14. Sam
Sam
It’s a goddamn injustice.
I stare at pictures of Alejandro with his family—smiling parents, two younger brothers, and a darling youngest sister. This specific picture of them at the beach is a few years old, before their daughter was taken from them, too.
Drunk driver.
The blow hits me square in the chest, and I have to take a deep, steadying breath.
It’s fucked up—everything about the situation.
Their auto shop is still in business, but the weariness in the father’s eyes has easily aged him by a few decades.
The two remaining sons, older now, smile stiffly at the camera.
It doesn’t take long to transfer an anonymous donation from the Wright Foundation to their banking institution, but even that feels like mediocre compensation for their hardship.
I could, instead, bring Alejandro’s killers to justice.
My gaze lingers on Alejandro’s Missing Persons flyer on my computer monitor.
I’m not home in the frat, having spent the past few nights at my father’s house.
He’s never home, making a collision with him low risk, but he keeps his web browsing encrypted and all outgoing calls routed through proxies.
Doing research here is better for my psyche in terms of hiding my search history, but everything else about the experience is a drain on my mental stamina.
This office is pure white and sterile, kept immaculately clean by the staff, and I absolutely fucking hate it.
But what I hate more is knowing that people like my father don’t give a fuck about anyone outside of the upper echelons of society.
They don’t bat an eye when a man like Alejandro goes missing.
He was twenty-five with dreams of taking over the family business someday. Now, he’s dead.
And I know who killed him.
I rub my tired eyes and glance at the clock.
Two-thirty A.M.. Way past my bedtime if I’m going to make it through my eight o’clock practice.
Sighing, I drag my body down the hall to my bedroom.
This, too, is in pristine condition. If my father could have cleaned me up like this house, he would have turned me into a perfect replica of himself no matter the amount of anti-depressants and hair dye it would take.
I’ve been to every top-tier shrink in the city, and they all say the same thing.
He’s not broken, Samuel, he’s just human.
Human and grieving.
As I lay in bed, my mind inevitably drifts back to the day I met Mercy. It was a last-ditch effort to “fix” me. Grief counseling with the general population. He attended the adult group and met Mr. Morningstar while I attended the youth group and met Mercy.
If there’s one thing I’m grateful to the bastard for, it’s that he inadvertently introduced me to Mercy… or I guess we could say that my mom did.
Thinking of her doesn’t hurt as much as it used to, but not having a mom doesn’t suck any less. She never got to meet Mercy.
“I think you’d like her.” I stare up at the tiered ceiling and rub the ache brewing inside my chest. “She’s got pretty eyes and a killer smile.
A lot of things don’t bother her. Like how I only eat hot dogs with relish or can’t watch scary movies.
She likes the gory ones more than the ghost ones.
I think it’s because of her family’s affinity for dead things.
” Grandma Star offered to conduct a seance for me once, but I could never muster the courage to go through with it.
I’d rather speak with my mom like this, where I don’t have to wonder what she’ll say back.
I tuck my hands behind my head and wonder, like I do every night, if Mercy is having trouble sleeping.
Staying the night to hold her is purely selfish, however, no matter how much it helps her dream sweetly.
It helps me, too. Sighing, I close my eyes and allow my mind to wander, but all it does is spiral around Mercy.
Her infectious laugh. The way her eyes sparkle in certain slants of light.
How skilled she is with her artwork. Inevitably, my thoughts drift back to the first night I kissed her.
If I could do things differently, I would. I’d tell her that I’m not kissing her just because I think she’s pretty or we’ve been friends for a long time. She isn’t a convenient hookup or a means to pass the time.
“I messed up,” I admit aloud. “I know that. But I’m going to make it up to her.” We lost a year that we could have spent together because I didn’t have the balls to admit how I felt. I let her slip through my fingers.
But I won’t make that mistake twice.
Sitting up, I rummage through the nightstand drawer for the burner phone my father insists I keep in case of special emergencies.
When I turn it on, it’s fully charged and ready to use.
I roll my eyes despite how convenient it is to have it ready and waiting for me.
I stall for a few minutes, playing around with the burner, checking my phone for texts I know aren’t there, before finally dialing the number for my dad’s “fix it” guy.
