Chapter 30
THIRTY
MIRABELLE
Sheets damp with sweat and orgasm twisted around Mirabelle’s legs. The insides of her thighs were sticky and numb, and the bedroom’s soupy air smelled like the swapping of body fluids. Not lovemaking. Not fucking. Just sex stripped of ornamental intimacy.
Beside her, Jack puffed a cigarette with an arm propped behind his head. The paper hissed with each drag, and smoke swirled in the haze of late morning. Unblinking and unsmiling, he stared at the ceiling fan whirling above them.
“You think Em’s fucking her?”
Mirabelle didn’t appreciate the question’s maniacal undercurrent or the callousness imbued in his gaze. Like some of the other men, Jack placed the blame for Gio’s death squarely at Amelia’s feet.
Amelia Havick wasn’t the problem, though. It was Amelia with Emory that irked Jack the most. To him, she was an iron fist in a velvet glove he’d have to crush while still tender. It was too late. Amelia had already bloomed and, while her petals might still bruise, her thorns could draw blood.
Mirabelle folded an arm over her chest and examined a chip in her manicure. “Does it matter?”
“It does with her. People get nutty when they fall in love, and Em needs to keep his head.” Jack’s eyes shifted to Mirabelle with unusual weight. “He won’t love her, by the way. He’ll only think that he does.”
Jack dropped the cigarette into his coffee mug where it expired with a sizzle, and Mirabelle didn’t bother pointing out the fatal flaw in his logic. In love, perception was reality. To think you’re in love was to have already arrived in it.
“Amelia knows we’re together,” she told him. “She asked me about it.”
Mirabelle had meant to keep that a secret—it’d only upset him—but weaponized it now, not entirely sure why. The arm behind Jack’s head came free as he bolted upright.
“What did you tell her?”
“Nothing. I denied it.”
Jack scrutinized her through narrowed eyes. He didn’t believe her, and that didn’t matter. Mirabelle’s affection for him slipped away like a kite string surrendered to the breeze. She witnessed the escape but did nothing to stop it.
“What else did she ask?”
“Nothing big. Look, she’s different, you know—”
“Oh, fucking hell, Miri! No, she’s not!” Jack’s palm slammed the bedside table as he felt for his cigarettes. “You think she’ll keep our secrets when Cal’s back in the picture? She’s not your goddamn friend.”
Mirabelle freed her legs from the sheets and jumped from the bed in a wretched huff. She’d tolerate Jack’s wandering eye long before she’d suffer whatever demon squatted inside and nourished the rage.
“Baby, stop,” Jack said as she yanked on her underwear and scooped her shirt from the floor.
With an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips, he crawled from bed and wrangled her by the waist. In the morning light, his limp dick looked ugly and tattoos faded. He pulled the cigarette from his mouth and pointed the filter at her.
“It’s my job to look out for Em, and right now he’s not seeing the big picture.
We brought Amelia here because we thought she knew something.
She doesn’t, and now Gio is dead, and the men are wondering why we’re still sticking our neck out for her.
And you know what? It’s a fair question.
I need you to get through to him, Miri.” Jack lit the cigarette and took a drag.
Smoke billowed from his serpentine smile. “For his sake, not mine.”
That part used to captivate her. From across the room, she’d watch Jack work his charm with wit coming out one side of his mouth and lies out the other.
“Don’t put me in the middle,” she cried. The kite string slipped again, lost to a clear blue sky.
Jack cradled her face with gentle hands but kissed her forehead hard. “Do what I say.”
Without another word, he got dressed and left Mirabelle to dry her own tears. A warm shower worked well enough to soothe, but the resolve conceived amongst suds and steam vanished as she donned her funeral dress and put herself together.
She gathered her nerve and headed down the hall to Emory’s room. Her heels clacked in purposeful rhythm, and she rapped at the door but marched inside. Dressed in black slacks and a pressed white shirt, Emory fiddled with his tie in the mirror and glanced at Mirabelle in the reflection.
“Barge in like that and you might see something you don’t like.”
Mirabelle sat stiffly at the end of the bed and caught sight of herself in the mirror. Her shoulders were taut and grief touched her face. Smile.
“You sleep okay last night?” she asked.
“Like a rock.”
Emory furrowed his brow at the tie’s misshapen knot. With one hard yank, it unraveled, and he tossed the length around his neck to start again. Mirabelle hopped from the bed and shooed away his hands.
