“He knows,” Kellan says. “He knows she’s important.”
“Everything we keep in this vault is essential, and Kevin figured it out,” Gage replies. “No one keeps a printed photo keepsake from summer camp in a vault unless it’s important.”
“He knows about Elly,” I say it again, this time with more conviction.
Kevin will use Elly against us. I don’t know how, but he will get to her unless we find a way to stop him—no matter what the cost is. It’s no longer about our future or the Flanagan family anymore. It’s about keeping Elly safe and figuring out how to do that while we grieve. Or rather, trying like hell to delay our grieving. This doesn’t just feel hard. It feels next to fucking impossible.
“He won’t stop until he gets to her,” I add. “Moving her out of Trinity is no longer an option.”
My brain is running a million miles a minute. “Mom needs to triple up on security.”
“That’s already been done,” Gage says, sadness thick in his voice. Not now. As much as this hurts, we can’t be sad now. Now, we have to think and we have to think quick. A part of me just wants to load a gun and pump bullets into the bastard until there’s nothing left of him. It’s pretty fucking hard to stomp that part of me down, but by the grace of something better, I manage. My mother just lost her husband – the love of her life. The last thing she needs is to lose her son to prison bars.
“So, what the fuck do we do?” Gage asks, rubbing the back of his neck. He always does that when he’s tense.
“We have to protect her,” Kellan says, looking at me. “She needs to know…”
“Hold on,” I reply. “Not necessarily. We can think of another way.”
I can’t bear the thought of Elly knowing what kind of fucked up family we come from. She’s heard the rumors by now, sure, but she doesn’t understand how deep the dirt goes for the Flanagans. She doesn’t know Kevin or what he’s willing to do in order to get his way.
Gage, Kellan and I have seen his work, more than once. We know he killed grandpa, too, not just dad… Maybe my pride is clouding my judgment. I’ll rather have Elly remember me as the guy who considered a political career, back in summer camp. Not the hot and disturbed mess I am today. There’s a part of me that feels like it’s really fucking important to hold on to the part of me that existed outside of this town.
Every bone in my body tells me to jump in my car and go be with her. To tell her everything. However, my conscience refuses. I’ve survived this long by being a cold and calculated bastard, much like my uncle. I have to keep that game face on. I have to beat him using his methods.
“Rhett, she should know what she’s up against, especially if Kevin’s people get closer,” Kellan says.
I shake my head.
“I need to think about it. We talked about this. We don’t do anything regarding Elly until the three of us are in agreement.”
“Yeah, but this is different,” Gage replies. “Her mom’s in danger, too. Hell, Kevin will go all the way to Barkston and put a bullet in her father’s head, just for kicks!”
“Enough!” I snap. “Please. Let me think this through. Let’s go to the ME, first. My mom’s waiting…”
Gage sighs. “Kevin, too.”
“And my dad,” Kellan adds, his shoulders dropping.
We have no idea how this is going to play out. But Kevin has moved some pieces across the chessboard, and now the three of us are open, while Elly’s ripe for the picking. The one thing we’ve tried so hard to avoid has happened, and the poor girl didn’t even do anything to get herself noticed by him.
All the misery we put her through… for nothing. Worrying about a spy in the school when it’s in our own fucking private spaces that he found evidence of her existence.
“Let’s go see him,” Kellan says. “Let’s go see dad.”
I’m terrified. For the first time in a very long time, I am utterly and genuinely terrified. I’ve often thought things could always get worse. They have, and I’m at a loss, because I don’t know how to protect the woman I fell in love with.
The woman we fell in love with…
22
Rhett
We’re at the morgue, and the atmosphere is exactly as I expected it would be. My mom is trying hard not to break down, knowing that Kevin would get a kick out of any display of misery. He never really loved my dad as a brother, and he does have a tendency to revel in the misfortunes of others. This becomes particularly painful to watch, as my brother and I try to comfort our mom.
There’s a glass panel to our left, through which we can see our father, lying on a stainless steel slab, covered with a white sheet. Connor is stunned, and he can’t look away from him. I don’t think he was involved, but he’ll be put in a very difficult position when Kevin finally makes his move.
Any minute now…
Gage stays close, holding mom in his arms whenever my brother and I need to take a breather. The medical examiner comes out of dad’s room, jotting down some last-minute notes on his pad. He gives us all a stern look through his square glasses.
“I’m truly sorry for your loss,” he says. “Hopefully, the tox screen report will shed more light. I just need your signature here, Mrs. Flanagan, attesting that it’s your husband that I’m about to perform an autopsy on…”
Mom can barely hold her head up at this point, and it’s tearing me apart. Kevin walks up to us, and it takes every ounce of strength I have left not to rip his throat out. Without proof, I’d simply be murdering my uncle, and there’s no way my brother and I will get control of the family business if we come across as raging psychopaths. I need to play my cards carefully, especially since he’s got Elly in his sights.
