Marsden (Wilkerson Dynasty Book 1)

by Kathi S. Barton

  “You’re just looking to go someplace else to put us out of business. I know your type.” Before he could tell Chris that he was wrong, Abby slapped her hands on the table. It was funny to him, and Mars didn’t even bother covering up his laughter. “Yeah, laugh it up, big guy. You do that, and I’ll sue your ass off. I’ll own you and every little shit you pop out as children.”

  Mars didn’t even hesitate. Doubling up his fist, he slammed it into Chris’s face. Knocking him back out of his chair into the one behind him felt good. Mars felt powerful for being able to take a bully down. He looked at Oliver, ready to tell him how sorry he was when Oliver laughed too.

  “Thank you, Mars. I’ve wanted to do that for years. Just pop him in the mouth hard enough to knock him on his ass. And here you did it with one punch while the idiot was sitting down. Thank you.” He was still laughing when he pulled on an envelope. “This is the contract that you signed when you started working for my company. It states that you cannot work for anyone like my company for a term of no less than fifty years. Lawyers. I tell you, they can be such bastards. Anyway, I’m not going to hold you to this even if you were going out to make a name for yourself in the field of acrylics. I believe that you really will open your pharmacy, and you’ll save a few thousand people having done so.”

  The contract was torn into several pieces, and then Oliver stood up. Kissing the back of Abby’s hand, he told her that she was the perfect person for Mars. Then he looked at Mars when he stood up.

  “I fired Chris before coming here. I also put in that I’m looking for a good chemist to come and work for me.” Shaking his hand, Mars thanked him again. “No need for that, young man. And I wanted to tell you how profoundly sorry I was to hear about your mom. You live yourself a good life, the two of you, and have lots of children. I’ll have someone come around and clean up this mess in a minute. I need to get out of here before he wants something else from me, and you should do the same. Goodbye, Mars and Abby.”

  When he was gone, they left the restaurant as well. As they were getting into his car, they saw the police going into the place they’d just left to no doubt pick up Chris. Whatever his life was after this, Mars supposed that he’d made it for himself. Mars was going to enjoy every day like it was his last, and love Abby more daily.

  They were just arriving at the funeral home for the last night of the calling hours when he saw his aunts. They were huddled together like they were going to take down a big business. Walking by them, neither he nor Abby said anything to them, but he could hear them whispering. Not what they were saying, but that they were all talking.

  The flowers that he’d asked to be sent to the new florist in town were already taken out of the chapel. The planters, a great many of them, had been donated to the schools for greenery in the rooms. Of the over two thousand flowers that had been sent to his mom, there was now a manageable fifty or so, all of them large vases of cut flowers that would be donated too. He and Abby and the others had picked out whatever they wanted, and they were marked to go with them when the service was over.

  “I would like a word with you, Marsden.” Pushing Abby behind him, he turned to look at Eita. With her were the other aunts, so he kept an eye on them. “You will, as of now, stay away from our children. I don’t have any idea why you think you could be in the same category as the rest of us, but you will keep away from all of them, or I’ll take measures that you’re not going to like.”

  He could see his cousins, all of them coming up behind their mothers. Holding onto Abby’s hand when she put hers into his, he waited to see if Eita had any more to say. Smiling at her, he simply told her no.

  “I won’t stay away from any of them. Nor will I, as I’ve heard you say, keep my grubby self away from your kind, whatever that means. They’re my family. As much as, much to my shame, you are. But I love them. You? I don’t care for at all.” Abby squeezed his hand, and it made him feel like he could do this. “You have been trying to drive a wedge between us since they were born. I haven’t any idea why, but I’m a grown fucking man and don’t have to do anything at all that you tell me to do. So, something my mother would have loved to say to you, fuck off.”

  “You think not, do you?” She looked at her cohorts, what Brandon had called them earlier, and it was as good as description as any. “Well, what if I told you that you’re not going to live long enough to have your next birthday if you don’t do as I say? In fact, I’m working on finding out who your father is so that you’ll have to change your name to his, and then you’ll officially not have anything at all in common with us.”

  “I don’t anyway.” She frowned at him like she was confused. “I have nothing at all in common with you five at all. We don’t share the same blood. We don’t walk in the same circles, thankfully. And this is particularly nice for me, you’re thankfully not my mother.”

  “Thank God for that.” He smiled at her. “If I had been your mother, I would have aborted you as I did the other children that I had before you came along and fucked things up for the rest of us.” None of the cousins moved, but they had to have heard her talking. She was certainly loud enough. “Had Holly not had you, then none of the rest of us would have felt pressured to have a child as well. We couldn’t allow Holly to have the only heir to your uncles’ estates. We had to work hard in having sons too. It took so many tries to have male children that the doctors at the clinic we all went to knew us by our first names.”

  That sickened him. To think that all along, they’d been in competition with his mom. Had murdered, in his opinion, other children so that they couldn’t be outdone. Thinking of the years between all of them, Mars wouldn’t allow his mind to figure out how many deaths that had been.