“I looked for Amelia yesterday,” she said and worked the tie with nimble fingers. “She was supposed to come out with everyone. I thought it’d be good for her. A break, some fun. Well, she didn’t, and when we got back last night, she wasn’t in her room. Know anything about that?”
Eyes pinned to the ceiling, Emory shook his head. “What is there to know? We had dinner and then—”
“And then you spent the night together. Again.”
Mirabelle shoved the knot snug against Emory’s throat. He murmured a thank you and ducked away.
“Let’s call a spade a spade,” he said and ran a lint comb over his suit jacket laid out on the bed. “You expect her to spend time with people who whisper behind her back but ignore her otherwise? Of course she didn’t want to go.”
Mirabelle had forgotten that part. Emory’s gallant gestures turned fiery if anyone dared sling arrows at his chosen one. No wonder Jack sent her to tiptoe through the minefield alone. Mirabelle defused with a playful poke to Emory’s ribs.
“Fine. If we’re calling out spades, you’re into her.”
He squirmed away. She followed and jabbed him again as he tried to sidestep her advance.
“You never like the chicks I introduce you to, but you like her.”
“Okay, enough.” Emory grabbed Mirabelle’s wrists and gently pushed her away. “You’re annoying me.”
“Everyone already knows, Em.”
“Knows what? And who is everyone?”
“The wives of your men. They think she’s yours.”
“She is mine,” he said matter-of-factly. In the corner, he sat in an armchair and polished his shoes. “They should occupy themselves with their husband’s dicks and quit worrying about what I’m doing with mine.”
“So, you have been doing something with her.”
“Jesus, Mirabelle! You just don’t know when to stop, do you?”
“I just want you to know what people are saying.”
“I don’t care, and I know that’s not why you came in here. Out with it.”
On cue, Mirabelle forgot her lines, the carefully crafted call to reason. She wasn’t like Jack, though. She didn’t have clever ploys devised on the fly.
“Let me take Amelia out,” she said on a nervous whim. “A do-over for yesterday. She needs it.”
Emory settled back in the chair. One shoe dangled from his finger, and the polishing rag crumpled in his fist.
“Out where?”
“I don’t know. Out. Not far and just for a couple hours. We’ll take some of your men.”
Emory ended the matter with a sharp shake of the head. “No. Absolutely not.”
“Please. I don’t ask you for much.”
The shoe hit the floor. Emory closed his eyes and cradled his forehead in his palm.
“Miri, I concede to you more than you realize, but I don’t like how brazen you’ve become. Our brother is back and now is the time you wanna go out? No. Absolutely not. You and Amelia stay here.”
Now or never. Make him see.
Mirabelle sunk to the edge of the bed closest to him. The sheets smelled sweetly of sex, and she plucked a long strand of red hair from the pillow. Whatever happened between Emory and Amelia, it was leaps and bounds closer to lovemaking than her and Jack’s tryst that morning.
“What are we doing here, Emory? You gonna keep her locked away forever and that’s it?”
Head still in his hand, he glared at her from beneath his brows. “You know that was never my plan.”
“Look, I adore Amelia and, under other circumstances, we wouldn’t have this conversation, but she’s not some random chick you picked up at a bar. The impact this could have on your men, the business, it’s—”
“You think I haven’t thought about that, how this could all go sideways?”
“And yet you’re still willing to risk everything we’ve worked for.”
Emory abruptly stood from his seat and pointed at her with a harsh warning. “Stay out of the business. I won’t tell you again. We’re done here.”
As always, he drew the boundaries of their conversation. Mirabelle never had a say. She bolted from the bed and stomped to the door.
“Fine. Your world, your rules, right?”
“Don’t fucking walk out on me!” Emory hollered at her back. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Mirabelle slammed the door shut and crossed the room in pounding strides. “This isn’t about the business. This is about you being honest with me!”
Emory settled on his heels and momentarily looked poised to dig in at an impasse. He conceded, though, his face contorting with a rare glimpse of pain.
“Fine. You want honesty? Here it is. You know how often I wanna leave my life? Leave you and Jack and Liam and start over in a nowhere town. No name. No past. Nothing.”
His voice cracked with a swell of emotion. Emory stood tall and righted himself before it took him under.
“I bury it and hope to God the wound heals before it festers. Then there’s Amelia.
