Every word was a lie.
“Fuck you,” she snapped as she moved back to the door.
“Same to you,” I said as the door slammed.
Inhaling, I felt it again, the heat of the flames in my heart. I wanted to crawl up next to my mother's side and just stay there like I had when I was a child.
I missed how was it was back then.
When Nari and I fought over clothes instead of power. When we talked about love and not murder.
I missed Dona and following her on one new adventure after another. Now she was far away, having a magical one all on her own.
Reaching down, I picked up the phone and thought to call her. But stopped, looking back at my broken reflection. If I called her…I’d be like Nari—a loser looking up the food chain.
5
“Each betrayal begins with trust.”
~Martin Luther
ETHAN
I sat at a VIP table alongside my brother in the Chicago Museum of Art, the sound of Mozart’s Overture from The Marriage of Figaro playing just a few feet from me, by the very best classical musicians in the state. The most influential men and women of the city dancing, drinking, and stuffing their faces with finger foods as they pretended to be elegant and refined people. Meanwhile, I knew all of their secrets. None of them were even half of the picture they tried to paint of themselves. They all annoyed me, every one of them.
“Would it kill you not to look as if you want to murder everyone?” Wyatt whispered as he poured a glass of brandy for me and then another for himself.
I lifted the glass, staring into it for the longest time, and set it back down. “Someone is trying to poison our family; it’s best not to drink public drinks.”
“You are being paranoid.”
I glanced over to him as he relaxed back into his chair, drinking. “If it were Helen who was poisoned you would not be saying that. You’d be demanding to know who did it and get revenge immediately. But then again, you must already know…who did it.”
“Same could be said about Aunt Cora,” he shot back.
I smirked, nodding. “Yes, I suppose so.”
“Ethan—”
“Drink this for me,” I said, lifting the glass to him.
His mouth parted as he sat up straight. “Are you serious?”
“Why would I joke?”
“Because you must have seen that I poured the drinks from the same bottle, Ethan.”
“The poison could be in the glass, not the bottle.”
“And you think I would do that to you?” he sneered, snatching the glass from me, knocking it back. “Happy? You can’t even trust your own family now?”
“The same could be said about you,” I muttered when Dino came over, leaning down to whisper something into my ear.
“Italo is waiting in the black and white gallery…and Mrs. Callahan is on her way.”
I turned to look to him, and he just nodded. The woman refused to rest, no matter what. Shaking my head, I rose from the table. When Wyatt moved to get up as well, I put my hand on his shoulder to keep him back down.
“Stay and enjoy the party brother. You are not needed.”