Vicious Minds: Part 2 (Children of Vice Book 5)

by J. J. McAvoy

  “Don’t say that,” I grumbled.

  “Are you worrying about Wyatt or me?” he asked because, apparently, it was evident on my face.

  “Both.” I didn’t like the thought of anything happening to him or Wyatt.

  He sighed before saying, “I’m going to make Wyatt’s life hell, and you need to just accept that—”

  “Dad—”

  “Because I am doing it for you,” he said sternly.

  I gave him a look.

  “Yes, I’m also doing it because I enjoy it, and mostly because I am still not comfortable with it. But my love for you, Helen, is greater than that. If he loves you, if he truly loves you, he will do whatever the hell he needs to get me to accept him. If he can’t even handle me, how can I trust him to protect you from the rest of the world? You two don’t even have it half as bad as your mother and I did.”

  “Didn’t you train me not to need protection?”

  “No, I trained you not to need protection while you were alone,” he replied. “So, don’t get in the middle of it.” He had an answer and reply for everything…but so did I.

  “When old man Sedric was giving your mom hell, did you just stand on the sidelines?”

  “No, I fought him every step of the way,” he replied and smiled. “But you’re smarter than me, aren’t you?”

  Wow. I really lost this one.

  “Fine, be difficult,” I muttered, looking away from him and out the window as the city went by.

  And of course, he mocked me, his voice getting higher as he said, “Fine, I will.” He laughed to himself before adding, “Love you, peanut.”

  I said nothing.

  “Love you, peanut!” he yelled into my ear and elbowed me a little bit, and dammit, I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Ugh, you and Darcy both! Just Ugh… Love you, too! Okay, happy?” I yelled at him.

  I also wanted to ask him how long it was going to take, but I decided just to let it go. When my dad made up his mind, there was only one person who could change it—my mom. Which was probably what Wyatt was trying to do.

  I couldn’t help but smile…somewhere, deep down, I enjoyed having him work for me, and I really wanted to see how far he’d go. “God, Love is so damn complicated.”

  “You’re preaching to the pastor,” he muttered back, and I looked at him. He just nodded like he understood because he did.

  Leaning on his shoulder, I sighed. “We’ll name our first son after you—”

  “Nice try! But no dice. You’re not slick. He hasn’t even gotten my blessing to date you, let alone have children with you!” he shot back quickly.

  Yep, total loss.

  Wyatt, I hope you are having an easier time.

  WYATT

  “Aunty Cora—”

  “Before you start,” she lifted her hands to stop me as they opened the front gate for us, her brown eyes staring at me in amusement, “I promised Declan I wouldn’t get in the middle of him and his issue with you.”

  “What? You can’t be—”

  “Dead serious. Can’t do it. Whatever you have to say, you’ll have to say to him. I won’t hear anything that has to deal with your relationship with Helen or your uncle.”

  “Not even—”

  “Nope.”

  “But it could be—”

  “Sorry.”

  “You don’t look very sorry.” I frowned, and she boldly smiled back.

  “You’re right.”

  “Aunty Cora, I don’t want to—”

  “It’s such a pretty day outside, don’t you think?” She cut me off and focused on the road.

  “I won’t tell him if you—”

  “Wyatt,” she said in a low voice and looked back over at me.

  Just like that, I felt like a child all over again. Exhaling, I just nodded, no point in pushing her. I wanted her on my side, not annoyed with me.

  “You are right, it is a nice day,” I said, looking out the window at how bright the sunlight was and how clear the sky was. It wasn’t too hot or too cold today. Just perfect enough for everyone. “I’m going to marry your daughter on a day like this.”

  I heard her suck her teeth and I glanced back over to her to find her glaring at me, so I just smiled back. “You promised you wouldn’t get in between. That’s fine. But you didn’t promise to be blind, deaf, and dumb. I’m not a child. I will say what I need to say, and that is that. I am in love with your daughter, Helen Callahan. I’m going to marry your daughter, Helen Callahan. Uncle Declan might be pissed. Other people might find it weird or disgusting, even though we aren’t related by blood, but I’m going to do what I’ve always done—whatever the fuck I want. So, you can tell Uncle Declan to keep going, to keep trying to make me feel bad, but I won’t.

