?” I stated. Plus, I didn’t have to wait for his string bean ass to pull himself out of bed and come downstairs. If I was pounding at his window like a motherfucker, he let me in right away.
“Right.” He smirked, then sat on his bed in his boxers. I took a seat on his desk, trying to find his eyes under all that hair. He got all that curly shit from my god dad.
I folded my hands on the desk’s edge. “I was thinking about something.”
He put his hands together, his smile fading. “What kind of something?”
Something he wasn’t going to like, but I took the letter out of my pocket. I gave it to him. “It’s from my grandfather.”
“The fuck?” When he ripped it out of the envelope, I thought he’d tear the remains in two. His eyes blazed. “The fuck?”
“Right?” I braced my arms. “He wants to see me. Bastard must be crazy.”
“Fuck, yeah. He is,” he said. Wolf shook his head. He lifted it. “Why is it burnt?”
“Dad. Threw it in the fireplace right in front of me. Told me about it after.”
Wolf fingered his curls, pulling them out of his face. “Deep, man.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, what are you thinking about?” He lounged back, but then my buddy’s eyebrows dashed up. “You don’t want to see him do you…”
“Fuck no.” I hopped off the desk, taking the letter back and sitting beside him. “Not ever in my life.”
“Then what?”
I faced him, forcing myself to brave the fuck up. Ares wouldn’t like this at all.
But I wasn’t sure we had a choice. We’d reached a dead end in our search for Mayberry. “I was thinking maybe we could use him.”
“Use him?”
I nodded. “Use his resources, I mean.” I gazed around, restless. “He has a lot more pull than we do, and we can’t find that bitch Mayberry.”
Wolf looked at me as if I’d lost my goddamn mind, and maybe I had. I was desperate here.
I was more than desperate.
What else would actually compel me to even think about asking the man who’d caused so much terrible shit in my family’s life? I didn’t feel I had a choice here.
Wolf frowned. “D, what are you talking about?”
“Just hear me out. I make him think I want a relationship with him. I even go see him a couple of times.” Wolf was already shaking his head, but I kept on. “We use his ass. You know how powerful my grandpa is.”
We were Prinzes, part of the foundation of this town. We did what we wanted, and prison time wouldn’t have hurt my grandfather. It was a media circus once he’d finally gotten out. My parents had actually taken me out of town for the weeks surrounding it. They’d wanted to protect me.
Grandpa Prinze was a powerful man, and it’d been the relief of I think all of us that he’d chosen to stay away. My grandfather had ended up making roots outside of Maywood Heights gratefully.
He’d gone upstate.
“I know how powerful he is.” Wolf’s eyes had gone hard, his frown harder. “Mine is too, but you don’t see me going to see him.”
His words sobered, chilled. He got up, and I followed him with my gaze. “Wolf?”
“We’ll find another way.”
“Ares—”
“I said we’ll find another way, Dorian,” he gritted. He directed a finger toward the letter. “Going anywhere near that guy would be like unleashing Pandora’s box. Not to mention hurting your dad. Your mom.”
I knew what he was saying. I knew that, and I’d never in my life want to hurt my mother. I was doing this for my mother. She’d want justice for Charlie.
She’d want the truth to come out.
That bitch Mayberry was running around like she hadn’t done anything. She looked like nothing but the suffering widow and not the filth who’d gotten Charlie killed.
That was only the last of her sins.
She’d been with him when she’d had no right, a secret affair, but the world was going to know who she was. They’d know about her place in all of this. The bitch had gotten off completely scot-free and left the rest of us to suffer the fallout. I had no uncle because of her.
My brother was dead.
Coming out of those thoughts, I got up and joined Wolf by the window. He was framing his face.
“They’ll understand once we find out the truth,” I said. “I’m not sure what other choice we have, Ares.”
Slowly, he looked at me. He swallowed hard. “We do have a choice,” he said, leaning in. “Just like he and my grandfather had a choice back then. Like my great-uncle had back then.”
I chilled again. “This isn’t the same.”
“But it is, man.” He got in my face. “My great-uncle Leo murdered your aunt Paige, Dorian. That was a choice, and you know what else was one?” His eyes scanned mine. “The choice our grandfathers made to help him cover it up.”
I stiffened, my buddy speaking hard truths.
Wolf wet his lips. “That’s our reality, that’s the backlash from what the patriarchs in our families did. You don’t think back then they all had a choice to do something different?” He shook his head. “Thank God my great-uncle is serving double life for that shit. He may be a monster. Our grandfathers may be monsters, but I refuse to be that way too.”
But it was different. His great-uncle killed my aunt because he was psychotic, facts. He’d believed she’d gotten in the way of his jealous rage involving another woman. These details were cemented in the town’s history, any paper readily available with the information.
It was Wolf’s and my dark legacy. Even made worse when our grandfathers had helped to cover it up to serve their own self-interests. They’d believed, at the time, the scandal could damage our families for various reasons. They were all monsters, but Wolf and us guys weren’t.
We were the ones making things right.
We were the ones finally righting some wrongs in our families. Our grandfathers had served some time, but not nearly enough for what they’d done.
Wolf and us guys were the good ones.
I swallowed. “I wouldn’t even be proposing this if I didn’t think we had another option.” I pointed a fin
ger. “We have to get that woman. We have to find her. I have to find her. I have to make this goddamn right. Why can’t you fucking help me!”
I said the words before they could be taken back.
The reality of them shone all over my buddy’s face. His eyes twitched wide, shocked by what I said.
But I wasn’t.
I knew the truth and my place in this whole thing as well. I knew my reality.
Wolf squeezed my shoulders, and it took me a moment to realize something.
He was keeping me standing.
My buddy had his hands on me, and the only reason I wasn’t falling was because he was keeping me eye level with him. He swallowed. “We’re going to make this right, D. I swear to God we will.”
I shook, no words.
He scanned my eyes. “We’re going to all do this together, and I promise you we won’t have to be monsters to do it.” He shook his head. “We don’t have to lose our humanity, and I refuse to let you lose yours. Not while I still have a breath. I won’t. Sorry.”
My throat constricted, his hands leaving me.
He stared out the window.
“We’ll find another way,” he said, and I stared out the window too. There weren’t a lot of times Ares was wrong. He was brilliant, completely owned school academically, and was like my god dad in that right. They were both incredibly brilliant men, but my buddy was wrong tonight. He couldn’t keep me from losing my humanity.
Because I already was.
Chapter Thirty
Dorian - present
“Where’s Ares?” I’d driven too fast over to Windsor House.
It was necessary.
I’d stopped by Wolf’s place first, but his parents had said he’d gone to Windsor House, the meeting place of the Court and where those of us affiliated liked to unwind. Basically, it was a place for Court members to get away from our parents. Older Court members, like my father, never came to Windsor House unless there was official Court business going on. This made the aged building always a nice place to release for the younger generation.
Apparently, Wolf had wanted to get away.
