Chapter 3
WREN
“Y up. Regretting this,” I mutter out the side of my mouth. “Everyone is staring at me.”
Mom keeps her arm linked with mine and squeezes gently. “It’s because you look so much like him.”
“Why am I even at the wake? You only said I had to go to the funeral.”
“The wake is the part after the funeral. Still counts. Plus, you found every excuse to be late to the service, so we missed most of it anyway.”
“My gas tank was empty. What did you want me to do?” I mean, sure, I didn’t have to wash my windshield and check my tire pressure, but I did that to drag out time so I could sneak in, take a seat at the back, and then leave.
“Did they know I was going to be here? Does everyone here know who I am?” My neck is hot under my collar, and I want to undo my top button so it’s not so tight at my throat, but I don’t want to show they can get to me like that.
“Warren said the family knows. His wife. Your brothers.”
“Is one of said brothers the guy across the room glaring at me so hard it’s like he’s trying to make my head explode with sheer hatred?”
I have … siblings. Three brothers, to be exact. Each and every one of them getting the life our father felt I wasn’t entitled to. No, wait, I could’ve had it if I wanted. Once I was an adult and able to keep a secret.
Mom’s head swivels, and I pull her back.
“Don’t be so obvious. What am I supposed to do here?”
“You’re supposed to go meet your brothers. It’s what your?—”
“Don’t call him my father,” I say through gritted teeth. “The only reason I’m here is because of you. Not him.”
“Then, can you please go and talk to your brothers? For me?” She even bats her eyes.
“I hate you.” I stalk my way to the open bar. Because if I’m going to face them, I need to be shitfaced to do it.
I don’t even make it to the bar when Mr. Scowly and another guy approach me. I can only assume they’re my brothers. They both kind of resemble me. In a scrawnier, paler, don’t get outdoors much kind of way.
Thanks to working construction, I’m tanned, muscled, and twice their size.
“You’re him, then.” The British accent throws me for a second because I momentarily forgot that while my mother and I never stepped foot out of Washington State—Vancouver doesn’t count—the Ritchersons’ fortune started in the UK but became even bigger in the US.
My brothers were raised all over the globe, and I … well, Seattle has been my home forever.
“Him who?”
Brother One and Brother Two glance at each other and then back at me.
The younger-looking one says, “Look, we know our dad asked us to be nice to you, but what are you even doing here? You don’t belong here.”
I scoff. “Amen.” I put on the most posh fake accent I can manage. “Lovely to meet you both. I’ve always wanted brothers, and now I know why my mom never gave me any. My duty is done, and now I can leave.”
I spin on my heel and practically run into someone else. He’s almost as tall as me, same pale skin as the others, but his features are less … prominent. His jaw isn’t as square, and he’s … prettier. I go to apologize to the stranger who is obviously not my third bro?—
He holds out his hand for me to shake. “Darcy Ritcherson.”
Fuck. The pretty boy is my other brother. He’s much more welcoming than B1 and B2, but there’s something in his eyes I can’t place. Something I don’t trust.
“Do you mind if we do this in private?” He’s polite, somewhat charming, and I’m about to make an excuse to leave because I did what Mom asked and introduced myself. Sort of. But then she appears behind Darcy and gives me her mom guilt trip face, and I find myself agreeing.
“In private.”
I can feel the burning stare in the back of my head as the four of us leave the large ballroom, but I don’t know if it’s coming from my brothers behind me or from everyone else wondering who I am and why I look like the spitting image of the dead guy.
Darcy leads me to an empty ballroom where tables are stacked in one corner. He flicks on the light, the two others close the doors behind us, and when I turn, I’m faced with an uneasy feeling that I just walked into a trap.
Being in a room with three men who share my DNA shouldn’t make me feel unsafe, but it does.
“This is Junior,” Darcy says, gesturing to the one who still hasn’t stopped glaring at me. “And Tobias.” Tobias keeps glancing between Junior and me as if waiting for a cue from him.
Junior steps forward. “It’s Warren, actually. Warren Ritcherson.”
