Vicious Minds: Part 3 (Children of Vice 6)

His face bunched, his teeth grinding. “You keep asking all of us to trust you without giving us the reason to do so.”

“The reason is we are family!”

“Really?” he snapped. “Really! Aunt Coraline was fucking family, too; she trusted you, too, and now she’s dead! And the story we were told doesn’t make sense to me or anyone else for that matter. Not then, not a year later! Ever since Calliope came to our house, it has been like we are cursed. Uncle Declan is so depressed he doesn’t speak anymore. I had to give him a fucking feeding tube when he stopped fucking eating. Darcy…sorry, Killian rarely ever shows his face around here. This family has fallen to shit, and you never even blinked. You just kept pressing on, as if everything is perfect. And now she’s a little sick and you’re ready to fight? Where was all that energy before?”

Idiots.

All of them.

They were idiots who could never think beyond their own understanding. They could not rationalize. They could not see what I saw, and so they pissed all over everything every fucking time.

“As always, little brother, your mind is not where I need it to be.” I released his shirt, pushing him to the side so I could sit at her bedside.

“She blinds you, Ethan. I wish you could see what everyone else sees.”

“Get out.” I growl.

He stood there.

“I said, go before I suspect you poisoned her yourself.”

Sighing and muttering under his breath, he took his things and walked out of the room. When he was gone, I placed my hand beside her cheek.

“Apparently, we miscalculated, la mia anima,” I muttered, brushing the hair from her face. “And what happened to you being good with poisons?”

I waited for her witty comeback, but there wasn’t any. She lay there, shivering. The more I stared at her, the angrier I became. Angry with her for being in this position. Angry at myself for not noticing at all…and angriest at the people who did this to her.

Ring.

Ring.

“What is it?” I said, lifting the phone.

“Boss,” Dino Tacinelli said, “there are no tapes of today’s auction, anywhere. There isn’t even a cellphone recording posted online anymore.”

“What you mean is someone erased them.”

“Yes.”

I snickered bitterly and hung up. Of course, it would not be that easy. Nothing was ever easy in a war. Especially a civil one. However, I—like Wyatt said—did not see the world like everyone else because I was not like everyone else. My parents, brother and everyone else, seemed to forget who I was. They could erase all the tapes in the world, but they could not erase my mind. Sitting on the bed beside her, my back up against the headboard, I closed my eyes, rewinding to this morning.

HOURS EARLIER

“Sold, to that handsome young gentleman in black!” she called out and grinned.

Rolling my eyes, I just drank, watching as she nearly skipped, high-fiving a few women until she got back to our table, taking her place beside me.

“Do you ever get tired?” I asked her.

“Nope.” She winked, snatching the cherry off the rim of the glass and popping it into her mouth. “It’s my superpower.”

“Of all the things you could have as a superpower,” I replied as the waitress brought Calliope a drink, but she waved them off. Then thought about it and took it

, anyway, eating the cherry off it and giving me the drink. “Why did you have them serve Hawaiian mimosas if you do not like pineapples?”

“Because your mother always had them served since they are more expensive. If I changed things, it would like I was petty and trying to overshadow her memory,” she whispered back. “Give me another year or two and this menu is changing.”

PRESENT