  “In all honesty, I love you both, but I don’t give a shi—I don’t care. I don’t care what your feelings or reasons are. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest, but it bothers Helen. Unlike me, she actually cares what other people think, especially Uncle Declan. So, he might think he’s doing it for her good, but he’s just hurting her.

  “I made a promise to Ethan that I wouldn’t leave him again. But if I keep seeing her frown or flinch or hear her try to apologize to me because of it, I will break my promise to Ethan. You and I both know Ethan will not accept my leaving a second time. Which means I’ll have to fight my brother. And you know I’m a bit crazy like that, so I will. It will all be because of you two. Isn’t it better that we look at this like grown-ups instead?”

  She didn’t say anything for a moment and just focused on the road, a deep frown clear on her lips. Finally, she opened them to say, “I want to say you’ve grown up, Wyatt. But that look in your eyes reminds me of the little boy who came into my room hiding from his mother, demanding that I be on his side.”

  “I’m still demanding it,” I muttered. “And this time, I’m not hiding from anyone.”

  “So, nothing has changed with you.”

  “Nope, what about you?”

  “Nope,” she said back and offered me a look.

  I grinned and just looked back out the window because, just like back then, I knew she was already on my side.

  Now I had to just think of a ring…Which made me think of the red diamond Ethan had given to Calliope. He might have done it to further his cover story, that she was his true wife all along, but why did that seem off? And most importantly, what the fuck was with this damn year? Were we all supposed to be with someone before the year was over?

  Ethan and now this Calliope. `

  Dona and her fancy prince.

  Helen and I.

  How did so much change so fast, and why? It was some freaky shit now that I thought about it. It was like all the stars were trying to align.

  Or maybe it was our parents?

  Or maybe God was trying to do something. Who knows.

  “Aunt Cora, do you believe the rapture is coming soon?” I asked her jokingly.

  She huffed. “With our track record, let’s hope not. Why?”

  I shrugged. “It’s just been a crazy few months.”

  “You’ve been gone a while. For our family, this is normal. You’ll get used to it again,” she replied.

  I shook my head. “I know what it’s like for this family. But it all seems different this time. Like controlled chaos. Ethan has Ivy, and they go to Boston and destroy our enemies there. At the same time, Dona plots to take care of the Italian enemies back here. The moment Ethan comes back, Dona finds a prince and runs off with him. But then Ivy dies, and I’m left in charge just like Dona was…Helen and I…and just like that, Ethan comes back home to a daughter and a new wife? A ready-made family? It’s like one of those videos of the elaborate domino sets. You knock it over, and it looks like chaos. Then when it’s done, it’s a perfect image you weren’t expecting.”

  I stared at the light for what felt like forever, watching it shift from red to green, and as it did, I couldn’t help but wonder. He wouldn’t…Maybe it i
s our parents? Maybe they planned it all…but Mom cried…When I was in the hospital, she had wept over me. This couldn’t have been her. It put us through too much; it was too risky.

  “Wyatt, what are you trying to say?”

  I snapped out of it, meeting her eyes. “I…I’m saying…I don’t know. I’m just saying this feels odd.”

  It was a lie.

  What I wanted to say was, I think Ethan planned this—all of this—from the very beginning, and Calliope wasn’t new to him, just us. Ethan may have been lying to us about almost everything for years.

  But I couldn’t say that aloud. That was too crazy. Ethan couldn’t—he could, but he wouldn’t. To do that, he would have had to betray her with Ivy and all the other women he had before that. That would be too messy.

  But why did I feel like something was off about all of this?

  “You’ve grown so much, Wyatt.” My aunt smiled at me.

  “Me? Never, I’m still the same selfish brat as always.”

