Forty-Three
FORTY-THREE
VANESSA
My pulse throbs against the connection of Chaos’s hand entwined with mine. I dig into my memories and focus on the good shit—on the calm created by the soothing feel of his hands on me a few hours ago—as we step inside the waiting room outside the lawyer’s office. You can do this. The ache in my chest makes me not so sure. I feel like I’m dying.
“Breathe, baby.” He places a kiss on the top of my head as his brothers spread out around the room.
Circus takes up residence on the arm of a chair, much to the disgust of Abraham’s lackey, who currently occupies the seat. Crow positions himself against the wall, broad shoulders against the timber panels as he studies two suits who hold a hushed conversation opposite him. No doubt Abraham’s, too.
Highway squeezes my shoulder as he passes by, settling with his elbows on the personal assistant’s desk, leaning down to sweet talk the middle-aged woman.
My stepfather is nowhere to be seen. He's in the office already, I guess, prepping his puppet.
“Well,” Evelyn remarks, lacing her hands at her stomach. “This is cozy.”
One of the chatting minions snaps his balding head around at her remark, eyes narrowed, and nose crinkled. He holds a hand up to his colleagues as though to say, “I got this,” and walks boldly over to the PA.
The whole fucking room watches in rapt silence.
My heartbeat thunders in my ears.
As though sensing the unease, Chaos slides his arm around the front of my shoulders, pulling me against him.
“Excuse me,” the minion states loudly as he approaches Highway’s side. “Could you ask this riff-raff to kindly leave?”
Highway leans back, twisting his torso to face the guy. “Too chicken shit to do it yourself?”
The suit holds that fucking palm out again, this time in the biker’s face. “I wasn’t speaking with you.”
With a pointed finger, Highway delicately sets it against the side of the man’s wrist and pushes his arm away. “Yeah, but I was sure talking to you.”
“That’ll do.” Chaos can barely disguise the amusement in his tone.
I lift my hands to his thick arm, the sensation of his firm muscles enough to provide a sense of ease.
Evelyn sighs, lifting a complimentary magazine, only to toss it down again when she realizes it’s some stock market shit.
The door to the lawyer’s office opens.
I swallow, blinking slowly as a wave of panic leaves my head spinning.
Warm lips press against my temple. “You can call it quits and leave any time you want. Nobody controls this but you.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the preppy asshole with fashionable black-rimmed glasses says. “Thank you for waiting.” Not that we were here that long. “Counsellor Kuniss and Mr. Faith are ready for those invited to the reading.” He stresses the word, narrowing his focus on the extra men in the room.
The minions look to the bikers, who glare right back at them.
It’d be comical if I weren’t ready to snatch the assistant’s trashcan and heave my near-empty guts.
Evelyn moves first, head held high, as my phone vibrates in my pocket. Chaos glances down when I anchor myself to the spot, tugging it free to see a message from Marianna.
You got this, babe. I’m so proud of you!!
Fuck it. I have goddamn mascara on and eyeshadow that took me ten fucking minutes to get right—on one eye. I am not going to cry.
“You want to leave?” Chaos whispers, hand sliding to cup the side of my neck.
I tilt my head back and meet his eyes, falling in love again with this complete paradox of a man. “No. I’m good.”
I’m better than good. I’m fucking alive and winning because I have people who love me.
People who care.
People who want to be there for me without expecting anything in return.
Without me needing to earn it first.
“This won’t take long.” I press up on my toes and plant a quick kiss on his beautiful mouth. “See you soon.”
My heart thunders, pressing hard against my chest wall as I walk into the office. Evelyn lifts her arm, snaring my attention and ushering me to her side on the left of the large oak desk. I walk toward her with short steps, not trusting my legs to carry my weight properly and take her outstretched hand as I lower myself to the seat.
My chest knots painfully when I see him, phantom pain shooting down my arms. Fuck.
“Daughter.” Abraham tilts his head as he regards me from his position strategically to the lawyer’s left. As though this is his goddamn meeting. His blood relation he speaks for.
“I am not your daughter.” I fight to keep my voice level. “And I’d appreciate it if you could refrain from speaking directly to me for the rest of this meeting.”
Evelyn squeezes my hand.
He looks so much older—Abraham—and I don’t know why the hell that surprises me. Almost two decades have passed since I last saw his face. Since I last suffered the sound of his voice. Why the fuck did I think he wouldn’t have changed?
He looks… frail . And I love that for him.
“We’ll keep this brief,” the lawyer pontificates from his oversized chair central behind the equally oversized desk. “There’s a lot of tension in this room. A lot that needs to be said. But today is not the day for hatred. We’re here to remember the life of?—“
“I’m sorry,” Evelyn interjects. “But is this a will reading or a fucking celebration of life? Because I’m sure the latter has already occurred without her family in attendance, and to pretend that this is what that is now is quite frankly an insult.”
The lawyer leans back, jowls wobbling as he checks his rage at her outburst.
I squeeze her hand.
“If you could please compose yourself, Ms. Faith.” He slams a hand down on the leather top of the desk. “Perhaps this isn’t a courtroom, but I sure like to think we can hold ourselves in the same esteem as one and obey simple etiquette.”
“Please dismiss the far side of the room,” Abraham intones. “They hold savage, corrupted hearts.”
Yeah—by you, you fucking asshole.
“Proceed.” He sets a hand on the back of the lawyer’s.
So simple. Such dominance.
I ache to slap the smug look right off his perverted face.
“As I was saying?—“
The office door cracks open with a loud clunk.
Counsellor Kuniss rolls his eyes at his assistant. Pity the girl. “What now?”
