I expect a nurse. Maybe someone from the staff. Instead, my cousin Hugh stands there, looking surprised.
“Cousin,” I say, head tilted. “I’m home.”
His mouth opens and works, but nothing comes out. Hugh’s five years older than me with dark hair turning gray, a pale, waxy face, a strong jaw, and good height. He’s decent looking but bland like everyone in his wing of the Hayle family. His father, Cormac, and his mother, Irene, both live on the premises somewhere, though Cormac is a bit eccentric and Irene is generally unpleasant, and it won’t bother me if they remain hidden in their lair.
“What are you doing here, Kellen?”
I show my cousin my teeth. “I wanted to say hello to my mother.”
“She’s resting. You should’ve called first, I would’ve—”
“What, fluffed her pillows? Whispered sweet nothings in her ear? Spent the day telling her how I’m a piece of shit that can’t be trusted?”
Hugh turns red. “Nothing like that.”
“Sure. Move, please.”
He doesn’t move. I’m not used to that. In my life outside of the manor, I’ve worked very hard to cultivate a certain reputation, one that doesn’t allow for disobedience, and certainly doesn’t accept push back from sniveling little weasels like my cousin here.
But in this house, I have to play by different rules.
Even if right now I want to punch him in the throat and watch him choke.
“I told you, she’s resting, which you’d know if you ever bothered visiting. But since I’m the only person that gives a shit about this family, I’m the one in charge, and—”
I shove past him. Little shitweasel Hugh isn’t going to keep me from seeing my own damn mother, even if he’s right and I haven’t visited in a long time. Mom knows why I’ve kept away—she understands it better than anyone—and I only hope she still remembers.
My mother’s chambers are large and airy. It used to be three rooms, but she knocked down all the walls a long time ago and made it into one massive space. There’s a sitting and receiving area, now covered in what looks like a bevy of medical equipment, and an art station with an easel and canvas lined up against the wall, all of them covered by my mother’s work, though I suspect it hasn’t been used in a long time, and at the far side is a massive four-poster bed.
I approach slowly. My mother looks shrunken and gray lying in the middle of blankets and pillows. In my memory, she’s enormous, always smiling, always laughing. My mother has an amazing sense of humor. She made the house light with her jokes, especially when my father’s rage threatened to drown us all in darkness. She was the only thing that kept me from leaving sooner than I did, her and Cait. Mom brought light into my life, the kind of warmth I never thought could exist.
But with Cait gone, I had to walk away from the family.
Mom understood. Even if we never talked about it, she understood.
Now though, my mother’s asleep. She looks ten years older than she is. Hair gray and tangled. Skin pale and wrinkled. She takes deep, slow, wheezing breaths. I linger at her side, staring down at her thin, bony fingers. How did she get so tiny? When did all this happen?
“I told you,” Hugh says quietly from behind. “She’s sleeping, which is a mercy right now. Please, Kellen, don’t wake her up. She’s having a bad day.”
My jaw tightens. A bad day means she doesn’t remember much about who she is or where she’s at. There’s no official diagnosis, but my understanding is dementia or early stages of Alzheimer’s. My father kept doctors away from this place and my mother’s been seen to by a series of privately funded nurses for years.
But whatever she has, it’s taking my mother away, piece by piece.
I turn away and nod at Hugh. He looks relieved as we leave the room. Out in the hallway, he watches me carefully, head tilted to the side.
“It’s nice of you to visit, Kellen, but maybe it’s better if you come back some other time. We can schedule—”
“How long have you been running this house, Hugh?” I turn to look at him, frowning. “I assume it’s been a while.”
“Your father retired. I took over most of his duties.”
“CEO of Hayle Construction. Head of the manor. Must be nice.”
Hugh’s eyes grow sharper and he steps forward. I’ve got a couple inches and years of struggling for my life on him, but he doesn’t back down. I’ll give him that much, he’s stupid but brave. “We couldn’t all run away and become street thugs like you.”
“No, you didn’t need to run to become a thug. You got that promotion all on your own.” I show him a snarling grin. “Let’s not pretend the Hayle family is anything but a bunch of fancy fucking gangsters. And as the CEO, you’re the big boss, aren’t you? The head gangster running the whole twisted show.”
“What the fuck are you doing here, Kellen? Why don’t you go back to your petty little crew and keep robbing old ladies for their pension money?”
I stare at him for several beats of my heart. I’m losing control already and I’ve only been home for an hour.
“My father’s dead, Hugh, which means you don’t have his protection anymore. I don’t know how you managed to insert yourself into this family but I’m home now.” I step forward, staring into my cousin’s eyes. “And I’m here to take what’s rightfully mine.”
Hugh laughs once and shakes his head. “Good luck with that. You’re nothing but the disgraced son. You’re a petty criminal and a minor mafia lord. Nobody at Hayle Construction’s going to give a damn about you, not a single employee, much less the damn board. You have no legal standing and no support. You’re as dead as your old man as far as they’re concerned, which means you’re wrong, Kellen. This family is mine and I’m going to steer it the way I see fit.”
While Hugh is in a good position to take full control of the Hayle Construction Company and the real power behind the behind the power, the Hayle mafia family with its sticky fingers in a thousand pots of honey, he’s wrong about me. So fucking wrong it’s almost comical.
I smile at him tightly, struggling to maintain my composure. “I’ll have the staff make up a room.”
“You can’t stay here forever,” he says as I turn and walk away. “At some point, you’ll have to accept it. I’m the one in charge, Kellen, and that’s not going to change.”