30. Rowan
ROWAN
Adam’s death fractured me.
This heartbreak, the betrayal from Samson and his family, it seeps into those fractures. It widens them until there’s nothing left but gaping caverns where there was once a heart.
I always knew it would never last.
Can’t say I ever dreamed it would end like this.
“I can kill them for you,” Larry says from his recliner, Nugget on his lap. I wanted to wallow in my despair after rehearsal today, but I knew that if I did, Samson wouldn’t be there to pick up the pieces. Not that I want him to. Of course I don’t.
Such a lie.
I wasn’t ready to face that either, so when Larry came over and threatened me with his cane, I decided a change of scenery might be a good idea.
I curled up on the couch and told him to distract me.
Apparently, threatening murder is his attempt at this.
“Chicken Nugget here will eat their remains. He wouldn’t mind, either.
I’ve seen him eat his own poop; he has low standards. ”
“I don’t want anyone to die, and I don’t want Nugget to eat human remains, for fuck’s sake.
I just want to stop hurting.” I swipe at my swollen eyes and blow my nose.
“When will it stop? I can’t function like this, Larry, I just can’t.
Rehearsal was terrible today. Like, seriously bad.
My show is going to flop if I can’t dance. ”
He sighs, his hand stroking up and down Nugget’s back. “Betrayal never stops hurting, especially when your heart is involved. Sorry to tell you that, kid. Mine stings today just as much as it did twenty years ago.”
My brows meet. I almost didn’t catch that. “Wait. What happened twenty years ago?”
He coughs. “Nothing. Just…the mutterings of a mad old man.”
“You’re not that old.”
“I am. It’s soul deep. That’s what happens when you’re in the business we’re in.”
I stare at him, and my hand presses against my chest. It aches; everything hurts. “What business? Oh god, don’t tell me you work for The Firm too?”
He pauses, his eyes slamming into mine. “They told you what they are?”
“Yeah.” In a manner of speaking.
Larry grunts. “They must trust you, then. You don’t reveal that to just anyone.”
My world tilts on its axis once again. “Are you the fucking Firm? Tell me. I don’t know if I can handle it if you are.”
“Not The Firm. Something similar. And it was ages ago. I’m retired.”
I let out a long breath. “Oh, thank god. I’d have to stop being your friend if you were.”
He glares over at me. “We aren’t friends.”
“Yes. We are. Even if you were a bad man at one point. Just like Samson.”
He hesitates a moment, and I swipe at my leaking eyes once more.
“I think you’re being unfair. I’m not saying the Buckinghams are saints—far from it. But I’m cut from the same cloth as them. What we do, what they do, it’s not wrong. Most of what we do helps others. We give back.”
“Yes, but you also murder. You kill.”
“Only those who deserve it.”
I sit up abruptly. “Did I deserve it? Because they got it wrong, Larry. Like, big-time wrong.”
He runs a hand over his jaw. “Yeah, they did. Thinking about contacting my nephews to put a hit on the entire family for that.”
I slam a hand against my eyes, pressing until I see stars. “Oh god. Please don’t. No more death, no more killing. Just no more.”
“Fine. If you wish.”
“Yeah, I wish.”
The grumpy face he makes reminds me of Samson. So much. It has me crying all over again, which only makes Larry shift in his seat. Tears make him uncomfortable. I’m learning all sorts of truths recently.
“Come on, kid. What can I do to stop you blubbering?”
“Nothing. It’s terrible. Everything is terrible.”
Larry sighs. “What if I made you dinner?”
My stomach roils at the thought. “I can’t eat. I feel so nauseous, and I’m pretty sure anything you made would be inedible.”
Being heartbroken is making me almost as sour as Samson.
Not that he’s sour. Not really. Underneath it all, he’s quite sweet.
Fuck, how I miss him.
I shouldn’t, given all the lies. And, you know, the planned assassination. But I do.
I miss him terribly.
Larry harrumphs. “Just so you know, I was a good cook for a few years.”
“A few years?”
“Yes. Took some classes to impress a girl. Got quite good at it.”
My head lifts, and I blink at him. “Your wife?”
“No, never liked her. Someone else.”
That makes me snort despite the tears. “Who?”
He stares at the wall before him, blinking a few times. “No one. No one that matters, anyway.”
I file that away for a moment, and then my face meets the cushion once more. He must think I’m crying, because he pipes up again. “Would you like to know more about The Order?”
“The one that’s like The Firm? That you used to belong to?”
“Yes.”
