by J. J. McAvoy
I could hear my father’s voice in my head, teaching me the rules I needed to live by.
Rule 48: Love your wife above all else…after all, she is the one who can either keep you warm at night or make sure you never wake up.
Rule 49: Never cheat. Affairs destroy the family. No face or body is worth that.
Rule 50: We are Callahans, if anyone ever disrespects us, don’t just end them, end everything they have ever cared about, both past and present. Make them the example of what happens when you fuck with the wrong family.
See, I was paying attention, Dad.
My eyelids got heavier, and reaching up, I grabbed the remote, closing the blinds before drifting back to sleep, hugging closer to Helen. And even asleep, she clung to my hand.
EIGHTEEN
“Strange, I thought, how you can be living your dreams and your nightmares at the very same time.”
~ Ransom Riggs
WYATT
“I think I should see Ethan today,” I said, looking up from my breakfast waffles…well it was half past one…so lunch waffles, I guess. “What do you think?”
Her eyes lit up as if I’d asked her run away with me. With a fat grin on her face, she nodded. “I think you should. Do you know where he is?”
“No, but I’m sure my girl could figure it out. She’s kind of a computer genius.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere.” She laughed and set her tray aside, getting up off the bed, still dressed in only my shirt, and dashed out of the room. I heard a large thump before her cursing.
“Are you okay?” I called out to her, about to get up to see for myself, but she came back, tablet in hand and limping slightly.
“Never better.” She sat beside me, and I couldn’t help it, I laughed, moving my tray over to check her foot. “I’m good, seriously—”
“You do your job, I’ll do mine,” I said as I lifted her ankle to inspect it. She made a face, but I knew it was to the hide the fact that she wanted to smile like bloody mad.
“It’s been two weeks, and he hasn’t touched any of our accounts,” she stated softly, leaning back onto the pillows as I massaged her ankle.
“What about the trackers?”
“All off.” She frowned. “Even his cell phones.”
I tried to think of some other way… “We have sensors in most of our properties, right?”
“Scans,” she said, her eyes completely glued to the screen in front of her eyes.
“I have no idea how I’m going to do this,” I muttered.
“Do what?” she asked, her eyes still not on me.
“Share your attention with your gadgets...I’m already getting jealous, but I need your help.”
She paused, moving the tablet to the side as she glared at me. “You are a little too good at flirting.”
“I was just saying the truth.” I smiled at her, rubbing circles up her legs.
“Stop, I can’t concentrate.”
“You can, you just need practice. Go on.” I nodded for her to finish her work. But she just stared at me. “Go on.”
She muttered something under her breath before looking at her screen again.
“What was that?”
“Nothing,” she said, typing away as I fought the urge to laugh at her. She could be sinfully sexy one moment and innocently cute the next. “There isn’t anything for the properties, either. He’s done his best to make sure we can’t track him.”
I sighed. He never made anything easy. “If I was him, where is the last place you’d ever expect me to be?”
“The woods?” She laughed, sitting up and she went on. “I could imagine him going all brawny and chopping down trees in the forest to vent. He’d even grow a beard—ouch!”
She yanked her leg from me, her hand going to where I had bit her. “Don’t imagine my brother when I’m with you. You already have a bad track record for falling for your cousins.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Well it’s true—”
“You are terrible!” She jumped me, trying to pin me down, forgetting she was almost completely naked and therefore at my mercy no matter what. I reached up and tickled her sides, making her squeal so loud you’d think I shot her. “STOP!’
“Promise me you won’t think of him ever again—”
“How am I possibly going to do that—ahhahaha—stop—HAHA!”
“Promise me.”
“I promise!”
Letting go of her she took a deep breath and flopped back onto the bed. “Such a cheater.”
“Me cheat? Never? I know the rules,” I joked, but then froze.
“What?”
The rules.
Reaching for the table, I held open the map.
“Wyatt?”
“Do you remember how my father would always talk about the family rules when we were growing up?” I asked her.
“Yeah, but you said you they were stupid.” She wrapped her arms around my neck and looked over my shoulder.
“I did. But Ethan always took them seriously.”
“I’m not sure how this helps? Did the rules ever say where to go when you didn’t want to be at home?”
I shook my head before switching the cameras. “Rule 5: One family. One Roof.”
“No…he’s not.”
“He is.” I grinned when, finally, I saw what I was looking for. “He’s at home. He never left the manor. He just wanted us to think he did. Where is the best place to hide when everyone is looking for you? Under their noses. In this case, in the walls.”
I showed her the heat signature that the cameras picked up of him walking in the walls of the hallways, like a ghost, at night when we should have been asleep. She shivered against me.
“So fucking creepy,” she said, just watching in awe.
“He’s been with us the whole time.” I could barely fucking believe it myself, but it was completely within his wheelhouse. Ethan loved this family more than anyone else. He believed in the rules more than anyone else. No matter how broken he felt, he couldn’t ever just abandon it…and furthermore, it gave him a perfect opportunity. “Ethan most likely knows about us.”
