Chapter Forty-Four Tyler
Chapter Forty-Four
TYLER
IGNORING SEAN’S SIDE-EYE of the bandages wrapped around my hands, I ride passenger, and he continues to chain smoke as I stare out his streaked window.
When I saw him waiting at the airstrip as we taxied in, I didn’t bother questioning it.
Feeling Tobias’s watchful gaze trailing me as they made some silent exchange of custody before I took the Nova’s passenger seat.
Surprised and thankful Sean didn’t press me for a single word the entire ride, it’s the sight that greets me outside my window as we approach King’s which has me perking.
Just after the familiar crunch of the gravel sounds, I open my door, hastening my exit.
Arms thrumming in anticipation, I stalk toward the man I raised, greeting him warmly a second before his knuckles crack across my jaw.
“You let go of my hand!” Zach roars, and I gauge the devastation in his expression while pain blooms along my face.
The ache in my heart increasing tenfold as my son glares at me, chest heaving.
Eyes watering, I stare back at Zach as unchecked tears spill down his face.
It’s when I glance over at Sean that I know exactly why I just received a blow from my son.
Ripping my eyes from Sean, I fix my focus on Zach, knowing that no apology will do, and no words will calm his anger.
It’s then that I decide to allow him to lash out with whatever is in his heart.
Watching him, I see him mentally pick through his words, plucking just the right ones before hurling them at me. “It was your only promise to me!”
“I didn’t let go and never will.”
“You went on a suicide mission!” he shouts in condemnation.
Sean’s obsessive Zippo click sounds behind me, indicative that he knows he has a fight coming.
One he picked, as Zach lays into me. “Don’t downplay it, Dad.
You think because I’m a grown fucking man I can deal without my fucking father?
! Are you so fucking selfish that my life doesn’t matter? I’m not a priority anymore?”
“God, no.” I shake my head. “That’s not the truth at all.”
“You promised me you would try, but you haven’t! Instead, you’ve grieved yourself into shredding everything resembling the man who raised me!” It’s the gutting in his voice that tells me he believes his words. Unable to come up with a single worthy reply, I choke on his truth as he levels me.
“There’s grief and then there’s this, and this is fucking unforgivable, Dad.”
When he turns his back to me, I immediately stalk after him.
“Zach, please, don’t shut me out, I need you—”
He turns on a dime. “And who the fuck are you?” His eyes rake me in disgust. “I don’t recognize you!”
“Please don’t leave,” I croak, knowing I’ve scared him in a way I can’t take back.
“But you already said goodbye to me, months ago, didn’t you, Tyler?”
The sound of my name, one he hasn’t used since agreeing to his adoption, nearly sends me to my knees.
“No! I’ll never let go. I didn’t know if I would survive it, but you of all people know that risk when going on a mission—”
“And what mission was that?”
“Son, what I did—”
“You’re fucking sick,” Zach declares, as if seeing me through a new lens. “You’re sick and you need fucking help.”
“What? No, I’ll get through this. I just lost my way.”
He crosses his arms, his inability to leave me springing what hope remains. “Okay, then tell me. Tell me what fucking orders you were given to sacrifice everything you’ve worked for and leave your only son an orphan. Give me a good enough excuse for that.”
The two justifiable reasons thousands of miles away can’t be voiced, but forsaking one son or daughter for another isn’t good enough. Nothing is.
“Tell me,” Zach prompts, “what life-saving mission did you go on to better the world or to save anyone?”
What can I say? That I thought … I hoped there was a chance of something more for me.
A shot at redemption? I mute those lies and let all others die on my tongue.
The truth ringing clear in my guilty silence—that I did let go of his hand.
“I can’t, you’re right, and it’s unforgivable,” I admit brokenly, but he’s already turned and walking. “I have no excuse.”
“Yeah? Well then, maybe I’ll be there for you when you fucking do,” he fires over his shoulder before stalking toward a truck I don’t recognize, which is parked next to the classic we share.
The knowledge he’s abandoning a sacred piece of our history painfully evident before he leaves a tidal wave of gravel in his wake, not once glancing back in his rearview as he speeds away.
A grunt of pain escapes me just as Sean steps up to stand beside me.
All hopes of calming the restoked hellfire feasting on me into something manageable were depleted with my son’s departure.
Jaw and heart roaring, I glance over to see Sean assessing me.
“I don’t have the fucking strength to swing at you, but I’ll find it if you don’t get the fuck away from me, right now.”