My lips quirk. I may hate my name, and I’m confused as to how two brothers can share the same first name—why the sperm donor would do such a thing—but I’m not opposed to using it to throw it in my new brother’s face. Ooh, is this what sibling rivalry is like? I’ve always wanted to do that.
I hold out my hand for him to shake. “Warren Porter.”
It only makes Junior frown. “He gave you his name?”
“Apparently. Does that make you the spare?”
Tobias flares up now. “Whatever you want from us, you’re not going to get it.”
“Tobias,” Darcy scolds. “We promised we’d?—”
“I didn’t promise shit,” Tobias says. “I know Father wanted us to play nice with our brother”—he shudders—“but he didn’t want anything to do with Dad his whole life. The only reason for him to show up today is to see what he can get his paws on.”
I throw up my hands in defeat. “Actually, the only thing I want is to get out of here. I came today as a favor to my mother because apparently, even after all these years, your dad still had some kind of hold on her, and he asked her to make me be here. For what godforsaken reason is anyone’s guess, but I don’t care. ”
“You work in construction,” Junior says. “You really don’t want our money? I call bullshit.”
“No bullshit. The reason I work in construction is because I refuse to use the business degree the Ritcherson money bought me. I want nothing to do with this life, and frankly, I want nothing to do with you. Any of you.”
My sight flits from one brother to the next, landing on the soft eyes of Darcy—the only one of my brothers who seems put together enough not to lose his shit. He has to be the oldest, the one born a few short weeks before me. The one our father dumped my mother and me for.
The one who got to have the father I always wanted.
Darcy holds my gaze for a second before turning to the other two. “Would you give us a moment to speak alone?”
“Just get him out of here,” Junior says. He turns and storms out with Tobias trailing behind him.
“Have to say, having brothers isn’t full of as many bonding moments as I thought it would be,” I deadpan.
“Ignore them. Junior is?—”
“Oh, you don’t have to tell me what Junior is.
I have it all figured out.” I point at him.
“You’re the oldest. The heir to the Ritcherson fortune.
I’m the bastard everyone in your family wishes didn’t exist. Then you have Junior, the quintessential middle child who drags baby bro Tobias around on a string, making him do his bidding because Tobias is the baby and gets away with murder. ”
Darcy blinks. And then blinks again. “That’s … actually scarily accurate.”
“I don’t want anything from you.”
“I believe you.”
For some stupid reason, that means a lot to me, and fuck that. Fuck him. Fuck Warren Ritcherson Senior, who made me want that kind of respect from anyone with the Ritcherson surname.
“Our father?—”
“Your father,” I correct.
“My father told me on his deathbed that he wants us to right his wrongs. You might not want anything from us, but you should know I’m the executor of his will, and I know you’re in it.”
“Whatever he left me, donate it to a charity of your choice. No, even better, donate it to an LGBTQ charity. In Warren’s name. I’m sure, along with being pompous and snooty, you’re all homophobes. So yeah, do that.”
Darcy frowns. “I’ll have you know, Warren Ritcherson was one of the highest-donating contributors to many LGBTQ-friendly charities.”
“Throwing his money at guilt?”
“Wanting to support his sons, actually.”
It takes a second for that to sink in. “Sons?”
Darcy nods. “I’m gay. It’s not exactly a secret. The tabloids love to?—”
“I don’t read anything that has to do with the Ritcherson family. I didn’t even know your names until now.”
Yet, I can’t help that massive swell of anger and jealousy rising up inside me like a tidal wave.
Darcy has everything I was supposed to have, even the gay thing, and Warren supported him and discarded me like trash.
I shake my head, hating that any of this is getting to me. “This is fucked-up. This whole thing …”
“I just want to say?—”
I hold up my hand. “I don’t want to hear it.
For whatever reason, our father knocked up two women within weeks of each other, chose you, abandoned me, and then only wanted to be involved when it was convenient for him.
So with all due respect, fuck him, fuck you, and fuck your little brothers too.
I never should’ve come here.” I head straight for the door and don’t even stop when Darcy’s voice follows.
“As much as you want this to be the end, it’s not.”
Like hell it isn’t.