  “You want to know something else, Marsden? We got together and had your mother taken out of the house. We’re the ones that drugged her so that she could be taken out quietly. We went into her room and packed her bags for her so that it would look like she’d run off, just as we wanted her to. Then when she managed to escape the people we hired to murder her, we even convinced the others that she was nothing more than a whore and a slut that had gotten just what she deserved when she’d supposedly run off with some man to Europe.” Mars staggered back from them; her words were like poisoned knives into his heart. “You should have seen old man Wilkerson. He was devastated that his little girl, the one that he loved so dearly, had gone and done something like she had. That she’d gotten herself trapped and wanted her dear daddy to take care of her. But we were more clever than her, Marsden. We had whispered all sorts of things in his ears about his darling little girl. Showed him our abortion paperwork so that he’d think that she’d been fucking around a long time.”

  “Why? Why would you do something like that to her? My mom was only fifteen years old when she was taken. A child when she had one of her own. Why would you do something like that to her?” Eita told him that they had to. “You had to? You had to have her raped and tortured for nearly a week?”

  “We didn’t like the attention that she was getting from our husbands, nor the old man. Had we not done anything, then we would have always been second best in his eyes. Our husbands doted on her when she was around. Not that they spoiled her—I think that would have been much easier to take. But no, her brothers treated her like a glass slipper. Gave her whatever they could to be in her favor. We decided that we were better than her, which you’ll notice that we are, and we took care of it.” North came around to the side of his cousins to let them see that he was recording everything. He wasn’t sure he wanted to ever hear anything that had been said again. “What’s the matter, Marsden? Don’t you think we did a good job in alienating your uncles and grandfather from you? I certainly hope you do. Because we’re going to do the same thing to you. You’ll regret ever being born.”

  “That’s enough.” Abby came around to look at the women, and he held her back when she started forward. “I think you�
��ve done enough damage for one afternoon. You either leave now or so help me, I’ll have you all arrested. I just might anyway.”

  “You? Have us arrested? You couldn’t get a cab unless I said so. And what business is it of yours what we say to him?” Lifting her chin, Abby put out her finger with the engagement ring on it. “Mother fuck. I knew it. She did steal from the house. That is mine, you fucking cunt. Give it to me now before I have to rip your arm off to get it. And I will too.”

  All he did was stand in front of Eita. He was a big man, he knew that, but he let himself go enough that she could see that he was taller than her. Even wider than she was. Leaning over her, making her have to bend backward, he was thrilled to see the rest of them scatter.

  “You touch my future wife, and I will tear you apart. Then I will piss on what is left of you. Do you understand me?” She nodded. Fear was coming off her, and he could smell it. “As for your kind, Evelyn, I could buy and sell you so many times over you won’t have any idea why I started. Stay the fuck away from my family.”

  When he turned his back on her, it was the first time that Mars could ever remember having been able to tell the aunts off, especially Eita, and not feel sick afterwards. Just as he was going to move away from her, someone shouted for him to watch out.

  He drew Abby into the shelter of his body and waited for the impact. It wasn’t long in coming. Whatever it was that hit him, the pain took his breath away. The second time something hit him, Mars was grateful that Booker came to get Abby away so that she’d not get hurt. Then the screaming began.

  It wasn’t him, he kept telling himself. The pain was horrific, but he wasn’t the one screaming. When the sound of it was abruptly cut off, he feared the worst about his cousins and Abby. It wasn’t until he was helped to the floor to lie down that he could see that the others were all right.

  “What was that?” North told him not to talk. “What happened to me? Did she hit me with a chair? Something hit me. Am I going to be all right?”

  “He told you to stop talking. So unless you want me to gag you, you’d better do just what he says, Mars.” Abby took his hand into hers. “I didn’t know that Wats was a doctor. He’s gone to get his bag. Just stay with me, Mars. All right? Don’t you dare leave me.”

  “I’m not going to.” He looked at Wats when he was leaning over him. There was blood on his cheek. “Is that mine?”

  “Yes. Now I want you to help me roll you to your back, Mars. Slowly. All right? An ambulance is on the way to take you in.” He said that he couldn’t leave Abby. “North is taking care that she comes with you right now. I want you to tell me if you feel this.”

  The poke to his legs seemed to let all the air out of Wats when he said he could feel it. Wats was barking orders, but Mars couldn’t understand what he was saying. Something about the operating room and flying. Mars must have passed out again, for when he opened his eyes this time, he was looking at someone’s knees. And his belly felt sick.

  “I don’t feel well.” The man bent to look him in the face. It was Wats again. “Am I going to die, buddy? I don’t want to. I’ve never had sex with Abby yet, and I really want to.”

  “You’ll be all right if you do what I tell you to do, Mars. Christ, she shot you. Twice.” He wanted to ask who, but he felt something roll over his entire body. “There you go, Mars. That’ll keep you still until after the operation. Just let me do my job, and you’ll be just fine.”

  Mars didn’t feel anything else. Nor did he hear anything. The sobbing, this time he knew it was his, made him feel childlike. But someone, he could have sworn it was his mom, told him that she loved him and that he’d be just fine in the morning. He hoped so. He really did want to sleep next to Abby for the rest of his life.

