by TJ Nichols
His brother wasn’t a bad person. He wasn’t evil. He was just determined, and he liked results. Cody couldn’t believe that Connor would be eternally punished for escaping his life. God should welcome him and tell him it would all be okay.
The priest stopped talking, and Cody’s father walked to the pulpit. He took a moment to survey the crowd. Dad had always been a fan of the dramatic pause. Cody slid down a little in the pew, not wanting to be seen, but didn’t take his eyes off his father. He’d aged… of course he had. It had been fifteen years. Time had not been kind, though. His jowls sagged, and instead of going bald gracefully, his father combed over what was left. He’d gained more weight—too much fancy food and wine. Those had always been his vices.
His father did a good job of not mentioning the drugs in his speech. He just talked about how much Connor would be missed. Cody tried to imagine Connor snorting up coke, but he failed. His brother had always seemed so straitlaced, so good. And yet something must’ve been eating him up from the inside.
If Cody dropped dead tomorrow, no one would miss him. Well, the magicians he worked with would. He was sure the shop’s staff would miss him, because they’d no longer have jobs. The dancer who left glitter in his bed occasionally would find another casual lover. He probably already had more than Cody on the go. Cody didn’t care if he did.
Looking at the large photo of his brother at the front of the church was like looking in a mirror at the life he could’ve had. He wanted to get up and walk out. Coming home was a mistake. He was sure of it. Just as he’d been sure he couldn’t finish college.
He’d have made a crappy lawyer.
Lily got up to speak. She was obviously gutted—by the death or by the other bits of Connor’s life that had been revealed? He was there because she asked him to come and because of what he and Connor had once had. They’d been close. He shouldn’t have let that go, but it was gone. He exhaled. Lily looked right at him. Her face paled, and her voice faltered.
Cody wanted to slide onto the floor, but the man next to him would have noticed that and he was already getting an odd look. How many people didn’t know Connor had an identical twin?
Lily recovered and finished her speech. His older brother Peter said a few words, looking more like their father than Cody had thought possible. They hadn’t been close. He hadn’t needed an older brother because he always had Connor. Then Julia got up. She was no longer the awkward teen with braces that she’d been when he left home. She’d hated him for causing all the arguments in the family and then for leaving. Connor had told him that she never forgave him and refused to even talk about him.
A few other people spoke. Then there was a final round of prayers and a song. Lily’s reaction to him stuck in his mind. His presence must be so weird for her, like looking at a ghost. Why had she asked him to come? She was under no obligation. He was surprised she even had his email.
He was waiting for something to go wrong.
While everyone got up and went forward to offer condolences to the family, he stepped out. He didn’t want to face his family with a curious audience. He wasn’t prepared for that performance, and he still didn’t know why he bothered to come. It didn’t change anything. The panic he felt when he first read her message was still lodged in his chest.
He walked through the cemetery to where the family plot was. It went back to the twenties, when the family had first come into money. He knew the tale. They’d made their fortune bootlegging. Then they’d become respectable citizens during the Second World War and never looked back.
Cody dug his toe into the dirt.
Twins ran in the family. He had two sets of twins as cousins. Anyone who married into the family was warned to expect more than one, like it was some kind of joke—or curse.
There was a fresh hole in the ground, ready for his brother. Cody stood on the edge. It could easily be his. No doubt, that was what his father wished.
Connor was really gone.
There was a little ache, but it didn’t hurt the way it should. When his family cut him off, he cauterized the wound, and the scar tissue had no feeling.
“You came,” a woman said behind him.
Cody jumped and almost fell into the hole. “I had to.”
Lily stared at him as though looking for someone else. She was looking to see her husband in him. He wanted to step back, but if he did, he’d fall into the hole. He edged away to put precious inches between him and the grave.
“You don’t look as much like him as I expected. I’ve seen pictures….”
“Growing up, people struggled to tell us apart. But we were always given the same haircut and clothing.” His mother had thought it cute. By high school, Cody was over it. He shaved his head and hadn’t been allowed back at school until it grew. For three weeks Connor was forced to bring him homework and take the completed assignments back to school. Connor hated playing courier. They never had the same haircut again.
Lily nodded. “Did you know about the—” She made a small choking sound. “—the drugs?”
“No. We, umm… we didn’t speak much. I don’t get along with my family. I think it was hard for him.” She must know that. She must have heard his father talking about what a disgrace he was. To stay in Dad’s graces, Connor would’ve been forced to agree.
“They don’t speak of you. I only knew you existed because Connor would talk about you. He would often tell the story of the day you quit college, like you were some kind of hero.”
Cody stared at his shoes. He should’ve polished them, but he’d been in a rush.
“I had to go through his things to get your email. I tried to call, but I didn’t know what to say and I didn’t think I’d be able to speak to you if you sounded like him.”
“I’m sorry.” He was apologizing for being her dead husband’s twin.
She shook her head. “You don’t sound like him at all. You aren’t him…. I was hoping that you’d be more like him. I was hoping you’d be able to tell me all the secrets that he kept.”
Connor didn’t keep secrets. Well, except one. Connor had known Cody was gay for years before Cody told anyone else. When had he learned to keep things hidden?