I don’t know the extent he goes to take care of things, but from what I’ve gleaned over the years under my father’s roof, if you need a job done and have the money to pay for it, you call Grey.
“Yo,” he answers on the first ring. “What’s up, Wright?”
I hesitate for so long that Grey shuffles on the other end of the line. “Hello?”
“I’m here,” I reply, running a hand through my hair. It’s not too late to back out, but I’ve come this far already. “I want you to look into something for me.”
“Little Wright. Rock on. Always wondered when you’d call.” Grey chuckles. “What’s daddy got you into?”
“I’m not—he’s not—” Sighing, I pinch the bridge of my nose.
“I just want you to find out everything you can about a set of brothers. They go by Kane and Zane, but Kane also goes by the name Reaper on campus. He’s a fifth-year and up to some shady shit.
” I know that Mercy doesn’t want me to go to the police, so I’ll use the other channels I have to dig a little deeper into Kane and Zane’s lives.
“Cross reference a man named Alejandro Carrera or any other missing persons within the past decade.”
“Got it, Boss. You wanna pick up or order delivery?”
“Delivery.” I won’t have time to venture across the city with the championship game around the corner. “I need this fast, Grey. As soon as possible.”
“That’ll cost double.”
“Add it to my tab.” Depending on what info Grey digs up, I’ll be calling him for a follow-up job, anyway. “And hey, tip yourself generously.”
Although I can’t see Grey’s smile, I can hear it in his voice. “Happy to be of service. Anything else ya need, kid?”
“Yeah.” I pray that my mom covers her ears for this. “I need a gun. Something easy to hide. Have it delivered to the house overnight.”
“I’ll throw in some ammo,” Grey muses, grunting. “And a spare. Didn’t Samuel give you one years ago? I’m surprised you don’t have an arsenal.”
We do, in fact, have a gun safe that might as well be a walk-in closet. But I don’t want my dad to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong, and if I take one of his guns—even the one he gave me when I turned fifteen—he’ll have an excuse to breathe down my neck.
Grey’s pitch lowers. “If you’ve got a problem, kid, I can send someone to handle it.”
“That won’t be necessary.” I glare into the darkness, picturing Reaper’s smug smile. “I’m a good shot.”
By the time the sun rises, I’m locked and loaded and practicing my aim in the range hidden beneath my father’s ground floor.
I skip morning football practice intentionally, knowing that I won’t be able to focus, and give up my chance of playing Saturday’s game.
For something I’ve worked so hard for, I’m not as upset as I imagined I would be.
All I can think about is keeping Mercy away from those men.
With my father’s resources, I could spirit her away. Go into hiding. No one would be able to find us. We could disappear today without a trace. Be free from all of this bullshit.
I could have Reaper killed. Zane, too, if he becomes a problem.
And Mercy would be mine.
I put a few more bullets into my target as I mull the idea over.
I’ve never been a man for extremes. Pissing my father off by ignoring his life plans for me has been fun, but I’ve never wanted to go nuclear.
I’ve merely wanted to be left alone to live my life the way I want.
Money or no money. Wright legacy or no legacy.
None of that shit has ever mattered to me.
But if that’s the only way I can keep Mercy safe...
I could always lean into becoming Samson Wright, heir to the Wright family fortune. I might not be happy about it, but if I can come home to Mercy every night, if she’ll be happy to see me and run into my arms, then maybe?—
Maybe the rest of it doesn’t matter.
As much as I hate being under my father’s thumb, I stay in his house for the rest of the day to get a feel for what my life could be like if I stay.
My skin crawls every time I imagine my dad walking into the room to lecture me or order me to join him in a business meeting.
But when I picture Mercy swinging her legs on a stool in front of the kitchen island or sketching in the sunroom, the tension roiling in my gut dissipates. I like the idea of having her around.
If I’m honest about how bad Kane and Zane are for her, I don’t think she would run away from me.
Especially if she has nowhere to run to…
The only hitch in the plan is her family, but I could house Grandma Star and her dad somewhere safe.
We could visit. I doubt her brother is coming back anytime soon, so he’s a non-factor as long as he’s out of town and out of range.
Lilith will throw a fit if I take Mercy away, though, so she’s an issue to deal with.
I don’t want there to be collateral damage if I can avoid it.
I guess we’ll see what Grey digs up first and go from there.