So, I wondered what my parents felt.
They said nothing to me. Just told me to go back home, like I was a damn puppy. Now that I had finished playing their game, I was to go sit in the corner while they figured out what to do next.
Which was worse? Being my parents’ puppet or being my brother’s enemy?
Finishing off the rest of my drink, I set the glass on the side table before getting up. “I’ll leave you to your reading—
“Take this to my car; let my grandmother know in the morning.”
Hearing Ethan’s voice, I slid open the door to find him almost right outside of it, and beside him was O’Phelan. Ethan held his sleeping daughter in his arms. One of the guards was taking two bags out to his car. Ethan glanced over at me, and I wished he looked at me in anger, but it was if he looked right through me before he faced O’Phelan again.
“Tell her that I left her all the information she’ll need,” he said to him.
O’Phelan nodded and moved to do as my brother ordered. When he did, Ethan moved to leave as well.
“Ethan—”
He ignored me stepping outside. Following, I watched as he opened the door to the backseat to put his daughter inside.
“Ethan. I made a mistake.”
He didn’t speak, carefully making sure to buckle Gigi in her seatbelt.
“I made a mistake, a big one, and I’m so sorry—”
He shut the door of the car and grabbed my throat, slamming me up against the hood of the car, grabbing the gun from behind his back he held it directly at my head.
“This is a gun, Dr. Callahan. When you fire a gun, a bullet comes out. You can’t take that shit back with an ‘I’m sorry!’” he hollered, nearly spitting in my face; instead, he let go of my neck and pushed me to the side. “If I knew this was how it was going to go, I would have left your useless ass in Boston.”
“But, you didn’t,” I said, rubbing my neck. “You came for me. You did all of this for family because you care about family, right? You can’t abandon me, Ethan. No matter how many times I fuck up. I’m still your little brother.”
“You are dead to me,” he said, getting into his car and pulling out, nearly running me over.
His words…A bullet would have kinder.
“And history repeats itself with the next Callahan brothers,” my Uncle Neal said from the door.
“Uncle, don’t you have anything else to be doing right now, instead of witnessing one of my greatest fall-on-my-face moments?”
“Nope.”
Fuck the last twenty-four hours of my life. Just fuck it!
LIAM
“We’re back to this shit again?” I asked her when I entered the private hospital kitchen to find her on the floor, drinking straight vodka. We were on the level right below Ethan’s, waiting in one of the VIP rooms. I was sure he knew we were there. He just didn’t give fuck now.
“On this episode of Las pasiones de Melody, my son….my son turns on me because of me.” Her voice cracked for a moment; however, to hide that, she poured liquor into her shot glass and then threw back the clear liquid like water. “Plot twist!”
“How many seasons of this soap opera are there?” I asked holding my side with my left arm since my right shoulder was busted, and I eased myself down onto the cold kitchen floor beside her.
“My gut told me there was something wrong with that family,” she said, pouring again into her glass. “I knew that little girl would come back stronger.”
“And you were right.”
“Then how did I get it so wrong?” she spat out in anger and threw the drink down her throat. “If I knew that, how did I get it that wrong?”
“By refusing to stop looking at Ethan as your mio bel leoncino,” I replied, taking the vodka bottle for myself and drinking from it.