Carnage (Kings of Eire)

CHAPTER ONE

William

THE ROPE MARKS are still on the ceiling beam.

I've been staring at them for three hours. Or maybe four. Time does funny shit when you're three-quarters through a bottle of vodka, and the ghosts won't shut the fuck up.

The office is exactly how Father left it: a dark mahogany desk; a leather chair that still holds the indent of his ass; books lining the walls, half of them probably never read—just there to make him look smarter than he was.

The window behind the desk overlooks the gardens, but I keep the curtains closed.

I can’t stand the light. I can’t stand anything that reminds me it’s real.

That he's really gone.

That Alex really killed him.

That I'm really supposed to sit in this chair and pretend I know what the fuck I'm doing.

I take another pull from the bottle. The vodka burns, but not enough. Nothing burns enough anymore.

Three days. It's been three days since Alex stood in the drawing room and confessed to murdering our father. Three days since he said he did it to save Jason. Three days since he looked me in the eye and admitted he strung Father up to make it look like suicide.

Three days since my entire world collapsed for the second time.

The first time was when I found the body.

I close my eyes, but that's a mistake. I always see it when I close my eyes.

The office door was unlocked. That should have been my first clue. Father never left his office unlocked. I pushed it open, calling his name. The curtains were drawn. The room was dark except for the slice of hallway light cutting across the floor.

I saw the shoes first.

Black Italian leather, hanging two feet off the ground.

Then the legs. The body. The rope.

The face.

I slam the vodka bottle onto the desk, and it tips over, spilling clear liquid across the polished wood. I don't clean it up. Let it stain. Let it ruin the precious fucking desk.

Father hated mess. Would've lost his shit seeing vodka soak into the finish he polished every week with his own hands. Good. Hope it eats through the wood. Hope it destroys every pristine surface in this tomb-like room.

I try to stand, but my legs don't want to cooperate. The floor tilts sideways, and I grab the desk edge, knocking over a brass pen holder. Pens scatter across the floor like pick-up sticks. Father's favorite fountain pen, the one he used to sign contracts worth millions, rolls under the chair.

Let it rot there.

My hands are shaking. Have been for days.

At first, I thought it was the withdrawal.

Six months sober down the drain in seventy-two hours.

But it's not just the booze. It's the anger.

The rage that's been building since Alex's confession, growing like a tumor in my chest until I can barely breathe around it.

Alex killed him.

My brother. The one I looked up to. The one who held this family together when everything went to shit. The one who…

I punch the desk. Pain explodes across my knuckles, bright and sharp and almost enough. Almost.

Blood wells up from split skin. I watch it drip onto the mahogany, mixing with the vodka puddle. Father would've made me clean this up immediately. Would've stood over me while I scrubbed every drop, lectured me about respect and responsibility and not being a fucking disgrace to the Murphy name.

Funny how I can still hear his voice.

"You're weak, William. Always have been."

I grab the whiskey bottle from the drawer. Father's good Irish stock that he kept for important meetings. My fingers fumble with the cap. When did I lose this much coordination? When did I become this pathetic?

The whiskey goes down easier than the vodka.

Jason's alive because Father's dead. That's what Alex said. That simple. That brutal.

And I'm supposed to what? Understand? Forgive? Lead the family that's built on that kind of bloodshed?

My phone buzzes again. The screen lights up with Aidan's name. That's the fifth call in the last hour. Or maybe the tenth. I've lost count.

He'll want to know if I'm ready for the O'Rourkes. If I've showered. If I've eaten. If I'm sober enough to meet my future fucking wife.

I'm not.

I take another drink and let the phone ring out. The silence afterward is worse than the buzzing. It feels like judgment. Like everyone on the other end is waiting for me to fail.

They won't have to wait long.

The attack came out of nowhere: the memory I've been trying to drown. The alleyway outside the medical examiner's office. The weight of something hitting my skull. The way the world went sideways and everything turned red.

I thought I was going to die that night. Wanted to, maybe. Would've been easier than this.

Jason found me bleeding out in that alley. And I paid him back by refraining from putting a bullet in his brain when I found out he'd betrayed us.

Turns out we're all betrayers in this family. All liars. All murderers.

The room spins harder. I press my palms against my eyes, trying to stop the spinning, trying to stop seeing Father's face. But it's always there. Purple. Swollen. Eyes bulging. Tongue...

"Stop," I say out loud. My voice sounds wrecked. "Stop, stop, stop."

But it doesn't stop. It never stops.

I helped cut him down. Did Aidan tell anyone that? Did Alex know I was the one who held Father's weight while the Gardaí worked the rope loose? That I felt how cold he was? That I knew, I fucking knew, something wasn't right about those knots?

I told them. I told Jason and Aidan and anyone who would listen that Father didn't tie those knots. That someone staged it. That someone murdered him.

And I was right.

Just didn't know it was my own brother.

The hunting knife is still missing from the drawer. Alex took it. Must have used it to cut the rope after he...

