Live for family. Or die for family, right?
Well, they attacked my family…but they were my family. I was so close. I was so close to bringing them into the fold. Calliope had explained that if my parents killed enough of her father’s people, he’d call her in to change the plan. That was when she’d strike.
I wasn’t expecting it to be tonight…well last night.
They had done it faster than we had thought.
So, when I saw Fiorello’s body on the ground and the look of relief in her eyes, I thought, finally. All the secrets, all the lies, all the pressure would fall off her. We’d made it to our turning point, only for my mother to gun her down. I knew it. I knew she was watching through her scope, itching for the chance. Just like I knew, she and my father were back in Chicago. Once again, why I couldn’t tell Wyatt a damn secret. He acted differently. Like he was trying to make sure I didn’t look into him by slowly adding more and more hours to his work, complaining less, following my directions all of a sudden. I knew it, and all I had to do was have him watched. But my parents were cunning. They’d short circuit the lights in the hospital garage and enter his car. Then edit the video live feed to make it look as if nothing had ever happened. If not for a three-second glitch in the videos, I wouldn’t have noticed.
All that work they put into their schemes…I knew it all. And even still, I was going to tell them the truth eventually.
I remembered every word of my mine and my parents’ last conversation.
“She killed your aunt. She will not stop until she destroys the whole family in the name of her grandfather. Ethan, we will not sit back and watch that happen,” she had said, and I told her, “And this is why I am on her side, not yours…”
Because they would not sit back and just fucking watch.
Instead, they seemed so sure I wanted to destroy this family.
“So, it’s war, then?” Her voice played in my mind, and I wanted to yell the words I was not saying.
Because I had not answered her questions, I thought she would figure it out. After all, she was the great Melody Callahan, but she had made up her mind already, which was why they truly didn’t pick up on anything else.
“It was dangerous from the start,” I whispered to no-one.
These plans, all of my plans, they were dangerous from the start. Over and over again, I asked myself am I going too far? Was there any other way I could do this?
Over the last year, with Calliope, we’d regained so much control. We’d become so much more popular with the city. We were was supposed to be on the cover of The Chicago Times next month.
She’s going to be pissed missing her first Times dinner dedicated to introducing her to the city for Christmas. I smirked, thinking about the face she’d make. Then my face fell, thinking about her.
She was stable when she came out of surgery, but when she survived, it was going to take her time to recover. It wasn’t a flesh wound. But how much time could I squeeze out for her to heal? I need to know what she knows first. She is my mole inside…does she keep files anywhere? No. She wouldn’t do that. No paper trials.
Fuck!
There was too much going through my mind, too many counter plans, new plans. I could see too many things, and none of them were full proof. No plan ever was. I always needed to adjust. But right now, I was irritated. Irritated with myself and all my thoughts. Irritated with my family for their lack of thought.
I may have put them in danger in the past, but never once did I think they could not survive it, nor were any of my actions without any purpose. I always had a plan to get them out of it, even if they failed. Wyatt was the only one who got seriously hurt, and that was because he went full attack and did not cover his ass! The moron! And yet, that was my fault. I left him with all the men in this city, and he decided to play the Almighty.
They always did this.
Left me to figure out how to undo their mess.
When they were out, running around the world, following different passions, I was right here protecting them, and how do they repay me? Uncle Neal secretly sends his children away and pretends I didn’t notice that it was beca
use of his fear of me. But that wasn’t the least bit surprising. Helen poisoning my wife—that was something. Killian going off and making friends with our enemies. Wyatt joining hands with my parents to assassinate her.
Part of me wanted to walk away.
Part of me wanted to cut the puppet strings and let them die. I could pretend to quit again—take Calliope and my daughter, leave this whole clusterfuck to them, and regroup. But how many of them would die while I did…then again, maybe that’s what is needed to recreate this family afterward. That could be the new plan, start the family over. That’s how Grandfather Sedric did it. He lost all of his siblings and his mother. Then he rebuilt the whole Callahan family the way he wanted. He made the rules. He created this family based on his morals. I could do the same, right? If they were gone, instead of fight for them to understand me, I could just start over and raise a new generation who did.
The thoughts came before I could stop them, and with them, I couldn’t help but hear Calliope’s voice in my mind. “The only way I can be queen, Ethan, is if we have people to rule!”
“There would still be Irish and Italian families to rule, Calliope,” I muttered.
“All that work I did to make them regain faith in you, and you piss it away if your whole family dies. Also, what the fuck do you mean to raise a new generation? Exactly how many kids am I having in this fucking generation?” Would be what she most likely would say in reply.
So that plan couldn’t work. If Calliope woke up and found out that I had let them die, she’d fucking try to kill me. And the last thing I needed was an angry wife on top of all my other problems…that wasn’t the only reason. The other reason was simply that I didn’t want them to die.