by A. P. Moraez
“Yes, you do!” Ms. Taylor cried.
“Aunt Grace…” Laura tried to placate her, but the woman was inconsolable.
“I’m leaving. I can’t be here right now,” the old woman said, raising from her spot next to her niece. While tears ran freely down her wrinkled face, she incinerated Ash with her hardened eyes, “He loved you, you know? You were like a son to him. He deserved better than that. We all have always liked you, Ash. How could you lie to you like that?”
Ash rose too, not knowing exactly why. Half of him wanted to hug her, even though it was clear all the woman wanted from him right now, and probably for the rest of her life, was distance. Also, it felt weird trying to answer to those claims while sitting holding hands with his sister.
When he took a step toward Ms. Taylor, she flinched, as if she was freaking afraid of him; something that he’d never imagined possible before today.
After she took a step back, away from his, he raised both hands in a placating gesture and took one step back, legs touching the cushion of the sectional behind him.
“You’re right,” he said in as much of a firm voice as he could muster after seeing a person he liked so much flinch away from him in fear. “Morgan is dead because of me.”
“Ash,” Cass started, “that’s not tr—”
“It is,” the words left him way harsher than he’d intended. “It is,” he said in a calmer voice, immediately regretting having raised his voice to her. “I pissed off a monster, by betraying him and killing both his lover and his daughter in the same night. Then I was arrogant and vindictive and didn’t finish ending him, like I should have, and now Morgan has paid the price for that.”
The silence was heavy in the room again and everyone was staring at him as if he was a crazy person.
“And soon you’re all gonna pay the same price, if we don’t take action. If we don’t protect ourselves.”
“I just don’t understand,” Jeff said after a few seconds of no one reacting to his words. “And don’t get me wrong, little bro, I don’t want anything to happen to you, but why didn’t he just get to you that day at your house or something? Because it was him, right? I mean, now things are clearer and it just fits that it was him who terrorized you that day and cut off the power to your home and then—”
“Yes,” Ash interrupted, knowing where he was going. He just let the thought that Jeff had just called him little bro, even having just gotten to know every sordid bit of Ash’s story, comfort him for a moment before he continued. “It was probably him that day. And it was probably him who set fire to my place too.”
“Thank God you weren’t there that day, son,” Tom said, voice deeper than usual. “Thank God.”
Son. He’d called him son again, even knowing his truth now. Maybe… maybe it wasn’t all over after all.
“Sadly, I don’t think God had much to do with it,” Ash said. When Tom’s brow furrowed in confusion, Ash proceeded to clarify. “Not that much to do with God, but with Lazarus himself.”
Logan was still in that statue-like state of his and it was making Ash’s stomach cramp. The only thing that’d changed was that, after hearing Lazarus’ name, he sneered for a fraction of a section and his fists seemed to go paler, as if he was tightening them even more, and then he was back to flexing his jaw and staring blankly ahead. Ash would’ve gladly taken anything over this. He was ready for Logan to yell at him; scream and throw a fit and say he hated him; to accuse him of lying and deceiving and being as much of a monster as he claimed those men of his past to be. But this? Cold, complete silence, and a lack of reaction? It was scaring him more than anything else.
Ash brought his gaze back to Tom and Martha, who were holding hands, cleared his throat, and explained, “If Lazarus wanted me dead, I’d be dead by now. He is a lot of things, temperamental and capricious being two of them, but he isn’t stupid. Believe me, if I wasn’t home that night when he set fire to the place, it’s because that’s exactly how he intended it to be.”
“But why?” Jeff asked. “Why all these games? Why coming for someone like Morgan when I’m sure he’s had plenty of opportunities to get to you? Damn, if he’s really the one behind the fire, he’s been here for weeks, at least. Why not just go for you directly?”
