Vicious Minds: Part 3 (Children of Vice 6)

It was only then that he walked over to me. I stood, waiting, but with each step he took, I remembered what he had done to me, why he had done it to me. I remembered what he had gone to do. I remembered how long it had been since I had heard his voice and why this all felt so…heavy.

“Calliope,” he said, and my name and heart did stir a little. “I’m sorry—”

My fist, along with the ring he had given me, collided so hard into his face his head went back first before his body began to stumble. It was then he groaned, holding his side and shaking his thigh slightly in pain.

“Oh good, you are injured, and here I thought you went on vacation without me.” I had hit him hard but not hard enough to send him stumbling over if he weren’t actually hurt.

He inhaled deeply, not once, not twice, but three times, gritting his teeth as he got up off his knees, wincing in pain as he tried to stand straight again. “I—”

“Suck it up. You’re already late enough. Today is not about you,” I said, walking around him to the rest of the family. “Dona, thank you for coming, I know you are very busy these days.”

Dona turned slightly to face me. Her eyebrow raised with a look of superiority on her face to match her title. “There is no need for a thank you, this is my family, so of course I would be here. However, I would like to stop coming back for funerals, if possible.”

“Yes, I will pray for us to gain immortally at the church. Now, Your Highness, please, after you,” I said, waving her to the door. “We really are running late.”

She eyed me up and down, then nodded before she elegantly, in a black gown that flowed like water on the marble, walked back toward the door linked arm in arm with Helen. One by one, they all begin to walk out as well.

“Calliope,” Ethan whispered from behind me, his breath tickling the back of my ear.

“Whatever you have to say or tell or explain, do it later, Ethan. Right now, just fucking lead the family through this so I can take a damn break. I deserve that, at least,” I replied, reaching out to take Gigi’s hand.

She looked back at her father, but he stepped up on the side, and we all walked out as a family.

The world shook, there was thunder and lightning, fire and brimstone, hell on earth…even death. Yet the Callahans walked calmly together out into the world to face is it all as one united family.

That was the image everyone would have burned into their minds.

One family.

No one would ever know of the cracks, the pains, tears, sorrow, blood, and death—we walked on top of.

Was it all worth it?

Yes.

Yes, it was.

Winning was always worth it.

I glanced over to Ethan, who stared out the window, completely lost in thought, yet holding Gigi almost as tightly as she was holding onto him.

KILLIAN

You would have thought a king or the president or maybe even the pope had died from the number of people who came to Grandma Evelyn and Uncle Neal’s funeral. I had thought my mother’s sendoff was lavish; after all, Helen had put her all into it, and there had been almost two hundred people in attendance. But this…this was beyond expectation. Outside the manor, people had laid flowers and cards. At the church, there were lines of people waiting outside. There was no way for them to enter, but they still came to pay their respects. People were weeping…for us. No. For Evelyn and her son…but mostly, I had to believe it was Evelyn. Apparently, all that charity amounted to more than just a good cover story. People really thought highly of her, missed her, grieved her loss with the rest of the family. I wanted to mourn, too, but for some odd reason, I felt nothing but anger.

Not a raging anger, but like a cold numbness deep within myself. During the service, I couldn’t look away from the back of Ethan and Calliope’s heads. I was simply one row behind them. I could easily pull out a knife and stab them both. I could easily strangle them. I watched them pretend for the cameras and for the people watching—for each other…both of them acting like…like they didn’t have a hand in the deaths that befell us all. They were

all together—Ethan, his wife, and daughter. They were whole while the rest of us were hurt, broken, and mourning losses.

We took the hit for them.

The family took the hit for them and their plots. And they moved on like we weren’t owed anything from them.

It pissed me off.

I was angry. Watching them stop and accept the priest's words, then give speeches before we even made it to the burial grounds made me want to scream. But I, like the rest of the family, said nothing. All the world was moving around me. And I just let myself be moved because if stopped, if I spoke, I knew there would be bloodshed, and I didn’t want to tarnish the woman who was like my grandmother or my uncle’s final day of rest.

Today, I would go along with this, but tomorrow…tomorrow—