Jethro
THE PAST FEW days, I’d done nothing but conspire on how to end this mess. I played my role, took my pills, and avoided the love of my fucking life.
Every time I thought up a plan, I researched each angle and plotted. But each time there were flaws, hurtling me deeper into despondency. The longer I couldn’t solve my problem, the longer I avoided Nila.
I was so fucking close to destroying everything.
I missed her. So much.
So far, I’d discounted eleven different ways of murdering my father.
Option four: Invite him to go for a hunt. Shoot him and make it look like an ‘unfortunate accident.’
Flaws: Too risky. Witnesses. He would have a weapon to retaliate with.
Option seven: Invite him to dinner. Poison the bastard’s food with cyanide—just like he’d threatened me all my life.
Flaws: Dosage might be wrong. Contamination to others.
Option Nine: Arrange a mercenary to attack mid-shipment, dispatch him and keep my hands free from murder.
Flaws: Kes might be with him and get hurt in the crossfire.
Each one seemed plausible enough until deeper inspection. But all of that was shot to shit the afternoon he called me into his office.
Once again, he somehow knew.
How the fuck does he always know?
Was it his uncanny sixth sense? Constant monitoring of my behaviour?
How?!
What gave me away? The look of disgust I could never quite hide? The sneer of hatred I could never wipe away?
Whatever it was, I was once again fucking screwed.
In his office, with rain pelting on the windows, he’d shown me his prized and protected Final Will and Testament.
It was a tome the size of the Royal Decree. Pages upon pages of notary amendments and appendixes. And buried in the fine print were two highlighted areas.
Primogeniture: the section on myself, my role as firstborn, and what I stood to inherit. That part went on for sheets and sheets.
His death: Most importantly his untimely death.
Cut was a businessman. He was also cunning, ruthless, and smart.
The clause stated that any unnatural death, be it from bee stings or drowning, horse riding fall or car accident—even as simple as dying in his sleep—would make his entire Will null and void.
And not just for myself but for all of us.
My siblings would be tossed out. Jasmine would be sent to a convalescent home against her wishes. The Black Diamonds disbanded. Kestrel cast away without a penny.
What did it mean?
Simple.
Cut had noted that if he died from anything other than cancer or a medically proven condition, Hawksridge was to be demolished. Any death that could potentially be maliciously faked, our mines would be detonated. Our wealth donated to causes that had no right to receive charity.
It would be the end of our lifestyle.
It was his ultimate sacrifice and safeguard to ensure we stayed loyal.
Unlike him, I didn’t care about money or ancient rubble. If it meant I could be free, so be it. But no amount of drugs could stop me from caring about my siblings.
And Cut knew that.
He showed me his trump card.
Along with Jasmine’s imprisonment in a disabled rest home—her power of attorney stripped away—and Kes’s renouncement, I would become a ward of the crown, placed in a straitjacket, and thrown into a padded room.
He had authentic documents stating my mental wellbeing.
A sworn oath bullet-pointing testimonies and histories, proving I was legally unfit to represent myself.
All decision-making was to be at the discretion of my enlisted doctors—doctors who’d been bribed and coerced for years and knew my past. I would have no power—no room to argue.
The documents were submitted with a letter to his lawyer, stating if anything unseemly happened to him, to look no further for the smoking gun, because all fingers pointed to me.
I would be thrown in an asylum—one I could never escape.
Needing fresh air, I threw down my pen and crossed my office.
There has to be another way.
“Fuck!” I hissed, stepping onto the Juliette balcony the same way I’d done countless of times before. The cool breeze whistled down my back, and the ache in my chest deepened.
Yet, unlike countless of times before, my heart fucking shattered into a trillion pieces.
Below me, with her hair streaming behind her and the happiest, slightly terrified smile on her face was Nila.
She was a grey comet. A thundering silver-shooting star.
She couldn’t have been more majestic or sublime.
Moth’s elegant legs chewed up the lawn, heading toward the paddock I’d galloped over many times on my own.
Horse and rider merged in utmost perfection.
Only, she wasn’t alone.
The ring of male laughter came over the breeze as Kestrel shot past her on Black Plague, his hand in the air and a grin plastered to his motherfucking face.
The picture they presented tore out my heart, turning it to dust.
All this time, I’d worked my ass off to protect Nila, Kes, and Jaz. All this time, I’d distanced myself and done what was required.
And how was I fucking repaid?
By being forgotten.
Nila hunched further over Moth’s withers, galloping faster. Together, they tore off into the distance, leaving me stricken...hollow.
No amount of pills could stop me feeling the wave of crashing desolation.
The numbing fog couldn’t help me.
This was my breaking point.
My utter grief.
I’d wanted to experience that with her.
I’d wanted to make her smile and laugh and slide inside her in the dark, secretive world of the stables.
I’d wanted to grant her the gift better than any material thing.
But that’d been stolen from me.
By the one man I thought had my back forever.
Betrayer. Stealer. Forsaker.
I turned around and went back into my office.
But I returned empty.
My heart was left tagging along like a kite, its strings tied to Nila as she galloped further away beneath the cloud-filled sky.