“You knew him better than me, in the end.” Lily and Connor had been married for four years. Cody didn’t go to the wedding. It was Connor’s day, and Cody showing up would have only spoiled it. They both knew that, and Cody hadn’t planned on going. But the invitation from Connor had included a request for him to stay away. That hurt, and their relationship was never the same.
Tears brimmed in her eyes. “I didn’t know him at all.”
Cody hesitated, but then gave her a brief hug.
She held on like he was a lifeline. “He left something for you. It’s all sealed up. I don’t have it here, but I can give it to you another time.”
What on earth could Connor have left him? “You didn’t peek?”
“No.” She sniffed and drew back. “He told me, after an argument with your father, that you would want to know what was in there.”
“Why didn’t he send it to me?”
“I think he planned to. It sat on his desk unaddressed for over a month. Then… then he didn’t.”
“Connor and Dad never argued.” Connor did as he was told. He was Dad’s go-to man, the one who’d take over the business.
Lily drew in a breath. “They did during the month before his death. Connor was hardly home, and when he was, he was paranoid.”
“That was probably the drugs.”
She shook her head. “No. He was using before that.”
“Really?” Connor had never even smoked a joint in high school.
“Something was going on between your father and Connor. And now he’s dead.”
“Lily….” He wanted to say something comforting, but he had nothing. Maybe it was Lily who was paranoid.
“Do you know a Benitez? Your father does business with him.”
Cody shook his head. “I haven’t spoken
to my father in years.”
She glanced over Cody’s shoulder. “Speak of the devil.”
Clearly she didn’t love her father-in-law. Cody turned. His father and mother were striding across the lawn.
Oh fuck. That was the confrontation he wanted to avoid. He’d spent too long talking to Lily, but it would’ve been rude to brush her off. And she’d offered an interesting tidbit. Connor and their father had argued before his death. He wondered if Dad told the police that? Probably not. He would’ve put on the mask of devastated father.
“You have some nerve showing up here.” His father’s voice was hard. His face had changed from the façade of grief to the barely contained rage that Cody had spent his childhood dodging. There was nothing soft or kind in his father’s eyes.
“Connor was my brother. I needed to be here.” Oh to be back in Vegas and not dealing with any of this. Suck it up. This is your family and the only one you have. “I still can’t believe it. It doesn’t seem real.” Maybe that was why he wasn’t hurting. He expected Connor to walk around the corner at any moment. The Connor who snorted cocaine on his lunch break wasn’t the brother he’d known.
“It shocked us all.” But his father didn’t look shocked now that he was out of the public eye. It had always been that way. One smile for the people he worked with or wanted to work with and one for his family. His father was the typical “nice guy.” Which meant he wasn’t nice at all.
“How are you holding up, Mom?” Lily stood close to him, as though she were afraid of his father.
His mother looked like she was about to crumble and fold up into nothing right in front of him, like an elaborate disappearing trick. But there were no props and no hat to make her reappear.
“I have been better.” Her voice was brittle.
His father gave a grunt, as though to close the matter. “I suppose you came for the will reading, to see if he left you any money.”
Cody smothered his laugh with a cough. He hadn’t even thought about that. He hadn’t expected Connor to leave him anything. “I’m not—”
“I’ll make sure you don’t see a cent of anything he left you.” There was the father he knew.
“Please respect Connor’s last wishes.” Lily’s voice sounded fragile. “I don’t know if he left you anything.” That was a lie, as they both knew he’d left Cody something in that unsent envelope. “But if it’s in his will, then you’ll get it.” Her voice firmed.
His father bristled, but he kept his mouth closed.
Cody didn’t want to be around for that clash. “I’m going to leave.”
“You shouldn’t have come.” His father glared at him.
Cody held his father’s gaze. “You didn’t want me to come. There is a difference.”
He walked away before his father could argue that there was no difference. His brother and sister were crossing the lawn with their partners in tow. He should stop and say something, but they were strangers to him—people he knew from photos. They’d probably tell him to leave too, and in a few days, they’d be gone, back to their busy lives.
As he went out the gate, his phone buzzed. He checked the message.
Lily wanted to meet him for coffee.
If he were smart, he’d go back to Vegas and never look back. But he wanted to know what Connor and Dad had argued about. He wanted to know what was in that envelope that Connor hadn’t sent. There was something going on, but he didn’t know which part of the performance he should watch to unravel the trick. There were too many distractions.
“ARE YOU sure you’re okay watching her?” Marie put on another coat of mascara.
“It’s fine,” Olivier said.
Danika had started on the terrible twos early, but right then she was asleep. All Olivier had to do was sit back and watch TV until he fell asleep on the sofa. His sister wouldn’t wake him when she got home. They’d have breakfast together. It wasn’t the first time she hadn’t been able to get a sitter. He knew that sometimes Danika was watched by the light-fingered old woman who lived down the hall. Marie couldn’t leave a roll of bills hidden in the flat without the old woman finding it.
“I love you. And I will owe you.”
Olivier gave a small smile. “Quit. That will make me happy.”