“You’re fighting your own fucking air at this point anyway,” he counters on exhale, “and we both know this reckoning has been a long time coming.”
Stalking toward the classic and bonding point I share with my son, I catch Sean’s boots in my peripheral as he begins to trail me. “The keys to your evasion are in my pocket, man, and you’re not getting them yet.”
“Jesus Christ, you aren’t satisfied with what damage you just caused? You and T haven’t done enough fucking meddling?”
“Not as much as we should have,” he clips as I hold out my hand in demand, narrowing my eyes on him, my voice lethal with my warning.
“If you think fucking my relationship with my son makes you a better brother to me, think again. I won’t forgive this, you stupid bastard. Not in this lifetime.”
Eyes unapologetic, he steps up to me, undeterred. “He deserved to know his father is fucking lying to everyone as he digs the early grave he’s been inviting. In that sense, some secrets aren’t better hidden for protection.”
“Yeah, tell me how in the hell that made things better?!”
“It didn’t,” he fires back, “but since you’re opting to ignore the fact you’re not immortal after testing it to everyone’s detriment, if denial and misery are your best friends, we’re well acquainted. I can hang with them as long as that means I get to hang with you.”
“Fuck off and give me my keys.”
“No can do, man. Sorry.”
“Sean,” I utter in a warning he completely ignores.
“You want a fucking apology for encouraging you to bed the only woman capable of getting you to show signs of life in seven fucking years?” He shakes his head as I sidestep him and again steps straight up to me, slamming a palm into my chest. “Don’t hold your breath.
You’ve forced us all to watch you function as a ghost since the day you lost her! ”
“Get the fuck away from me, Sean!” I bat his palm away. “You don’t know shit!”
“Right.” His eyes dim. “I know fuck all about a brother becoming a stranger to me. Which is why I’m keeping my promise to myself.”
Fear for him skitters down my spine even as I seethe at his actions. “What fucking promise?”
“And because I didn’t listen to my gut,” he says, more for himself, not answering my question, “I’m almost too fucking late.”
“Yeah, so what are you going to do? Hit me? Throw me in a cold shower? Feelings talk me to death, or just talk me to death?” I snap.
“Cute”—he releases a loaded breath—“but no.”
“What then, Sean, what? What’s the magical plan to put Tyler all back together again? You going to bring my wife back from the dead?”
His brows rise as shock registers in his expression. “You married her?”
“I have secrets and knowledge of things you can’t fucking imagine the scope of, brother,” I spit, “and will likely never know because I chose to be the fucking cursed.” I shake my head.
“So I can’t even be mad about your ignorance, because I chose this, but yeah, I didn’t bury my girlfriend, Sean.
I left my fucking wife graveside. So stop flattering yourself into thinking you know anything real about me. ”
“But you didn’t leave her there and haven’t left a fucking thing anywhere since. These secrets you think you’re guarding are eating you alive.”
He palms my shoulder before I jerk it away, done with his pointless version of tough love. “Stop! The guy you’re looking for doesn’t exist anymore.”
“I know,” he utters jaggedly, “but I love the man in front of me the same.”
“Bullshit,” I counter, the need to evade his pity-laced stare ramping.
“No, I do. He’s not nearly as fun, not as kind or levelheaded, but I love and respect him more than anyone else on this earth and want him around. I want to watch him grow to be an old fucking man, but if that’s not possible, I want to spend a little time with him before he self-destructs.”
“Ever heard the saying ‘don’t waste your life mourning the living’?”
“Why? You’re wasting your life grieving.”
“Fuck you,” I snap as his eyes ice over.
“All right, then it’s time for that wake-up shower.”
“Had one today,” I growl.
“Okay”—he nods decisively—“then it’s a trip to hell.”
Twenty minutes later, we’re standing at Delphine’s and Dom’s graves.
My jaw and knuckles smarting as a stiff breeze filters throughout the hillside graveyard, dropping amber and marigold foliage between our collective boots.
Predictably, Sean waits until I’ve scanned and acknowledged both headstones before sparking his second smoke and finally speaking up.
“That first time, motherfucker, that first time.” He turns to me, lifting one side of his mouth in a grin.
“Nothing, and I mean nothing, will ever beat that first high. The fall itself is paralyzing, right? The helplessness and the fear that comes along with it—that if the person you’re starting to draw breath for, shape your dreams around, doesn’t feel the same, that you won’t survive it. ”