“Well, he’s known I have feelings for you,” she said while moving to sit beside me. “But do you think he’s been watching us?”
“I don’t think so, I know so. He might have been hurt the first few days, but I’m sure he wanted to know how someone was able to break through all of our defenses and kill Ivy. He did it also to make sure no one in the family betrayed him. He’s most likely been listening to everything.”
“Shit,” she whispered, eyes wide.
“What? I hardly doubt he’d be pissed we were—”
“Not a lot of people liked Ivy and with her gone, even if they didn’t do it, didn’t kill her, they still spoke down about her…I spoke down about her.” She frowned, putting her hands on her head. “We hurt him more.”
“Yeah.” I frowned, picking up the tablet to watch when I suddenly saw another heat signature next to Ethan’s.
No fucking way.
“It’s not Ivy.”
“How do you know?” I asked her, and she reached over, typing on the screen.
“The height difference, and the posture. Ivy sometimes hunched. This person…looks like she’s never not stood tall in her whole life…”
“Who are you talking about—”
“Who knows all, and never worries?” she whispered, looking at me with a small smile on her lips, but I wasn’t sure what she meant. “Who can survive a church falling on top of them and still walk in heels?”
“Nana?” I looked to the screen again, and just like that, it hit me.
“Rule 39: Have at least one man on the inside. Who is the one person who loves this family, has lost for this family…Evelyn Callahan.” I cracked my jaw to the side, feeling as if I were a dog at the end of its leash…not realizing I ever even had one on. “I’m now certain, without a doubt, that Ethan’s her favorite.”
“He was the fi
rst grandchild,” she reminded me while I pouted.
“I am very hurt by this. Those two are as thick as thieves,” I grumbled, and she just laughed, kissing the side of my face.
“If it makes you feel better, you’re still my favorite.”
I thought for a moment and leaned back onto her. “Yes, it does. Let’s have sex before I have to face these two.”
“You just ask for it now? You aren’t even going to set the mood? We’ve only spent one night together, Wyatt, you are a little too sure—ah…”
She moaned when I kissed her the spot right at the curve of her neck, my hand reaching up to cup her breasts, loving how they felt in my hand. With each kiss that same feeling rushed through my veins.
“Wyatt.” She moaned my name as if it was the only word she knew. I pushed her gently, and she fell back on top of the bed. The food we had been eating found its way on to the floor as I climbed on top of her.
“Say it,” I demanded, staring down into her brown eyes while pinning her hands on either side of her.
“Say what?”
“The same three words you used to bring me to my knees in front of you.”
“I was drunk remember—”
She inhaled deeply when I squeezed her wrist, her chest rising from the bed toward me. If only she knew how beautiful she looked right now, wild, how sensual…it was better she didn’t know, or I knew I’d never be able to say no to her again.
“Say it,” I demanded again, leaning in to kiss her. Her head rose to meet me, and I smirked, my lips hovering over hers. “Say it so I can say it back and kiss you.”
Her eyes went wide like she wasn’t expecting that. But I didn’t know how she couldn’t have known. “Helen, I’ve been so in love for so long I couldn’t even see it…not until you told me how you felt. So say it…not like it’s a bad thing…something you regret…something you never wanted to happen…say it…say it like we’re the best love story ever told.”
A tear threatened to fall from her eye, and all I could do was kiss them.
“I…I love you, Wyatt.”
And this time when that feeling came…like everything else was falling away, I leaned in and not away. “I love you, too.”
Her arms wrapped around my neck and her legs around my waist as my lips met hers, and despite my efforts—to be sweet, to go slow, to be a gentleman—I couldn’t. The more passionately she kissed me back, the more I wanted to dominate her…to have part of her, to make her ache and beg for me.
“Stop holding back,” she said between our kisses. “Never hold back.”
Yeah…I was a motherfucking goner.
HELEN
He held onto my hand when the elevator doors opened on the bottom floor. I tried to let go, but he just held on tighter, placing his fingers between mine. As serious as he had ever been, he looked at me and said, “I’m not hiding you. We aren’t going to sneak around. We aren’t doing anything wrong.”
“Try explaining that to my father.”
“I will,” he said, pressing hold on the elevator doors to keep them open and lead me out. And I never knew walking across the white and gold marble flooring would mean so much to me.
It all felt like a dream.
I wanted to pinch myself I was so happy.
“Have a good day, Mr. Callahan. Ms. Callahan,” the lobby man said to us, and even though he didn’t mean it that way, it still felt like we were together. Husband and wife.
“You too—”
BANG!
Suddenly everything was a blur. My eyes only just barely caught the sight of the chandelier as it shattered into a million pieces of crystal, which rained down on top of us. One moment Wyatt’s hand was in mine and he was holding onto me, and the next he was pushing me back with all his might…and I was on the floor. I was up against the marble desk.
There was throbbing, and I reached up to touch the back of my head…and then everything went silent.
“Wyatt.” I called out, but I couldn’t even hear myself.
Looking up, I saw him, the guns he’d put on under his coat now in his hands as he fired out the broken glass doors and window. Not just one, or two, or three had come—but a dozen. At least a dozen…too many for him alone.