She was three years older and had been working in one of Benitez’s brothels since she turned eighteen. When he turned eighteen, she’d brought him in. They both owed two decades of service because of Benitez’s generosity. At first Olivier had driven people around. Then, as he’d hit his early twenties and bulked up, he’d been a bouncer at various clubs or massage parlors. One day he’d been handed a gun and given a target—a man who owed money for drugs.
The pay was better, and he worked fewer hours.
He’d also stopped going to church. It didn’t seem right to pray for forgiveness when he was getting paid to kill. He could’ve said no, but he hadn’t. He’d been angry at the world and what his life had become, so taking it out on someone else seemed like a good idea. These days he did his job and lived for his time off. That was all the life he was ever going to have. Men like him didn’t get to put down their guns and quit.
“If I quit, what would I do? I only know how to do one thing.”
“Go back to school. You have the money. I know you aren’t buying drugs.”
Marie bit her lip and smudged her red lipstick. “If I walk, you’ll have your time doubled, so I’ll see it through.”
“I can live with my time doubling.” He already knew he was going to die on the job. One day some other enforcer would kill him and make it look like an accident or suicide. It would be one of Benitez’s men or one of his rivals.
Who was watching Connor Anders’s wife? He needed to find out who the dealer worked for. No, he needed to stop thinking about it. Something about Connor’s death wasn’t right. He’d killed enough people to know when something was off. But he couldn’t say what it was about Connor’s death that haunted him.
“I have five more years, that’s all.”
“Plus the one you had off because of Dani.” Marie had refused to terminate her accidental pregnancy, and Benitez kept her working until she was eight months pregnant. There were men who paid extra for a pregnant woman.
“Yeah. Do you ever wonder what would have happened if we hadn’t gone to him for help?”
Benitez owned both of them because he’d paid their mother’s medical bills. She died two years later. She never saw the people her daughter and son had become—for which Olivier was grateful. Their father knew but said nothing.
Olivier tried not to think about what could’ve been. It would only make him bitter and reckless. He’d been through that phase and survived it, and he wouldn’t go back. “Mom would’ve died anyway, and Dad would have lost everything. We’d have been on the streets.”
“We are on the streets.”
“No we aren’t.” Though he knew he was very close to the common gang thug that he tried not to be. The only difference between him and them was that he got a nice paycheck that he didn’t blow on drugs. It was all carefully stashed away so he could vanish if he ever got away. “Go on. You don’t want to be late.”
Marie rolled her eyes. “I am so over sex.”
Olivier hadn’t had any in a year. He hated casual hookups. He got cold feet before they made it out of the bar, and he hated to pay for it because he knew the other person was pretending. That left meeting someone and doing the dating thing, and saying he was a hit man kind of killed conversation. If he dodged the truth he became a liar putting on the show, and he hated not being able to look his partner in the eye, or himself in the mirror.
He tried honesty once. It hadn’t gone down well, even though she was a hacker and often on the wrong side of the law. They broke up soon after, but they knew where to find each other if they needed help. She still owed him one, and he was happy to have that credit.
His last lover was the barista near his house who always remembered how he took his c
offee and put aside his favorite cookie if they were running out. Eventually Tony wanted more than Olivier could offer. He couldn’t have someone living in his apartment, asking questions. After that breakup, he had to change coffee shops.
Sometimes he called himself a problem fixer—a corporate problem fixer. If he was in a suit, he got knowing nods—as though they thought he was some kind of high-flying hotshot.
“You should move into my place.” His apartment was in a better area.
“This is closer to work.” She kissed him on the cheek. “You’re my baby brother. I’m supposed to look after you.”
“We look after each other.”
Then she was gone, and he was alone with the baby. He stuck his head into the room. There was enough light for him to see Dani, lying on her tummy, sucking her thumb, sound asleep. Whoever her father was, he didn’t know what he was missing.
CHAPTER THREE
IT WASN’T the kind of suburb that Lily would usually be seen in. The mall had no designer shops, and the café she suggested was a small place that claimed to make all its cakes and cookies fresh on-site. She must have been there more than once to even know it existed. Cody couldn’t imagine his brother even wanting to step foot in the mall. Lily had clearly suggested the place because it was disconnected from the rest of her life.
And she thought Connor was paranoid.
Cody eased into a booth and read the chalkboard menu while he waited. He hadn’t had breakfast yet, but the place didn’t do breakfast. They had sandwiches, quiches, and cakes—none of which he wanted. He wasn’t sure he should meet her at all, but he owed it to Connor.
He should book a flight home and walk away. He really hadn’t thought the trip through. The urge to get there had consumed him, and while part of him didn’t want to be there, he wasn’t ready to leave either. He should give himself a little holiday, spend a few days and enjoy New York. But he didn’t feel like a holiday either.
He didn’t have any old friends to catch up with. The people he went to school with were all on the corporate ladder, and he’d jumped off the bottom rung and declared he wasn’t interested. He didn’t want to be like his father or his father’s friends or even his friends’ parents. They were all so polished. There was more trickery in high society than there was on stage, and it was the dishonesty that irked him. They’d do galas and dinners and donate chunks of money that didn’t even dent their bank balance. They didn’t care about making a difference. They only wanted to be seen to care.