“Yes… Yes…” Mom manages as she scribbles her signature on a document with a shaky hand. Leaning back into Gage, she looks at Kellan and me. “I can’t be here anymore…”
“I’ll drive her home,” Brigitte says, getting up from one of the chairs in this waiting space. She didn’t have time to slip into something that says “grieving sister-in-law,” since she was pulled out of class for this. Brigitte Marchand is known as the erotic fantasy of every teenager in Trinity High, mainly because of her tight pencil skirts and lacy cleavage—nothing too raunchy, but just enough to stir some boners whenever she walks into class or a PTA meeting.
I’d like to tell her to go fuck herself, but my mom does need to go home, and neither of us can leave until we talk to Kevin. I’m not worried about my mom leaving with Brigitte. As emotionally weak she might be right now, she’s physically stronger than Brigitte and she’ll throw her right into the Lion’s mouth if Kevin tries to get his goons to pull some shit. Plus, there’ll be security trailing them every inch of the way.
Right now, I have to understand where Connor stands, and quickly. If we have his support, we’ve got more muscle than Kevin—at least for long enough to make a difference and find something that disqualifies him from the succession. Or until we find someone we can trust to get him out of the picture, because that is still an option my brother and I are considering.
“Thanks, Brigitte,” I reply, my tone clipped.
She gives me a faint nod and puts an arm around my mom’s shoulders, gently escorting her out of the room. She doesn’t have a blinking clue that Kevin is behind this.
The medical examiner excuses himself, vanishing into his office down the hall. The waiting area is suddenly dense with skull-crushing pressure, as Gage, Kellan, Connor, Kevin and I exchange glances.
“Do any of you know what happened?” Kevin asks, choosing to play the innocent uncle straightaway. All the more reason to break his neck the first chance I get.
“How could we? We weren’t there,” I say.
Kellan’s nostrils are flaring as he scowls at Kevin. “They had bodyguards with them. They should be able to tell us more. Where are they?”
“I don’t know,” Kevin shrugs. “When I got here, I only saw your mother.”
I look at Gage. “If t
hey’re MIA, we need to find them.”
“Think they were involved?” Gage replies, raising an eyebrow.
“Someone must’ve paid them off,” I say.
Kevin clears his throat. “Who would want to hurt Harry, huh? And who’d be stupid enough to pay off the bodyguards to get to him? This doesn’t make sense. Maybe it’s natural causes, boys.”
“Does that look like natural causes to you?” Kellan hisses, pointing at our father. His lips are purplish-red, swollen unnaturally, and there are crusts of dried foam around his mouth. “He was poisoned, and the tox screen will show you that much!”
“The diner staff were all taken into custody,” Connor interjects, feeling the pressure rise in the Flanagan cooker. “I’ll head down to the precinct and see what progress they’re making with the interviews.”
Kellan scoffs, and I know he’s about to lose control over his tongue. “Don’t bother. They won’t offer any useful insights. We all know what this looks like.”
“Oh?” Kevin sounds intrigued. He’s really not making it any easier for me not to kick him in the face right now. My blood simmers, my breathing ragged as I try to focus on what’s truly important—our family’s safety. And Elly’s…
I grip Kellan’s upper arm, coaxing him to move back a couple of feet. “Let’s not rush to any judgment yet, brother. You know there are many variables at play right about now.”
“Variables?” Kevin asks, prompting Gage to chuckle bitterly. “Did I say something funny, O’Donnell?”
“Not funny, sir, no.”
“We need to talk about succession, so if you two boys are done with pointing fingers in all the wrong direction, I’m ready,” Kevin replies, shifting his focus on Kellan and me.
Connor’s gaze darkens. Gage glares at him, waiting for some kind of opposition. At least a bit of Connor-style wisdom about not rushing into things. But Kevin has every reason to rush now, because my father didn’t have a will drawn up recently. Everything we inherited from grandpa is up for grabs, due to the family succession laws. I curse the day our great-grandfather came up with this preset shit. It makes legal disputes particularly difficult and downright hairy.
“It’s a little early to talk about succession, don’t you think?” I ask Kevin, since Connor won’t say a fucking word. “Dad’s body isn’t even cold yet.”
Kevin sneers at me. “Rhett, the truth is your father’s body is as cold and as stiff as it’s going to get, before the rot sets in. According to the family succession rules, I am to take over everything, and that means—”
“Oh, you were dying to get to this point, huh?” Kellan snaps, a vein swelling across his temple. Gage reacts almost on instinct, moving closer toward us to hold him back, in case he lashes out.
“And this is why you’re too green to participate in such conversations,” Kevin replies dryly. “Now, where was I? Yes, so! According to family succession rules, I am to take over everything until one of you turns twenty-one. The paternal line is indisputable, but there is still the age factor. You’re both too young to take the reins, and I’m simply the only other option. Are we going to agree on this, or will you make things difficult? Just so I know how to handle you.”
It’s all a fix. He’ll get rid of me and Kellan before either of us turns twenty-one. If we let him take over, we’re basically signing our own death sentences. If we dispute the family rule, we draw the ire of the entire association, including Connor and his people—not to mention the cops on the Flanagan payroll. They won’t trust Kellan and me for anything, especially not while Kevin is still alive to wiggle that silver tongue of his around.