I’m silent long enough to give him the go-ahead. I may hate it, hate who Samson is and what he does, but I am intrigued to know more, to understand it. To understand why he did what he did.
And it seems Larry is one of them as well. Retired, but still…
“The Order is like The Firm, just the East Coast version. We’re secretive, powerful, and we rule our town with an iron fist. We’re a myth, but always end up the last resort for people who are desperate enough to sell their souls.
But The Order is older than The Firm, founded in pre-Revolutionary times with ties to old family dynasties.
Samson’s great-great-grandfather got the idea from us and brought it here.
He ran it differently, but the principles remain the same. ”
Again, I don’t know if I want to hear this, but I can’t stop listening. “How are you different, then?”
“We don’t murder.”
I push myself up on my elbows and stare at him.
“We disappear.”
I flop back down on the couch. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Larry. That’s the same thing.”
He stops petting Nugget for a moment and gives me a nod. “Yes, I guess so. Though we never felt like it was the same. We thought ourselves above it.”
An uneasy question fills my mind. “Were you hired to murder me?”
His gaze flashes to mine in surprise. “No. Never. I didn’t even want to know you, but you spun your way into my life. I wanted a quiet retirement of loneliness and boredom before that.”
I can’t deny how relieved I am. At least my friendship with Larry isn’t tainted. “I didn’t spin.”
“Chicken Nugget did. He spun around and around, and hell…” He works his jaw back and forth. “I have done nothing but protect you. And I should have done better where Samson was concerned, but I knew him when he was a child.”
“I don’t want to talk about him.” But the way I say that tells Larry that I don’t mean it. I want to know more. Want to know why he is the way he is.
Larry must hear it too, because he keeps talking.
“He was always sensitive, a mama’s boy. His father hated it.
I remember because he commented about how one day Samson would be tough.
The most ruthless any of us had ever seen.
All I saw was a mild-mannered little boy with a cowlick and a stuffed animal tucked under his arm. ”
I close my eyes, hating Samson’s father more with every word. “I can’t even imagine what he was put through.”
“He was a sweet boy, felt more than others. Not that you’d know that today, but he was. I swear it.”
I lay my hands flat against my ears and close my eyes, as if to keep the information out, but it’s hard. It’s too much. I don’t want to love him more than I already do. I remind myself of the reasons why.
He was going to kill you.
He lied to you.
His whole family betrayed you.
Larry’s words are taking a torch to my anger, burning it to the ground. But it doesn’t matter. The damage has already been done. Even with the flames extinguished, there’s still the smoke and ash to contend with.
And right there in the center of it lie the remnants of my heart. Of what could have been.
“He likes to dance,” I find myself saying.
Larry is quiet for a long moment before giving a clipped nod.
“Makes sense. He did like music. His mother, I think. She liked to dance with him. I suspect his father would’ve put a stop to that after she died.
He would’ve seen it as feminine. Weak. You can’t be weak when you’re in The Firm. It’s not allowed.”
My eyes squeeze shut, tears forming behind my eyelids. “Enough. Please. I can’t know more. It’s over between us, and it will be between you and me if you don’t stop.”
Larry murmurs under his breath as he considers this, his hand stroking up and down Nugget’s back. But then he says something for me to hear. For me to tuck deep down within me and sit with.
“You didn’t choose this, and neither did he. This was his life before he could even walk. Guess that’s the cruelest part. Knowing that you love someone who is capable of such cruelties.”
“He was never cruel to me,” I can’t help but defend him. He hurt me, but I can’t help myself. “But I can’t forgive him. He was planning to kill me.”
“And so was your friend’s sister, but you forgave her.”
Tears roll down my cheeks unbidden, my knees curling into my chest. “That was different. She was unwell.”
“Doesn’t make it right.”
I hear Nugget yip and Larry murmur something under his breath to him, but my mind has already spun in a different direction. Toward him. Toward Samson. I might have walked away from him in that great big house, but he’s still with me. In my mind. In my heart.
I think he always will be.
And that’s what scares me the most.
When I finally leave Larry’s, I’m exhausted. My eyes are nearly swollen shut from how much I’ve cried, and there’s a pain in my chest that doesn’t seem to ease.
Nugget seems to sense my struggle, behaving as I clip his leash onto his harness. It doesn’t last long, though. Not when we step outside Larry’s door to see I’ve got visitors.
Nugget starts yapping as he charges at Neo and Ansel, tugging me forward impatiently as his chunky rear end waggles with excitement.
I wish I could say I felt the same.
The two of them are seated with their backs to my door. Both of them are blinking away tears as I cautiously approach.