Vicious Minds: Part 3 (Children of Vice 6)

“Mom,” she corrected.

I frowned, turning to her, and she turned to face me, her head lifted high. “If you want to be a mother, then your son is currently in the middle of a shootout in a club. If you’d like to call him and walk him through it, by all means, my desk is open.”

“What?” She gasped and looked to my desk as I focused. “I’ll leave him for now, trusting you’ll protect him.”

“Trust after having no trust is useless,” I muttered, cutting a line. “If you don’t need anything else, you may go.”

“I’m getting very sick of your motherfucking attitude, Ethan.”

“Is that so? I’m am sick of you interfering, so I can relate,” I said, cutting another line, not bothering to look up.

“What the fuck do you want us to do? How long will this hostility last? You asked us to come into the safe house with you. We came. You’ve been sitting around and doing nothing for days except bark orders. We have complied. And still, you treat us as if—”

“You work for me,” I replied, scooping the coca into the tub and testing it. “I’m treating you as if you work for me. Actually, I’m treating you better than that because if someone who worked for me kept bothering me like this, I’d cut off their nose. What do I want? I’ve already said. I want you to wait. Why is that hard for everyone?”

I looked at her, staring into her brown eyes.

“What do you want me to do? Hug you? Chat about the good ol’ days when you were alive? I’m working. How often did you come to chat with me when you were working? I barely saw you as a child, except for when you came to kiss us goodnight or before you left in the morning. You were always busy. I tried not to bother you and not to cause trouble for you. Can you not show me the same courtesy?”

“You hate us that much?”

I didn’t answer, looking at the now red tube annoyed. Someone had fucking laced this shit. That made it half what it was worth. How many times did I have to keep correcting these morons? How many fucking times?

“Knock yourself out, you little…” She didn’t finish her words; instead, she walked out.

I smirked, sort of wishing she’d said whatever she wanted to say.

MELODY

I was at the limit of my tolerance.

In fact, I was about one step away from beating Ethan with a broomstick.

“Melody.” I heard someone call my name. I had to be hearing things.

I paused in front of the closed door. Frowning, I opened it, and sure enough, Calliope sat up, drinking water from a cup with a small straw. She looked up in anticipation when she saw me.

“Will you get me some grapes?” She batted her lids.

“I will strangle you,” I snapped. Who the fuck did she think she was talking to?

“Just kidding.” She grinned, opening her blanket to show me that she’d already had a bowl of green grapes. She could only eat with one hand right now. Today was the first day she’d managed to sit up and be completely alert.

I turned to leave.

“He’s planning something,” she said from behind me, and I paused. “I’ll explain more if you sit with me for a bit.”

“You do know I’m the one who shot you, correct?”

“Shit happens—ahh.” She winced when she tried to shrug. “Seriously, though, sit with me.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Why?”

“I dislike you…a lot.”

“Why?”