Ash snorted humorlessly. “He’s always liked to play a little with his victims before going for the kill, Jeff. Countless times when I knew he’d acquired a new target, I’d try to convince him to just end them quickly and move on. You know what he’d say to me, timer after time?” Jeff waited, eyes widened. “What’s the fun in that, B? Why just kill them if we make them shit their pants first? You know I love a little game.” Ash was panting. “That’s what he’d say.” Everyone was back to looking at him as if he was crazy. “And you know who’d most likely have to set up the games, devise the torturing plans and, most of the times, execute them?” Ash directed to his brother. “Me.
“It was I who had to hunt entire families, sometimes, only for his amusement. It was I who had to glue people’s eyes open and make them watch as Leo’s men raped and murdered their families, children included. It was all me.”
Dead silence blanketed the room. Even Ms. Taylor, who’d been so intent on leaving, had stopped beside Soph, next to the fireplace, half-way through her path to the front door, at some point.
“There’s nobody that knows how his mind works as much as I do. He’s always been like that. He likes to play mental games; weaken the victim as much as he can before giving them what most times is a terrible, gruesome death. And he’d do that to people who’d just pissed him off in business. What do you think he plans to do to someone who killed his lover, snapped his daughter’s neck, set fire to his home, and then almost killed him?”
“So, you’re saying—”
“What I’ve been trying to say for the last hour,” Ash interjected, “is that you’re all in grave danger. All of you, for the sole fact that he knows that I l—” Ash knew how the word would sound in their ears. It’d sound like an attempt to regain their sympathy and trust. It’d sound like he was trying to soften the new way he was sure they were seeing him now. They could think whatever they wanted, but he was tired of being untrue. He inhaled sharply and exhaled the words, “Because he knows I love you.”
Nobody said the words back, but that was okay. He wasn’t expecting them to.
“What do we do now?” Soph asked the question everyone was scared to ask. “How do we stop him?”
“We’re gonna work things out,” Logan said, and hearing his voice after so long had Ash startling and twisting his neck in his direction.
Logan didn’t look at him. He’d risen from his spot on the sofa and was regarding the whole room with his piercing blue orbs.
“We’re gonna figure things out,” he repeated. “I’m gonna call Duke and explain to him the situation just got way more serious. Ian too. I’m calling him back from vacation earlier. I’m gonna Duke him to come ASAP and bring reinforcements from his firm and call every contact he has to bring reinforcements too, if necessary. Everyone in this room is gonna be assigned bodyguards around the clock until that man is dealt with.”
Peter, who’d been quiet so far, choosing to only listen to everything going on, tried to interject with a frail, “But—”, but Logan cut him off with a glare that could cut a man in half.
“No exceptions,” Logan said.
Everyone started to nod in agreement, even Ms. Taylor, who seemed to get paler and paler the more she heard.
“For now,” Logan continued, after getting confirmation that everyone agreed with his plan, “nobody leaves the house, okay?”
“But we have to go back to the hotel,” Lauren countered. “We left the front desk in the hands of a neighbor. We can’t just stay here all day, Logan.”
Logan settled his gaze on her and, for the first time, it softened a little. “I know this sucks, but what do you think can prevent the same thing that happened to Morgan from happening to you, your aunt, or anyon
e of us if we go out there without security right now?” Lauren’s eyes widened at his words. “For all we know, he could be waiting just around the corner, ready to murder us too. I think your life is more valuable than a day’s worth of money at the hotel, don’t you?”
Niece and aunt exchanged a look, then Ms. Taylor begrudgingly retook her seat next to her niece.
“It’ll take at least until tomorrow morning for Duke, Ian and the guys get here, so you’re all spending the night here, alright?”
“I should call my parents and Dallbelo’s to explain the situation, then,” Peter said.
“What do you mean, explain the situation?” Cass said, astonished, “You’re not gonna tell your parents and you’re boss you can’t step foot out on the streets because there’s a psychopath with his eyes set on you, are you? Imagine how well that will go down.”
Peter rolled his eyes and scratched his hipster beard. “I’m not that much of a dumbass, ya know.” He got to his feet, cellphone already in hand. “I’m just gonna tell them something happened with the baby and you need me or something.”