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but a last attendee has just arrived.”
“Who?” His face contorts with confusion, as does Abraham’s.
I sit forward, focus on the door as a suit-clad leg comes into view first, followed by masculine hands fussing with the jacket, then— the fuck? “Gage?”
His head turns at my voice, and his strong profile softens as he takes me in. “Vanessa.”
We’re equally as surprised to see the other. “What the—?” I start as he says, “Where have you been?”
“Living my life,” I answer quietly, studying my brother.
Absorbing how different he looks. Yes, he’s aged. The lanky awkwardness of a teenager has hardened into the commanding profile of a man. But it’s something in his gaze, the way he moves his body, and his mannerisms that make me reluctant to remove my focus from him.
Compassion. Fuck. Of course. It’s the movements of a man who cares, who’s curious and welcoming. Not the cold, stiff judgment of the man across the room who spent years molding him to be his heir.
“How dare you?” Abraham booms, rising from his seat. He scowls at Gage, knocking the vacant seat beside him across the floor an inch in his haste to reach my brother. “To choose today to show your fucking face.” His ire echoes around the room; the door closed again, trapping us with his fire.
“She was my mother,” Gage hollers back, leaning into Abraham, highlighting his height advantage over the dictator. “ Our mother. So, how dare you ,” he scathes. “You have the least right to be here.”
“Everyone,” the lawyer calls, face reddening. “Settle yourselves and take a seat. Please.”
“Gladly.” Gage grabs the back of the spare chair and pointedly drags it across the room to where I sit with Evelyn, forcing Abraham back.
I reach for his hand once he’s settled, a thrill vibrating in my chest when he wraps his fingers around mine.
“The estate for Julianna May Faith is simple,” the lawyer states, breaking straight to the heart of things. “She was a modest woman of few possessions.” Because that asshole took them all. “But she was also steadfast in her deliverance of them in the event of her passing, which she ensured through the creation of multiple copies of this document.” He bristles at the revelation.
What exactly does he mean? Did she distribute her will elsewhere should this type of manipulation happen?
“To Gage Thaddeus Faith?—“
“Hodder,” my brother snaps, correcting the surname to the one we were born with.
“Gage Thaddeus Faith ,” the lawyer seethes, angered at yet another interruption. “She leaves her heirloom ring and the contents of her bank account, which at the time of her passing was twenty thousand in savings and stocks equating to four thousand and seven dollars.”
Abraham leans an elbow on the arm of his chair, a grimace disguised behind his hand. Did he not know she had her own account? Sure seems like a point of contention.
“And to Vanessa May Faith .” He pauses, glaring at me as though daring me to correct him.
I lift an eyebrow.
“She leaves her property at seventy-four Harbor Street, a four-bedroom townhouse, contents listed on the attached addendum.”
She what? I thought she had sold our first home. The one she raised us in alone. “Are you sure?”
“It says so right here,” he snaps, waving the typed page at me. “Would you trust it better if you read it with your own eyes?”
“No need to be an asshole,” Evelyn mutters. “She’s surprised at the news. Clearly.”
“I thought Mom sold that house?” Gage asks, speaking my thoughts.
“As did we all,” Abraham sneers. “I wouldn’t get too cozy with the idea, Vanessa,” he grumbles, leaning forward to set his elbows to knees, hands clasped before him. “I plan to contest this ludicrous document.”
“Ludicrous, how?” Evelyn snaps, releasing my hand to lean forward also. “Because you didn’t get what you wanted?”
“I don’t give weight to the opinion of whores,” he seethes, looking as though he contemplates killing his sister.
She wets her lips and smiles, nodding her head slowly. He wants a fight, and she refuses to give it to him.
She’s stronger than most.
“And as for this harlot,” Abraham gestures to me. “How can you gift wealth and riches to the little bitch who killed her?”
“She fucking died of cancer, you asshole,” Gage snaps. “Because you refused her treatment that could have saved her life.”
“The hell?” My head swivels between the two of them, Abraham now out of his seat, demanding ownership of the room with his height over us all. “What treatment?”
“Tell her,” Gage prompts. “Tell her how you paid the fucking doctors to give her saline instead of the chemotherapy drugs.”
“The ever-loving fuck?” I stand also.
“Watch your whore mouth,” Abraham roars, finger poking the air in my direction.
“If it’s a whore mouth,” I yell, “it’s because you made it that way.”
“Vanessa?” Evelyn asks, her head pulled back.
“Shut your hole.” My stepfather storms across the room, coming straight for me.
Gage rises between us, body-blocking the abuser.
“What’s the matter?” I ask. Anger at the injustice of my mother’s death overrides any fear I may have in his presence. “Does nobody else know those little secrets? Why do people think I left?”
“I’m warning you, you little bitch.” He reaches around Gage, grasping for me. “If you don’t shut your mouth, I’ll do it for you. Permanently.”
I take a step back, calves bumping the chair.
“Wow.” My laugh pierces the air, and I smirk at the fuck. “All these years, I thought they all knew. That they supported you. Do they? Or have I just uncovered why it is you wanted me dead so badly?”
“Vanessa, you fucking keep those lies to yourself.”
Gage pushes Abraham back with both hands, struggling to keep the man off me, even as the lawyer stands, fists leaning on the top of his desk while he hollers at the madness to stop.
Evelyn rises to her feet, hand to the front of my arm, ready to pull me to safety behind her.
“You dare try to bring those untruths to light, and I will fucking destroy you. You hear me?”
“You already did,” I seethe. “When you shoved your cock down my throat and told me it was what all good girls did to get to Heaven.”