Vicious Minds: Part 2 (Children of Vice 5)

“Ethan—”

“Oh, are you going to defend him?” His eyebrow raised. “Don’t bother, Mel. That’s why I’m focusing on Calliope. So I can defend him. She’s a genius. Like him. I always knew Ethan was different. The boy was reading Eggo Waffle boxes from his highchair as an infant. He always remembered everything. Every rule, every instruction, every damn thing. It was fucking annoying. I looked forward to the moments he would fucking fuck up so I could feel like a damn father. I was proud the first time he hesitated when I told him to kill someone. ‘Aw,’ I thought. ‘He is still just a boy.’ He was still innocent. Still a child. My child. Then that day at the church with that priest…the day he became Mani di Forbice. Remember?”

How could I ever forget that? “He did it to protect us.”

He nodded, drinking again before speaking. “Of course, we already knew. But I’d taught him to kill our enemies, and so he did just that, all his previous hesitation gone. All innocence gone. So, I sat him down and tried to talk to him like a man. Told him to use that blood of mine to think before he acted and to have a plan—because he is Ethan, he listened. And he became il burattinaio, the puppet master, because of just how fucking good he was. But it was a double-edged sword. The better, the deadlier he became, more and more people doubted his intentions, his thoughts. People were scared of him by the time he was sixteen. No one even knew how to have a real conversation with him. Not even me. And you weren’t there then. I can only imagine how it feels to know everyone sees you as an inhumane computer murderer. I had charm, so even when people knew I was dangerous, they still wanted to talk…you…well, you’re a woman and pretty, so naturally, they underestimated you. But Ethan…”

“Was left alone,” I finished for him gently. I remembered how many times I’d watched from afar as Ethan stood by himself, or at a distance from the family. Even if they were at dinner, he’d barely speak, and the rest of the family would just go on talking as if he was not there.

“Exactly. All alone…Until one day, Calliope appears.” Again, he drank, and it spilled over the corners of his mouth. “Another genius. She was not afraid to talk to him. She’s not afraid when he was silent. In fact, she looks as if she is having the time of her life beside him. She’s beautiful and damaged so badly she had to become a warrior to survive. On top of that, she’s odd, eccentric, quirky, and good with people. She makes him look softer. People feel free to talk to him when she’s there. Who else in the world could do that for him? But as if…” He laughed and groaned at his wound. “As if she didn’t already have everything in her to make him fall headfirst in love with her, she’s the mother of his child.”

“The reason why she’s perfect is that they molded her to be perfect, Liam.”

“Exactly,” he laughed, and now the sound of it annoyed me. The stupid grin on his face made me want to put another bullet hole in him. “Mel…he never stood a chance. I’m so fucking pissed he didn’t see her for what she truly was. So, fucking pissed that he’s blinded by her. But what the fuck did we expect? She’s perfect for him. We are legitimately asking him to reject his dream woman. To go back to being alone. Why the fuck would he want to do that again? He’s human. The woman could murder the whole family in front of him and he’d figure out a way to justify it. Because he does not want to lose her. So…”

“So, what?”

“You spent all this time figuring out how she used us, and it doesn’t fucking matter. She spent all that time planning, and it doesn’t fucking matter. Because Ethan is going to defend her no matter what.”

“Which is why she needs to die!”

“You are not hearing me, Mel.” He leaned forward. “Our son, Ethan, is not on our side. He’s going to defend her with everything we have ever thought and everything he’s learned alone.”

I leaned in, as well. “Which. Is. Why. I. Will. Kill. Her.”

Smash!

He threw the bottle at the wall beside him. “Don’t you fucking get it? You kill her, and he will come to kill you. And what am I supposed to do? Let you die?”

“Liam, I’ve said this once, but I will say it again, just in case you’re too drunk to remember. Neither you nor anyone else in this goddamn world is going to hurt my son!”

“So, we die!” he hollered back at me. “That’s fine. You want me to die with you, baby, let’s go. But what about our other son? And our daughter? What happens to them? What happens to the Callahans?”

“I—”

“My father died for him!” he nearly roared, rising from the ground. “My father gave his life to build this family! And you are telling me I am supposed to sit back and watch my own godforsaken, fucking lovesick, dumbass son, piss it all away for a pretty bitch?”

“No! I am telling you, we will kill her—”

“He got it from you,” he scoffed.

“Excuse me?”

“The inability to see when it comes to love,” he said, and I nearly fell over. He was lecturing me. He, the one who sang love songs in the bathroom and wanted to do every romantic date he’d ever seen in a movie, was calling me blind in love.

“Not wanting to kill my son does not fucking make me blind you shit-face, cock-brain moron! He is our son! Our son!”

“And it might come down to his life or the whole fucking family’s! Who are you choosing, Mel?”

Rising, I limped and nearly fell over, but I ignored the pain. “God as my witness, Liam, I swear if you hurt my son, you will have to bury me with him. Because I am never burying them…any of them. I will die first!”

He stared at me.

And I stared back, trembling.

Knock.

Knock.