We need another angle, and this one isn’t it.
“You’re not getting away with this shit,” Kellan hisses, pointing a finger at Kevin.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Kellan. Rules are rules. You of all people know that,” Kevin shoots back, then glances at Connor. “Am I in the wrong here?”
“No, you’re not,” Connor concedes, though I know he’s not happy with any of this. He keeps looking at my father. He’s not coming back, Connor.
“Then it’s settled. I’ll meet you all at the house tomorrow morning. Take some time to grieve, to process everything… I know it’s rough. I’m sorry things happened this way,” Kevin sighs, struggling to feign some kind of empathy.
I grab Kellan and pull him away without so much as a goodbye, but Kellan isn’t done yet. He yanks his arm back and bolts after Kevin, who’s already on his way out the door. Before Connor or even Gage can react, he has Kevin by the shirt and slams him against the wall.
“I know you did it. This kind of shit doesn’t fly, Kevin!”
“Kellan, stop,” I say, reaching them. My attempts to get him away from Kevin fail, though. Kellan is a judo champion and a fucking boulder when he sets his mind to it. “Please.”
“No! He needs to know this!” Kellan snarls. “He needs to understand that he can’t just go around killing people and stealing things just so he can get his way!”
Kevin’s expression morphs into a broad grin. “Oh, so that’s what it’s about!”
For a moment, Kellan, Gage, Kevin and I are on the same page. We all know this is about the safe and about what went missing from it. Connor, however, frowns in confusion.
“What’s going on here?”
“My nephews think I’d actually kill my brother for the inheritance,” Kevin says, moving away from the hot topic. It’s not like we can tell Connor about the safe. He doesn’t even know it was in Gage’s study to begin with—besides, we’ve got dirt on him, too, should we ever need it. Gage, Kellan and I made a pact to never tell anyone about our little project. It’s obvious now why we made the right choice, but Kevin still found out about it, and that brings a whole new set of troubling questions on top of the ones we already have.
This son of a bitch killed our father, and he probably had a hand in grandpa’s demise, too. We can’t let him get away with it, but we can’t give him the opportunity to bury us, either. Gage and I manage to pull Kellan away.
“Cool your fucking jets,” I whisper. “This isn’t the way.”
Kellan’s breath is sharp and ragged. He’s trying so hard to keep it together, the poor guy. His eyes are glassy with tears, and I feel his grief as it echoes mine. The pain, the agony, the misery… it’s all in here, inside both of us. But Kevin will use it to his advantage, so we can’t show him anything.
“He did it,” Kellan mutters, staring at me.
I nod slowly. “Come on, Kellan… Let’s go…”
It takes a while, but Kellan finally relents. Gage and I take him out of the waiting area, leaving Connor with Kevin. We make our way out of the building, and every muscle in my body starts to tremble. It’s becoming increasingly harder to control this rage… it won’t stop until Kevin is gone.
“He’s got our stuff,” Gage says as we go down the stairs. It’s late night now, and a myriad of ignorant stars are splattered across the sky, unaware of our plight. Others our age deal with college application stress and student loans. Kellan, Gage and I have been forced to grow up much sooner than we’d thought.
“We can’t beat him like this,” I say, looking up at the half-moon. “We need to get better at playing his game. Right now, we can’t be a known threat to him, or he’ll go after Elly.”
“A known threat?” Gage asks, his curiosity piqued. He knows I choose my words carefully, especially where Kevin is concerned.
“Let’s go for a drive,” I reply. “There’s a lot we need to talk about. Tomorrow, we need to start the funeral preparations and stay close to mom. Tonight could very well be our last window before Kevin takes over, and we’re all fucked.”
That’s the problem with having psychopaths in the family. They do whatever it takes to get what they want.
No matter the cost.
No matter how many lives they ruin.
No matter how many lives they snatch in the process.
The only wa
y to deal with someone like Kevin is to think like him. And Kevin likes to play three-dimensional chess.
Unfortunately for him, he’s not the only one.
23
Back in Summer Camp, Day 20
I doubt I’ll have another summer as strange and as beautiful as this.
Kellan is sweet and horny all the time—and I don’t mind. Turns out I’ve got quite the libido myself, and he knows how to push the right buttons whenever we’re alone. Sometimes, I feel guilty because I think about Rhett more often than I should. He’s been at the center of a few wet dreams, as well. Gage isn’t far from my mind, either. I remember watching him please three women at once, and I’ve fantasized about what it would be like for me to be pleased by three men at once.
There are only three I’d do such things with, anyway, and they’re all tight and close together, which makes all this just raunchy wishful thinking. But they’re amazing, and I love spending time with them. Tonight, there’s a party behind the main cabin, out by the lake. The camp managers brought in a mobile bar and portable photo booths.
Colored lightbulbs hang from the trees, and music blasts through several speakers. It’s one of the few times when the four of us are actually in public, with the rest of the camp. Rhett and Kellan are by the bar, getting us fruity mocktails, which we’ll then complete with some of the vodka they keep stashed in the back of the Range Rover.
Trinity High: High School Bully Romance Page 18
