14. Elliott
— ? —
Elliott
I hate family dinners.
I’ve hated them since I was a child, since I figured out that no matter what I did or said or achieved, the attention would always slide past me to land on Laurence. The golden son. The heir. The one who mattered.
Tonight’s dinner is worse than usual. Our mother insisted on it, claimed she needed to see her boys together, needed to present a united front to society even as the gossip columns tear us apart. She pretends not to know about the video, about Margaux, about any of it. Denial is her superpower.
Odette is beside me, her hand in mine, her black dress making her look like she’s attending a funeral rather than a family dinner. Which, in a way, she is. The funeral of her marriage. The funeral of the life she thought she was supposed to have.
She’s beautiful. She’s always beautiful, but tonight there’s something fierce in her, something that makes me want to pull her into the nearest empty room and remind her exactly how much I worship her.
Later. Later, when we get out of here alive.
The dining room is exactly as I remember it. Crystal chandeliers. Mahogany table that seats twenty but tonight holds only five. Our mother at one end, our father at the other, Laurence across from us with an empty seat where Margaux used to sit.
He hasn’t stopped staring at Odette since we walked in.
“Darling.” Our mother’s voice cuts through the silence. “You look well. Pregnancy agrees with you.”
“Thank you, Vivienne.” Odette’s voice is perfectly pleasant and perfectly cold. “How kind of you to notice.”
“Of course I notice. I notice everything.” Our mother takes a sip of wine. “Including the fact that you arrived on my younger son’s arm instead of my elder son’s.”
Here we go.
“Mother.” I try to keep my voice calm. “This isn’t the time.”
“Is it not? My family is falling apart. My sons aren’t speaking. My daughter-in-law is carrying the next Fairbanks heir and refuses to see her husband. When exactly would be the time, Elliott?”
“When hell freezes over,” Odette murmurs beside me, and I have to bite down on a laugh.
Laurence hasn’t spoken since we sat down. He’s just sitting there, his wine untouched, his eyes fixed on Odette like she’s a puzzle he can’t solve. I know that look. I grew up with that look. It’s the look he gets when something he wants isn’t behaving the way he expects.
“I need to speak with my wife,” he says suddenly. “Alone.”
“No.” I don’t even hesitate.
“I wasn’t asking you.”
“And I wasn’t offering.”
He stands up. Our mother makes a soft sound of distress. Our father continues eating like none of this is happening, which is his superpower.
“Odette.” Laurence’s voice is too controlled. Too calm. “Please. Just five minutes.”
“She said no.” I stand too, positioning myself slightly in front of her. “And I’m saying no. Accept it and sit down.”
“Stay out of this, Elliott.” His eyes are dark. Dangerous. “This is between me and my wife.”
“She isn’t your wife anymore.”
“The divorce isn’t final.”
“It’ll be. The moment you sign the papers.”
He laughs. It isn’t a pleasant sound.
“Sign the papers. Walk away. Let you have everything I built.” He takes a step toward me. “Is that what you want, little brother? To steal my wife? To raise my child? To take everything that belongs to me?”
“Nothing about her belongs to you. Nothing ever did.”
The first punch catches me in the jaw.
I see it coming, have time to brace for it, but I don’t dodge. I take the hit, let my head snap to the side, let the pain bloom hot and bright across my cheekbone. Our mother screams. Odette gasps. Our father, for once, actually looks up from his plate.
“Feel better?” I ask, working my jaw.
“No.” Laurence swings again.
This time I duck. His fist grazes my temple, close enough to sting but not enough to drop me.
“I’m not going to fight you,” I say. “This isn’t what I want.”
It’s a lie, and it costs me to tell it. What I want, standing in this dining room with my brother’s fists coming at my face, is to take him apart.
I want to put him on the floor and keep him there.
I’ve wanted it for years, every time I watched him make her smaller, and the wanting sits in my chest like a live wire I’ve spent my whole life learning to insulate.
So I take the hits instead. I let him wear himself out on me, because if I start I’m not sure I’ll stop, and I won’t give our mother the satisfaction of watching me become him.
“I don’t care what you want.” He swings again. I block it, push him back. “You’ve been sniffing around her for years. Don’t think I didn’t notice. Don’t think I didn’t see the way you looked at her.”
“If you noticed, maybe you should’ve treated her better.”
Another swing. This one lands on my ribs, knocking the breath out of me. I double over, gasping.
“Laurence, stop.” Odette’s voice, sharp and scared. “You’re going to hurt him.”
“Good.” He grabs the front of my shirt, hauls me upright. “Maybe if I hurt him enough, you’ll remember who you belong to.”
“I don’t belong to anyone.”
“You’re my wife.”
“I’m nothing to you.” She steps forward, and I want to tell her to stay back, to stay safe, but before I can speak Laurence’s hand shoots out and closes around her wrist.
That’s the line.
I don’t think. I don’t hesitate. The wire snaps and I swing.
One punch. Clean and hard, right across his jaw.
Laurence goes down. His hand releases Odette as he falls, and he lands directly in the ice bucket that was sitting on the sideboard, champagne and water and ice cubes exploding everywhere.
He doesn’t get up.
I stand over him with my fist still curled and my pulse roaring in my ears, and for one long, ugly second I want to drop down and keep going, want to make sure he never lifts a hand to her again, want to do the thing that would land me in a cell and finally let all fifteen years of watching out of me at once. My whole body is leaning toward it.
Then Odette makes a small sound behind me, and it’s enough. I step back. One is enough. One has to be enough.
The dining room is silent. Our mother is clutching her chest like she’s having a heart attack. Our father has finally stopped eating. Odette is staring at me with wide eyes, her wrist already starting to bruise.
“We’re leaving,” I say.
No one tries to stop us.
The Orchid House is closest. I don’t know why I drive there instead of Odette’s apartment, just that she’s shaking beside me and I need to get her somewhere safe, somewhere that feels like hers.
Marisol opens the door before we even knock. She takes one look at my face, at the blood dripping from the cut over my brow, and steps aside without a word.
“Upstairs,” Odette says. “The bathroom. I need to clean that.”
The bathroom is small and white and smells like lavender. She pushes me down onto the closed toilet lid and starts rummaging through cabinets, pulling out gauze and antiseptic and a bottle of something that’s going to sting like hell.
“Hold still,” she says.
“I’m holding still.”
“You’re shaking.”
“So are you.”
She pauses. Looks at me. Her eyes are bright, and her breath has gone shallow.
“You hit him,” she says softly. “You actually hit him.”
“He grabbed you.”
“You said you wouldn’t fight him. You said you didn’t want that.”
“I said I wouldn’t fight him.” I reach up and touch her face, my thumb brushing her cheekbone. “I didn’t say I’d let him hurt you.”
She presses a cocktail napkin to my brow. It comes away bloody. She winces and presses harder.
“Odette.” My voice is rough. “I need you to understand something.”
“What?”
“There’s no line I won’t cross for you. No one I won’t fight. No rule I won’t break. If he touches you again, if anyone touches you again, I’ll burn the world down.”
She stares at me. The napkin is still pressed to my forehead, her fingers trembling against my skin.
“Elliott,” she says, and it isn’t a warning.
My hands settle on her waist. Her breath stutters. Her fingers curl into the front of my shirt.
“Elliott,” she says again, lower this time.