Vicious Minds: Part 3 (Children of Vice 6)

She sees me.

That was the reason why I was always able to believe in her.

Even from childhood.

Calliope could see me. All my faults, weaknesses, and darkness. She saw it, and she skipped and hummed alongside me. She never abandoned me, and I couldn’t let her.

“We might not have seen your big picture, Ethan, but that does not mean all of our ways were wrong or that the rules were wrong,” he had the audacity to say.

“If your way was so right, Liam, then why did you spend your whole life building this, only to run away to protect it?”

He just stared at me, and I truly wanted to know. If his ways were right, if his way was better than my way, then why was he in the shadows? In my future, the only way I was leaving my family was by death, and I wouldn’t die young. But I couldn’t also just take my wife and go running around the world, doing whatever the hell I liked. “Your way only worked for you. Your present is not the future I want. Grandmother, for example—to live and guide as long as she has—is what I want. Why didn’t you pick up that trait from her?”

He was silent for a very long time, and I walked passed him. “I’m starting to think you really don’t think you picked up any of my traits.”

“I did. It’s the ‘never forgive a brother’ trait,” I shot back. And any and all the amusement fell from his eyes.

“Every day, I don’t know if I should be proud of the man you are or worried,” he said on his way out. “I’ll keep thinking about it.”

“Whatever you decide won’t change me now,” I replied, taking a seat back at Calliope’s bedside.

I was who I was.

They didn’t have to agree.

They didn’t have a say.

I wasn’t their child anymore.

12

“I've lived and seen enough to know

how difficult it is to settle for a small life

when you're destined for greatness.”

~Darren Shan

WYATT

The music was so loud that m

y skin vibrated.

The air was filled with screams of excitement, and the dance floor was packed with bodies, not just the people in the rafters and private booths. Bottles with sparkles were carried by half-naked women while girls hung from the roof, dancing. It truly was as the name said, The Play-Pen. And its king and creator stood at the topmost level surrounded by women, bodyguards, and drinks. They danced and drank and relaxed as if nothing else in the world mattered except the good time they were having.

When I reached the only elevator that led to where he was, two large bald men stepped in front of me, glaring down like wild dogs looked at an intruder before attacking.

“And you are?” they asked.

I pointed to the man up above. “His cousin.”

They looked me up and down strangely, so I handed them my ID so they could clearly see Callahan behind my name. They didn’t seem to care. One of them held his arm out to me, while the other made a call. Then—because that wasn’t insulting enough—they took a picture of my face. It was only when the phone beeped did they step aside and let me through.

Feeling pissed the fuck off, I stepped inside, ignoring the itch in my fingers to bash in their skulls. But the problem wasn’t them. No, respect was taught from the top. Which meant that in this place they were taught that the only Callahan who mattered was him.

He was playing a game, and he didn’t seem to care.