  ~*~

  North watched the second hand on the clock roll around to another minute. He wanted information. But he knew that if he got up to check at the nurses’ station again, Abby would fall apart. He didn’t know how she was hanging on as it was. Mars had only been in surgery for twenty minutes when his father showed up.

  “Go to him.” North looked at Abby when she spoke. They were both covered in blood, he only just realized. “Go to him, North. He’s going to need you much more than you need him. Please? I’ll be all right here.”

  Standing up, his father seemed to leap across the hallway and into his arms. They held onto each other tightly and sobbed out how much they loved each other. North had never had a hug from his father before like this. They weren’t just hugging but seemed to be clinging to each other as if they were the only two people in the world.

  “I don’t know what to say, North. Is Mars…? Is he going to be all right?” North told his dad what Wats had said before going to do the surgery. “Your uncles are coming here now. They needed to take care of a couple of things before they could leave. Where is your mother? I was told that she was brought here.”

  “She’s dead. You know that, don’t you?” Father nodded but didn’t say anything else. “She pulled out a gun to kill Mars. I know that was her intention. Then she would have killed Abby had he not protected her with his life. Christa had a gun too, and thankfully Mr. Farley saw it before we did, or she might well have finished the job Mother started. Christa is the one that killed Mother. When Christa was aiming at Abby, Mr. Farley knocked her into Mother, and she killed her.”

  “Your uncle Josiah is at the police station now pressing charges against the two of them for Mars. Abby, she’s all right too?” North told him that she was in shock, but otherwise all right, he thought. “That poor girl. To have to go through this on today of all days. And Mars? North, I had no idea what was going on. None of it.”

  “Mother tried to kill Abby before too. Did you know that?” Father told him that he’d found out a great many things lately. “I just want to sit here with Abby and wait on word from Wats. You can join us if you’d like, but please, don’t upset her any more than she already is.”

  “North, I’m so very sorry about this.” He nodded at his father, not sure what he wanted from him. His mother was dead, his best friend was in surgery. North didn’t think that he could take too much more today and be able to stand upright. “I’ll sit with you all. If you need anything, just let me know. All right?”

  North sat down beside Abby and took her hand into his. Telling his father they were all right for now, he held her tightly. He’d been holding onto her since they arrived like he was afraid someone was going to take her from them.

  “Thank you, Mr. Wilkerson.” Abby took his father’s hand into her other one and told him that she was sorry for his loss. “She meant to kill us both. I don’t think she even cared if she took out all of us just so she could kill the two of us. Mars and I are getting married.”

  His father and Abby spoke quietly for a little while. His cousins came around to get information, then they’d leave again. All of them were on what felt like high alert, and he knew he had to be extra careful of not overdoing it again.

  As his uncles showed up one at a time, he noticed that they all made it a point to talk to Abby, asking about Mars then sitting down with his father. North looked at his father when he said his name, but he had to lean in closer to hear him. He was trying to be quiet and not wake Abby, who had finally fallen asleep.

  “They’re not coming. The police have them all in custody. Christa, of course, won’t be getting out anytime soon, but I have no idea what is going to happen to the others. I wanted you to know that you didn’t have to worry about them showing up.” He thanked his father and felt a little of the stress he’d been feeling roll off. “I’ve seen the video that was turned over to the police. I don’t know if he told you this or not, but the officer that I spoke to said that it would go a long way in solving a few other things as well that your...that Eita and the others were about.”

  “Wats had the idea to record it. I was just standing there trying to figure out
why she hated them both so much. You should have seen Mars. He saved Abby’s life by sheltering her with his body. When she pulled out the gun, it was all I could do to keep recording it and stay out of the way of the gunfire. Abby kept us all calm too.” Father said that he could see her doing that. “They gave her a little something when we got here. That’s why she’s sleeping. I don’t blame her for having hysterics. I was too. But they were worried that she was going to go into the operating room with Mars, and that wouldn’t have helped either of them.”

  “Abby is going to be perfect for this family.” North just stared at him. “We had a meeting, my brothers and I. We’re going to change our lives around to be something that Holly could have been proud of. If it makes any difference to you, son, I was going to divorce her. I already have the appointment set up to start it. Then I hired someone to look for enough information to have her put in jail. I never dreamed that she’d try to kill him.”

  “She had Aunt Holly kidnapped too. And raped. I think she might have known who the men were who were involved.” Father told him that he’d not be surprised if they’d find it somewhere in the house when they cleaned it out. “Also, I wanted to tell you this. Aunt Holly, she amassed a fortune while she was living on her own. She left all of us some of it, and Mars the rest. He’s a billionaire several times over. I think he was told that he’s worth about a two hundred billion dollars.”

  “Christ.” North nodded, and was happy to see that his father didn’t say that he was lying or that he didn’t know what he was talking about. “I just found out that she and Mars own a company called Adobe Well. I’m sure that we’re going to find out a great deal about Holly before this is all done.”