  “No.” She shook her head, and the way her deep brown eyes fixated on me slowly made my smile drop. “You’ve grown from a childish and selfish brat, to a brat who only pretends to be selfish and childish.”

  “Why would I pretend?”

  “Because you are smart,” she snickered. “And you know your place is to the left of your brother and not the center. After all, you wouldn’t want anyone to feel like they could come between or depend on you over him.”

  “You think too much, Aunty Cora. I’m just being me,” I muttered, looking out my window, escaping her gaze.

  “Of course,” she whispered. “And what a convenient you, you are.” There was a lightness in her voice like she was teasing me, and I just shook my head.

  Everyone in this family was just so damn nosy. Myself included, I thought as I listened to her cough.

  I glanced over at her. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, just a slight cold. God, I hate the winter.” She sighed heavily.

  “Helen and I will have our wedding in the summer, then. What do you think?” I asked her, and once again, she gave me a look. “Yep, this whole ride, I’m going to try to gain your approval.” I grinned.

  She just shook her head. “The only way that happens is through your uncle.”

  “We’ll see.”

  I was going to get her on my side no matter what.

  18

  “No penance could be more terrible than this

  Her very heart was dead.”

  ~ Rachel Hartman

  ETHAN

  My family had gone to St. Peter’s Cathedral almost exclusively my entire life. I never questioned it. It was the church in which my grandparents and my parents were married. It was where I was christened. It was where my daughter was born, even though people did not know that. It was the church of the Callahan family, so to drive past it and barely recognize it because of damage and the construction was a bit surreal. I’d never really cared before, but today, it felt symbolic of the state of our family. Especially considering the damage was done by none other than the new Mrs. Callahan.

  Feeling a tiny hand on my face, I looked over to see Gigi, who’d managed to wiggle through her seatbelt, standing on her seat just to pet my face. “It’s okay, Daddy.”

  “Gigi, sit down.” I held the belt for her and tried to help her back into it, and instead of getting help from her mother, I felt a larger hand on my other cheek. Glancing up, I came face to face with both my daughter and her mother grinning at me.

  “Do you feel better now, Daddy?” Gigi questioned.

  “What?” I asked, still not sure why they were holding my face.

  Calliope glanced over my shoulder. “Good job, Gigi; we can stop now.”

  Gigi grinned back at her and nodded, letting go and sitting back down carefully. I looked at Calliope, confused.

  “Mommy said you’d be sad because your church is broken, so we made sure you didn’t look, Daddy,” Gigi informed me instead.

  “We were a few seconds late, but I think we got to him in time,” Calliope added, fixing her hat.

  I looked between them before focusing my gaze on Calliope. She was the reason my church was in ruins to begin with. Now she was using our daughter to play on my emotions.

  “What do you think, Gigi?” she asked. “Should we talk him to death on the way back?”

  Gigi looked up to me. “But Daddy doesn’t like talking lots.”

  “For you,” I tapped her nose. “I’ll talk until the sun goes down and back up again.”

  She didn’t say anything. Instead, she moved from her mother and leaned on me, hugged me, and yawned again.

  “Oh no you don’t.” Calliope tried to poke her, but I brushed her hand away. “If she sleeps now, Ethan, she won’t sleep at night.”

  She was right, but I still didn’t want to disturb her. “Kids need naps anyway.”

  “Who naps at 8 a.m.?” she pressed back.

  “Her, I guess,” I shrugged, brushing Gigi’s face. “Let her off the hook; after all, you wanted to use her to help cheer me up. Though how or why you would think I’d need it is still in question.”

  “You looked a bit…sentimental,” she muttered before glancing out the window as we entered the west side of Chicago, the heart of historic Little Italy.

  “You say sentimental like it’s a bad thing,” I shot back, though she was a bit off on her assumptions.