He was already several feet away, heading for the privacy of the kitchen, when Cass cried, “Peter! Hold up!” and hurried after him, clearly astonished by her boyfriend’s choices.
“I’m going to the office,” Logan announced as he turned around, heading for the stairs that led to the second floor of the massive double A-frame. “I need to make the calls and get things going.”
“Logan,” Ash pleaded, before he could control himself, without even knowing why it’d seemed so imperative that he tried to get Logan’s attention before he left the room.
Already a few yards away from him, a few inches from the first step of the stairs, Logan froze when he heard his name, and his shoulders tightened and bunched under his sweater.
What should he say? What could he say to get Logan to talk to him? Was there something he could say to prod how screwed their relationship was after the events of this morning?
He took too long, though, to say something. Logan took the silence as an opportunity to start on his way upstairs two steps at a time, without sparing Ash a single glance or word, and it all was stinging him like hell.
“We should check on Trav,” Soph murmured, finishing the drink she’d poured herself at some point when Ash hadn’t been paying attention. “It’s been a long time since we sent him upstairs.” She deposited the glass on the fireplace’s mantel and went to her husband. She tugged him from the couch, hand in his.
“Yeah,” Jeff agreed, as he rose from where he’d been sitting for the last hour or so.
Ash averted his eyes when Jeff was about to pass by him on his way upstairs, with his wife. He’d taken charge of the situation earlier and explained and been brutally honest and direct about what was going on, but it wasn’t like him. Just having to talk as much as he’d talked today had drained his energy. Add to that the shame he was feeling for knowing that the people he loved and considered his family now knew how much of a cowardly liar he’d been since day one… yeah, it’d be a while until he felt he could look them in the eyes again. That was: if they still chose to let him be a part of them once this was over and they didn’t have to share air with him anymore.
Today, they were confined here for their own safety, but what about tomorrow? Would he still get to share marshmallows with them? Would he still be expected to attend to every O’Farrell bimonthly gathering? Would he still get to arrive to a home filled with the scents of Irish food and slow-dance with Martha to the ancient ABBA songs? Truth was, he wasn’t feeling that optimistic about it.
A firm, warm hand landed on his shoulder. Ash, on the verge of tears, looked up to find Jeff’s unendingly kind, green eyes on him. Soph was right there at his side, deeper greens as intent on Ash as her husband’s. She was all badass with her piercings and tats, but in that moment, her deeper greens emanated only understanding and… and Ash couldn’t take it. He bit his bottom lip hard, to keep it from trembling, and tried to avoid their eyes.
Jeff didn’t let him. He held Ash’s face under the chin and made him look right into his eyes. They were watery green now, brimming with emotions that were long overdue. Ash tried to be a man and keep eye contact, for once in his life. He owed Jeff this. He owed all of them this: to be a man and look them in the eyes for once in his life, with the knowledge that now there were no more lies between them, and take whatever it was they had to dish out.
Jeff squeezed his shoulder real hard and said, “I get it now.” He gave Ash a tentative smile, all vulnerable, and it cut his heart in two. “I get it. How you were when you got here. Why you were all weird.”
Ash laughed meekly as the tears fell.
And then Martha and Tom were there too, and they all were looking at him with a mixture of sadness and love and understanding that was simply a lot to see on faces you loved so much. He didn’t know what to say, neither did he know how to keep himself from crying.
“You were just a kid, Ash. Just to think that someone could be so nasty and take advantage of kids who were already living rough to begin with…” Tom trailed of, a shade of gray taking over his eyes that Ash had seen in just a few occasions before — mostly when strangers arrived at O’Farrell’s after nine, demanding food.
“Don’t try to minimize what I did, Tom,” Ash said. Even though all that he wanted was for people to forgive him for being weak and succumbing to all that was Leonardo Lazarus, he couldn’t just let them not realize what kind of person he was; what kind of danger they had been in from day one, just for associating with someone like him. “Didn’t you hear anything I said? I killed. I tortured. I was as much of a criminal as Leonardo and his men. You should be afraid of me.” Ash encompassed all those around him with his gaze. “You all should.”