She takes one look at me and sees what all of you pretend isn’t there.
The only time I’m at peace or feel like I can finally breathe again is when I’m with her.
She’s the escape, the starting over, the healing.
That’s it. That’s the truth, which is far more than I ever get from you. ”
Mirabelle numbed with a chill despite Emory’s searing stare. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“You know exactly what it means. I am honest with you. I don’t sneak around behind your back. I don’t lie to your face as if you’re too dense to notice.”
He knows. Of course, he did. The timing of the revelation coincided with his and Amelia’s time together.
“No, what you do is keep me out in the cold. And I’m supposed to be happy there and play the part you put me in. Say please-and-thank-you then shut the fuck up and smile when I want to scream. How was I supposed to know you felt this way? I’d do anything for you, but what power do I have?”
“You think what I have is power?” Emory laughed bitterly. “You don’t know what I’ve done for us. What choice did I have when we left home? I was thirteen. You were eight. The things I do and the things I’ve done, they were always to keep you safe, to give us a fighting chance.”
As close as they were as siblings, there were things Emory never talked about, including the day their father died.
It’d poured chilly rain as Emory hastily shoved their things into his backpack and toted Mirabelle away from home.
In a fogged-up bus stop, Emory had made a choice that propelled their lives down this path.
Her childhood ended that day, but his had ended years earlier with a secret he still safeguarded.
“You’re not always honest with me,” Mirabelle said as tears wet her cheeks. “You hold on to things. You keep secrets. What happened?”
“I told you what happened with Amelia.”
“I’m not talking about her!” Mirabelle screamed through a sob. “That day in the woods with you and Ivan. Something happened and it changed you. What did he do?”
On a warm spring day, Mirabelle had swung on the swing set in their backyard, but the song she’d hummed disintegrated when Ivan broke through the tree line with a sobbing Emory in tow.
Blood had stained both their hands and, that night, Mirabelle snuggled next to Emory and listened helplessly as he cried himself to sleep.
A solemn iciness became a part of him after, marked by something that’d broken him.
He never spoke of what that something was and wouldn’t speak it now.
“Does Amelia know?” she asked with shameful resentment.
Shouldn’t she be happy he found in Amelia a confessional, a girl who’d whisk him away with sweet kisses and tender promises? “You can have it all,” she’d say, but little darling blinded herself to how much it’d cost him.
Emory fled behind his stoicism, the only shelter he allowed himself, and said nothing as he fixed his gaze to the door. I’ll always be the last to know.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said with a face of stone and a voice to match. “I never meant to hurt you.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed and jaw tipped high. Even his attempt at comfort came like a winter’s chill. Defeated on all fronts, Mirabelle turned to leave. What would Jack say? You failed. Another voice joined the choir, soft-spoken from a fawn-eyed beauty. Small acts of defiance.
“You know,” Mirabelle said as she reached the door, “Amelia asked me what would happen if you ever tried to leave.”
“What did you tell her?” Emory asked mildly but with a splinter of hope, as if Amelia had already devised some savvy scheme to set him free.
“The truth.” Mirabelle didn’t need to elaborate. The price of escape was as simple as it was severe. “Have you told her what you told me, everything you feel for her?”
Emory pressed his lips together and shook his head. For such a loyal and loving man, he had a tendency to bungle that part. He claimed to never have the right words, and yet he had a whole tome of them for Amelia.
“You should. She deserves to know how you feel but also how this ends.”
They both knew how love ended for him—locked in a cage without his companion. He always set them free. Emory slowly sat at the end of the bed. With his elbows propped on his knees, he hung his head.
Jack would call that progress and remind her that love was sometimes cruel. It’s for his sake.
“I have to wonder,” Mirabelle said, “if you never wanted this life, then why bring her into it?”
Emory lifted his eyes and crumbled with a resigned smile she knew all too well.
When Ivan raged or their mother died or the rainy night they ran from home, he’d said, “I’m alright.
I’ll be okay,” with pain in his eyes and a smile on his lips.
When there was nothing else to do, nothing else to say, nothing that could hurt him more than he hurt like this, Emory smiled.
Mirabelle left then and tearfully told Jack it was done.
He celebrated the victory but didn’t ask why she cried.
Alone in her room, she dried her tears and fixed her makeup.
Downstairs, she greeted the funeral guests with bright laughter, tenderhearted hugs, and what felt like a gaping hole in her chest.