  She didn’t reply; instead, she just sat up as the car came to a stop at a much smaller church than St. Peter’s, but I was still familiar with it. The Shrine of Our Lady of Messici. Many of the Italian families who didn’t approve of our family or the Irish went there, and the priest was not particularly friendly, either.

  Once more, I looked over at Calliope. “Must it always be the most difficult path we go down?”

  A grin spread wide across her face. “You wouldn’t happen to be scared, Mr. Callahan, would you?”

  “Terrified actually,” I replied. “One wrong word, one insult, and I’d be responsible for leveling the oldest Italian church in the city. That doesn’t help my cause.”

  “I guess we are just going to have to build thicker skin today. Gigi, open your eyes, we are here,” she said.

  Stepping out of my car door, I glanced up and down the streets. Sure enough, there were only Italians, all of them walking toward the church; however, upon seeing us, they either froze or blatantly avoided our gaze. I even watched as a few turned around and just started to walk away.

  “Well, this is going to be interesting,” my Uncle Declan said, stepping beside me as I held open the door, allowing Calliope and Gigi to slide out behind me.

  “We are Catholics going to mass,” Calliope stated. “How could that possibly be interesting?”

  “Are you sure about this?” Uncle Declan muttered.

  The only answer I had was to take the other hand of my daughter, walking forward, up the stairs into the church with her mother. The sand and peach-colored tones of the interior were the first things I noticed. The second thing was how full the service was, and that the front row, where my family usually sat, was beyond full. Calliope, unbothered, moved third to last row.

  “Excuse us,” she whispered to the people who were more focused on me, or better yet our family, who stood, somewhat at a loss of what to do. “Ethan, come. There’s space,” she called over.

  Biting my cheek, I moved into the pew with her. She glanced back to the rest of my family and mouthed, “Find seats,” as the choir began. I hadn’t had any idea what she had been planning and didn’t seek to find out, allowing her to surprise us as she wished, but now part of me wished I had.

  “Achoo!” And just like that, I felt someone’s spit on my back.

  “Sorry about that, man,” the man said before dusting off my shoulder.

  The fuck.

  Before I could turn and beat the idiot into the grave he was clearly asking for, I felt her squeeze my hand, and I shifted my glare to her. She kept singin
g.

  CALLIOPE

  “Always remember, heaven has eyes. Nothing you do is hidden from God,” the priest said as he closed his boring and uninspired service.

  The only thing that had kept me amused through it was how all of the Callahans were dealing with being with the common folk in the pews. Wyatt and Helen looked completely relaxed and fine with it. Wyatt had even spoken to a few people beside him. Declan and Cora were more serious, composed, and also on guard. Darcy and Sedric looked ready to throw a punch at the next person who not so secretly took photos of them. Neal and Mina looked bored and annoyed, respectively. But the true drama queen was Ethan, though Nari was a close second. She’d even put on sunglasses and nearly snarled at anyone who came close to her. However, the pure and utter irritation that came off Ethan, despite his best efforts to keep calm, was hilarious.

  When the service finally closed and Ethan stepped out, crossing himself before allowing us to come out as well. I let Gigi kneel, crossing herself before exiting. Ethan moved to go to the door, but I shook my head again, turning to point to where the herds of people were now walking.

  “I thought you said we had brunch today,” he asked me tentatively.

  “We do not have brunch,” I corrected, grinning. “We are serving brunch to the church today. I volunteered the family.”

  He inhaled through his nose. “We do charity at the O.S. Center.”

  “No, we do charity wherever there is a need for charity. Now come on, you are definitely washing your hands before getting your hair net and gloves.”

  “Calliope,” he called my name again, this time his voice strained.

  “Yes,” I said in the same sweet manner like I didn’t notice. Again, our eyes locked, and again, he just nodded.

  “Very well, then.” He looked over at his family, who were all now gathering close. “We are serving brunch.”

  “Here?” Darcy and Sedric said as if they were twins.

  “We do charity wherever there is a need for charity,” he repeated my words. None of them argued, and so he shot me another glance, waiting for me to lead the way.