Tom was shaking his head even before he had finished talking. “What I heard was a story of how an unfortunate kid was taken in by what he didn’t know was the worst kind of predator and how he had his head filled up with garbage.” He was breathing heavily, eyes ardent with emotion. “All I heard was a story of how a monster constantly took advantage of easily impressionable kids who thought they didn’t have any chance anymore in the world out there and used them for his own gain.”
Ash, in turn, started shaking his head too. Tears ran hot down his face, in streams. It was like all the pent up anxiety, anger, regret and self-pity had finally found a way out of his body and they simply would not be contained.
“It’s not that simple, Tom,” Ash managed to say in a somewhat steady voice. “The things I did… you can’t just forgive me for them. You guys can’t just do that.”
“I can, and I’ve already done it,” Tom said, big hand clamping down on Ash’s other shoulder, imitating his son, who hadn’t stopped squeezing Ash since minutes before. “Because you’re my son, and I know the man I’ve known through the last ten years, and I love you. Damn,” he snorted out a laugh. “Can’t you see? We’ve all already forgiven you.”
“But—” Ash tried.
“And no, I’m not talking about what you did in the past. Those are things you, and only you, can forgive yourself for. I’m talking about leaving us in the dark. It was dumb, and I think that if you had come clean with us a few years down the line, maybe we’d be safer right now; maybe we’d have known what to expect.” Ash could only nod. “That said, I see now it was heavy stuff that a person doesn’t simply start talking about unless they absolutely have no other choice. I get that now. So, I forgive you for not telling me sooner. We all do, right guys?”
Everyone around him voiced their agreement. Cassady was hugging him so tight and crying so much with her face buried onto his neck, that he didn’t know what were his tears and hers anymore.
And then Ash’s whole world went dark when Jeff brought both Cass and him crashing against his massive chest. He squeezed them so much, Ash thought they’d burst. “We’re family,” he said, “and as dad said, I don’t care about the stupid things you did when yo
u were a dumb teen.”
Ash would like to be able to claim that he didn’t whimper-cried right at that point, overcome with the emotion of being accepted for what he was by the people he loved with all his heart, but he couldn’t.
“Besides,” Jeff continued, pressing a wet kiss to Ash’s temple and then repeating it to his sister, “if you wanted to kill us, you’d have done it by now. It’s been close to a decade. Plenty enough time if you were really the monster you want us to believe you are, you know… to have murdered us all.”
“Jeff!” Soph, who was also hugging Ash with her right arm and her husband and sister-in-law with the other, cried.
“What?” Jeff laughed. “It’s true.”
Ash heard more than saw Martha’s wet laughter coming from his left when he was hugged by her half from the side and half from behind.
“All that matter is who you are now, Ash,” Martha said. “All that matters is the man you’ve proved time and time again, through all this years, that you are. To us and to everyone around you. There’s no old bad that is bad enough to erase all the good you did for this family since that day when Tom found you in the snow, dear.”
Ash had never cried harder in all his life. Well, maybe he’d cried harder that day in the forest when Logan’s father made him believe in all those lies, but that was it. Only that moment surpassed this one in terms of tears streaming down his face.
“We’re family,” Tom confirmed, squeezing himself in the little room available on what had quickly become the biggest group hug ever, “and there’s nothing that’s ever gonna come between us.”
Tom wrapped his arms then around his whole family and they all hugged tight and strong, like the bonds between them, and Ash just couldn’t believe his luck for having them accept him back, just like that.
“Oh, guys,” came Lauren’s voice at some point on his right, “you all ruined my makeup.” And then the hug got even tighter and warmer as she joined them.
The only one missing now was Grace, but she surely wasn’t joining them. And Ash got it. Morgan had been her oldest friend and she loved him very much, and now he was gone. Gone because Ash was an arrogant idiot who hadn’t finished the most important job he’d had at the time.
