Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 92376 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92376 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
“This is why I can’t talk to you about these things.” Unlike Logan, Rage will never understand what it means to be the firstborn, what it means to carry on your shoulders the crushing weight of responsibility. But it’s something I’m happy about because I would rather take this burden than pass it along to him. He should never know what it truly means to stand at this place in the family.
“He better be a real good lay, then,” Rage says.
“He will be.” After what he did to my cock last night, there’s no doubt in my mind. It’s more than that, though. There’s a connection beyond what he can do with that mouth or even what a sexy motherfucker he is. But now, that connection scares me, so I try to shake it off.
“You could always teach him, if it wasn’t good,” Rage says, offering me reprieve from my thoughts.
“You’re really testing me this morning.”
“I didn’t even know he was into dudes, but the way he was working your dick, there’s no question there.”
I wish I could let that go, but as is his way, he’s struck at something. “What do you mean?”
“You clearly weren’t the only one enjoying it.”
I won’t reveal the circumstances under which Logan gave me that blowjob, but I don’t dismiss what Rage says either. Despite Logan’s insistence, even I felt a moment where his jaw relaxed and he submitted entirely to the experience.
Fuck, if he gives me all his holes like that…
Again, I try to stop these perverse thoughts, especially around my brother.
“I’ve some wheeling and dealing to manage today,” he adds.
His charm positioned him at the head of our PR front. He’s very much the salesman of the family. We each have our talent, but sales certainly wasn’t mine. Not with this personality.
He starts like he’s about to head out before noticing the roses I clipped.
“Say hey to Pops for me.”
It doesn’t surprise me that he understood why I’d cut Old Terror’s favorites. It’s been too long since I’ve paid him a visit.
Rage grabs my face, the way Dad might have. “I gave you an instruction,” he says in his best imitation, and despite how degrading the move is, it does make me miss the fuck.
Rage heads on his way, and when I finish pruning the roses, I have Jaime drive me out to St. Luke’s. I don’t have any meetings today, and for a change, Rage isn’t in any trouble I need to get him out of, so it’s a good day for the visit. Besides, I have some things weighing on my mind after everything that’s happened with Logan.
When I come to Dad’s headstone, I settle on my knees.
Adoring husband, loving father, his epitaph reads.
Despite what the rest of the world saw, I knew the truth of his character. Yes, he was a psychopath, and if you were his enemy, he would crush you same as I would, but he was more than the foul deeds that gained him his reputation. He could be good, kind, caring, though he didn’t necessarily show it the way others might expect.
I set the roses beside the headstone.
“Well, here we are. And you’re still dead.”
Even after all these years, it remains a painful blow.
Given the particulars of my personality, I don’t experience loss as others do. I don’t miss a great man as much as a great weapon—a possession, even. And where others might think of what their loved one is missing out on, I reflect on those benefits I had from his presence in my life. This feeling seems reserved for Old Terror because, while I miss my mother and siblings, that loss is mixed with disdain at the inconvenience of their deaths.
There’s an echo in my ears, the sound of gunshots on the day the Folcrums descended upon us while we were securing a shipment. They slaughtered the Lordes with abandon, successfully trimming down a family of eight to a family of two, myself and Rage the only survivors.
I wait for the echo to quiet before I go on. “I had that meeting with that bastard Wilde. Honestly, I thought he might be too much of a coward to pull it off. But it seems we’re really going to follow through. I don’t know that I believe this is a good idea anymore.”
For the first time since our conversation, I let some of those thoughts I’ve resisted since breakfast creep back in…when I mentioned our responsibilities to Logan. Emotions bubble up—rage being one of the few I can experience with any intensity—before becoming a hurricane in my mind, terrorizing me as I see the moment when he was in the heat of killing Sik Vik.
That was the real Logan. The version of himself he doesn’t show the world, can’t show the world, just like I could never show the world my true self, the character flaws my siblings and I inherited. Old Terror demanded we each harness the power of our true characters since he knew it was the only way we would survive in this world. And he was right, but of all my siblings, I spent the most time grappling with my diagnosis in my teens—between various mixes of medications and therapy to find a way to manage the darkness. There was plenty of disagreement on the precise genetic and environmental mix of my mental cocktail, but several phrases were repeated among specialists—antisocial personality disorder, co-occurring factor 1 and 2 psychopathy, obsessive behaviors, narcissism, Machiavellian, borderline traits. And while I appreciate the observations made by experts, I consider myself utterly unique, which unfortunately, might make all the things suspected about me one hundred percent accurate.