Help.
He needed.
Help.
I turned to see both the guard and the lobby men on the ground. Their blood crawling over the marble toward me. The guard was the closet. His gun the closest. I tried to stand, but my legs wouldn’t move.
I looked down, and immediately wished I hadn’t because it was then I saw the blood all over my thigh. I was shot.
I looked to Wyatt, who was still firing. Still standing. I wondered how the hell he wasn’t hit, and it was only then that I saw…he was taking bullets! He was taking bullets! Oh god! He was fighting and taking bullets.
Crawling on to my stomach on top of the glass, I dragged myself over to the guard, and just when I was about to reach, it felt like my hand was on fire.
“HELEN!” I heard his scream through the silence.
I looked to him, and he looked to me, wide-eyed and screaming something I couldn’t hear. All I saw was the man in black pointing his gun toward Wyatt.
Ignoring the pain. Ignoring the blood that now soaked my fingers, I grabbed the gun, turned onto my side, and fired. Gripping on for dear life, I fired at them again. I watched two of them go down, but I didn’t stop. My throat hurt and I thought maybe I was screaming, but I didn’t stop. Not until the gun wouldn’t fire anymore.
When I stopped to breathe, they were on the floor. The only one still standing. The only one covered in blood, shaking - was him.
His eyes were glazed over, but he smiled. “Good shot, baby.”
“Wyatt!” I screamed, pushing myself off the ground as he began to fall. I caught onto him just before he went to the ground, his hair soaked in blood. I held on tight, inhaling quickly, and he just looked at me with that stupid beautiful smile of his.
“Why…do …they… always …gotta…gotta ruin my day?” Just like that, his eyes closed.
“WYATT! WYATT! NO!” I screamed, frantically looking around for help, but no one was there. “WYATT!”
“Please no! Please!” I take it back! I’ll give it back! I’ll give him up, but please just let this be a dream! Please!
“So Callahans can cry,” a voice said behind me, and I felt the gun pressed against my skull. “I’ll let the commissioner know.”
BANG!
“No. I’ll let him know.”
Turning around, all I could see were the bright headlights…and then suddenly a dark shadow. The closer it came, the better I could see the leather of his jacket and then his face. I smiled, and everything blurred after that.
“I told him you’d grow a beard.” I just liked that everything was black, but I wanted to cry because this isn’t how you wake up from nightmares.
Wyatt, you wouldn’t leave without me, would you?
I have no future without you.
So don’t go.
Please don’t go.
Let’s go back.
Let’s just go back.
To the time when we were kids.
I want to go back.
Please.
NINETEEN
“He was my most beloved friend and my bitterest rival,
my confidant and my betrayer,
my sustainer and my dependent,
and scariest of all,
my equal.”
~ Gregg Levoy
ETHAN – AGE SEVEN
“Someone has a cold.”
“No, I don’t,” I grumbled, trying to get out of bed. But she pushed me back down.
“Ethan, if you get out of this bed again I’ll find a new one…one with chains, and tie you down!” she snapped at me.
Frowning, I yanked the covers up, then back over myself and turned away from her. But she hugged me anyway. “I know you wanted to go fishing with your dad. But being outside will just make it worse
—”
“Wyatt’s going to beat my record.” It wasn’t fair! Why was he already so good at it! I had to practice forever, and he just did it like it was nothing.
“So what?” she said, and I turned over to look at her. Her black hair falling all on one side of her shoulder.
“Mom.”
“Don’t Mom me. So what if he beats you. You beat him at everything else.”
“I’m the older brother!”
“So what?”
Urgh!
“I’m supposed to be better!”
“Says who? Don’t you think your dad is better than Uncle Neal? He’s the younger brother.”
“You’re not making me feel better,” I grumbled, rolling over. “I don’t want to be like Uncle Neal.”
“What’s wrong with Uncle Neal?” she asked, pressing her hand on my head.
Sniffling, I rubbed my nose and told her. “He’s not the boss! Dad is because he’s the best. I have to be the best, too.”
“Ethan, you are way too young to be thinking about—”
“Nana says that Dad talked about being better than Uncle Neal all the time when they were little. But no one thought he could, and then next thing you know, he is!”
“So is that what you’re worried about?” she asked, brushing my hair. “Wyatt one day getting better than you?”
“Wyatt’s smart. He could do it,” I muttered, hoping she really didn’t hear me.
“Mio bel leoncino.” She sighed and kissed the back of my head. “I never want you to worry about this again, you hear me. Because you will be the boss. Wyatt will never take that away from you.”
Again, I turned to her slightly. “How do you know?”
She smiled, and it was her real smile. Running her hands through my hair, she said, “Because I promise that neither I or your father will ever teach him what he needs to become the boss. We’ll only teach that to you.”
“Really?” I asked slowly.
She nodded. “It’s the truth. Even now, I’m teaching him how to be your right hand. So watch, he won’t even go on this fishing trip without you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah he will, Mommy.”