After he what? Hit Father over the head? Knocked him unconscious? Strung him up while he was still breathing?

I know the answers. I saw them with my own eyes. No claw marks on his neck. No scratches. His hands stayed at his sides while the rope did its work. That's what made it look so convincing, so much like he'd chosen it.

But now I know the truth. He never got the chance to fight. Alex made sure of that. Knocked him out first, probably. Made it clean. Made it look peaceful.

Made it look like Father gave up on us.

My stomach lurches. I barely make it to the waste bin before I'm retching, bringing up vodka and whiskey and bile. Nothing solid. I haven't eaten in days. Can't remember the last time I did.

The vomiting leaves me weak, shaking worse than before. I slide down to the floor, back against the desk, and let my head fall back.

My phone buzzes. Again. This time it's a text from Aidan:

“The O'Rourkes will be here in 24 hours. Shower. Eat something. Try to look like you're not falling apart.”

I laugh. It comes out harsh and broken. Try to look like I'm not falling apart? I'm fucking shattered. Have been since the day I found Father. Since before that, maybe. Since I was a kid and realized that Father looked at me with disappointment so thick it choked the air from the room.

"You're not Alex," he'd say. "You're not even Jason. You're just...William."

Just William. The screwup. The addict. The one who nearly died on his brother's watch. The one who can't stay sober. The one who—

Another text: “We need you to pull yourself together. People are looking to you now.”

People are looking to me. Jesus Christ. What a fucking disaster.

I should text back. Should say something. But my fingers won't work right, and the words won't come, and all I can think about is how much I want another drink.

The whiskey bottle is still within reach. I grab it, but before I can drink, the door opens.

Aidan.

"Get out," I say without looking at him.

"No." He closes the door behind him and crosses his arms. Aidan's always been the responsible one. The one who keeps his shit together. The one Father actually respected.

And Alex passed him over. Gave the crown to me instead.

"I said get out, Aidan." I turn to face him, and he doesn't even flinch at whatever he sees in my face. Probably looks like death. Feels like it, too.

"The O'Rourkes called. Dillon wants to meet. He's bringing his daughter."

Aoife. The woman I'm supposed to marry. The political alliance that's supposed to save us all.

"Tell him I'm busy."

"Busy drinking yourself to death?" Aidan's voice is flat.

"Tell him to fuck off. Tell him to find another Murphy to marry his daughter to. Tell him…"

"There is no other Murphy!" Aidan's control snaps, and he slams his hand against the wall. "Alex is gone. Jason's been exiled. Matty can't lead…he's too…" He stops himself.

"Too what?" I challenge. "Too fucked up? Too broken? Because newsflash, brother, we're all fucked up and broken. This entire family is a goddamn tragedy."

"Then step up and be less of one." Aidan's brown eyes bore into mine. "I know you're hurting. I know finding Father destroyed you. I know Alex's confession…"

"Don't." The word comes out sharp. "Don't talk about what Alex did."

Because if I start talking about it, I'll never stop. I'll talk about how I blamed myself for not getting there sooner, how I wondered if Father changed his mind at the last second, if he clawed at the rope, if he screamed, how I've carried that guilt like a stone in my chest for months.

And it was all a lie.

Father didn't kill himself. He was murdered. By my brother. And I never fucking knew.

"The O'Rourkes will be here in 24 hours," Aidan says quietly. "Get yourself cleaned up. You need to eat something. At least pretend you have your shit together."

"Why?" I take another drink. "We both know I don't."

Aidan walks over and takes the bottle from my hand. I let him. I'm too tired to fight.

"Because you're all we have left," he says. "And whether you believe it or not, you're exactly what this family needs right now."

I laugh again, that same unhinged sound. "What we need is Alex. Or you. Anyone but me."

"Alex left. I'm not the one getting married.

It has to be you, William." Aidan sets the bottle on the desk, far from my reach.

"Father made you into this, the wild one, the screwup, the one with nothing to lose.

But that's exactly why you're the right choice.

You don't care about the rules. You'll do whatever it takes. "

"Like Alex did?" The words taste bitter.

Aidan's jaw tightens. "Yes. Like Alex did. He killed Father to save Jason. That's what being a leader means, making the impossible choice."

"Then I'm not a leader." I slump back into Father's chair, my chair now, apparently. "Because I can't do what Alex did."

"Good." Aidan's response surprises me. "We don't need another Alex. We need you." He pauses at the door. "Get cleaned up. We only have 24 hours."

He leaves before I can argue, closing the door softly behind him.

I sit in the silence, in Father's chair, in the office where I found him hanging, where Alex killed him, where I’m somehow supposed to be the man to lead—the man who could lead us through a war.

I look up at the rope marks on the ceiling beam.

"You really fucked us all, didn't you?" I say to the ghost. "Even dead, you're still ruining everything.

" The ghost doesn't answer. It never does.

I reach for the whiskey bottle Aidan left on the desk—a few hours until I meet my future wife. Better make them count.