Lois had prepared a special meal, and the four of us ate it in near silence, the tension almost a tangible thing. The papers would be signed after dinner. The funds released by morning. I still remembered when it had been me the year before. I remember the exhilaration of it. Independence, true independence, for the first time.
After dinner was cleared, the cake was set in the center of the table, the papers laid out, a fountain pen purchased for the occasion that Theron would keep laid on top, uncapped. I still had mine.
My mother may have suspected. I remember how anxious she’d looked.
My grandfather was overly jovial. Not himself.
And then he did it. He gave his speech about family, about duty, about blood, and handed Theron the pen.
I still remember Theron’s face before I couldn’t look at it any longer. It makes me sick to this day to think of the extent of my grandfather’s cruelty. Makes me sick to know he had a hand in creating the beast my brother has become.
Because as he read the words, as he saw the birth certificate naming his true biological father, as he saw the amount of money he would receive and the condition on which he’d receive it, I watched something snap in him. And as we stood there, a darkness surfaced from inside him. It expanded, touched the very edges of him.
Theron’s eyes landed on me while my grandfather explained that his inheritance, since he wasn’t truly blood, had been transferred to me. That he would receive a small portion of those funds with the agreement that he go away. That he leave the family. The grounds. The Society. That he’d be allowed to keep the name for the sake of appearances. And that he’d never show his face to my grandfather again.
But my grandfather miscalculated. He thought Theron weaker than he is. Thought he’d be easily bought. Manipulated. Cowed.
And before my eyes, my brother changed. As he watched me, he funneled his hate, and he became something different.
He never did sign anything. He came to me instead. He trusted me before that. We were supposed to be close.
I swallow the scotch in my glass as I force myself to remember what followed. As I remember when he asked me if I had known the truth. If I had known that he was a bastard.
I didn’t have to say a word for him to see the answer on my face. And he just stared at me for such a long time before smiling that smile that I saw again last night. He hugged me. And he buried the knife that would have sliced his cake in my back.
A knock on my door startles me. I am jarred from my reverie, grateful and shaken at once.
“Judge.”
Fuck.
I clear my throat and stand. “Enter.”
Santiago opens the door, and for a moment, we remain facing one another in uneasy silence. I think of Mercedes. Of her beneath me. Of what I did.
“You’re working late,” he says. “I stopped by the house, but they told me you were here.”
“I had to finish some things. Come in.”
He does, closes the door behind him, and glances over the surface of my desk. “My sister’s friends.” He picks up the paper where Solana Lavigne and Georgie fucking Beaumont have taken out a full-page ad in a local paper asking if anyone’s seen her. They know her as Mercedes Rosa at least. A slight difference from her real name. Enough to keep out of IVI? We’ll see.
I hand him a scotch and take my seat behind my desk. “I’ll take care of it.”
“How?”
“Leave it to me.”
“That’s the thing, Judge.” He swirls his scotch in his glass. “Something’s gotten back to me, and I know the fucking rumor mill those Society ladies can be. But I need to make sure it’s not true.”
I clear my throat. Wait.
“You were seen kissing my sister the night of the party.”
“Ah. Well, it wasn’t quite like that. Mercedes was upset when I dragged her out of there. And her friends were watching.”
“Go on.” He drinks a sip of his scotch.
“She is impulsive.”