Warlord (Anathema Book 1) (37 page)

“Jesus Christ.”
Keep started laughing. “I always knew you had the brains, Brew, but holy shit. Killing
Ex and getting Dad out of prison. That’s goddamned brilliant.”

The gun weighed
heavy in my hand. I swore and shoved it under my vest.

“This can’t
work,” I said. “What if Luke turns on you?”

“Luke doesn’t
want another war. He hates blood.”

“He’s weak.”

“He’s smart.”
Brew tugged the bindings on his wrist. “You want Ex dead?  Let me finish the
deal, and I can get my father out of jail by the end of the month.”

Rose’s choked
sob stole the air out of my lungs. She clutched her chest and gasped. I didn’t know
if she wanted to scream or cry or reach for the knife tucked in Keep’s shoe and
end it right there. She blinked through tears at Brew.

“He can’t get
out of jail. Don’t you
dare
let him out of jail!”

“What the hell
is wrong with you?” Brew asked.

“How could you!”

Brew looked at
Keep. He shrugged. I wished I had the answers, but it wasn’t like anyone felt
like sharing their secrets with me.

“I’m not a
traitor, Rose,” Brew said. “I’m doing right by our family.”

“If that were
true Dad would stay rotting in a cell.”

A gun hadn’t
pissed off Brew. Neither had the wires cutting into his wrists or being hauled
into a dingy basement that meant to serve as his coffin. But no one talked
about Blade like that in front of Brew. Not even his baby sister.

“He’s your
father
,”
Brew growled.

“He’s never been
a father to me.”

“Since
when
?”
The bindings snapped. Rose cried as Brew stood. I reached for my weapon. “Dad
provided for you. Fed you. Clothed you. Yeah, he got in some legal trouble and
we had to pull you from school, but Christ, Rose, how fucking selfish can you
be? So you missed a few classes?  Dad’s lost the last
four
years of his
fucking life!”

Rose pushed away
from Keep. She wiped her tears with the heel of her hand. More spilled.

“Are you that
oblivious?” She asked. “Or do you just not care about me at all?”

“Of course I care
about you! You’re our sister.”

“And you’re
supposed to be my big brother!” Her voice lowered. “But you never
looked
.
You never stopped to talk. Neither of you ever put it together. You were too
busy with Dad and Anathema to stop and think about what was happening to
me
.”

The realization
hit me before her brothers.

“
Oh fuck
,”
I whispered.

I didn’t know if
she deliberately avoided my gaze or if she couldn’t break her attention from
Brew. I had witnessed a lot of sick shit, but nothing turned my stomach or
broke me down. Until now. Until the truth sucker-punched me in the gut and I
could do absolutely fucking nothing to force that horror from my head.

Brew wasn’t the
only one keeping secrets.

Difference was, Rose
clung to hers for twenty-one years. Only now the truth scratched, clawed,
kicked, and maimed its way out of her. I had no idea if any of us could fit her
bloodied and mangled pieces back together.

“I took care of
you when Dad got put away,” Brew said. “Gave you money. Gave you a car. Came
every time you needed me and then ran away with my tail tucked between my
fucking legs when you flipped shit and pushed me out of your life. Don’t you
bitch about me
caring
.”

“Then why are
you letting him out of jail?” Rose yelled. “Why would you do that to me?”

“Because he’s
our father.”

“You really
don’t know?”

“Know what?”

She looked from
Brew to Keep. I envied their blank expressions. That split-second of utter
confusion and
innocence
that was robbed from Rose. She hesitantly met my
gaze.

I braced myself,
but I wasn’t made of stone. My flesh could be torn, my bones snapped and
crushed. If I could have spared her the pain of her past, I’d have taken on
every last torture she endured.

Her voice
hollowed. Broken and flat.

“Dad abused me,”
she whispered. “He raped me from my sixteenth birthday until the day before he was
arrested.”

All the drugs in
the bag wouldn’t have shielded Keep from the truth.

And only the
bullet in my gun would have eased Brew’s shock.

Both men
collapsed. Fell to their knees upon the stairs. My world rocked with them. Shattered
and split and flung off into misery.

“Are you…” Keep
didn’t look at her. “How…when?”

“He beat me as a
kid.” Rose’s voice cleared, if only because her brothers cowered at her feet. “You
remember that.”

“He beat us
all,” Keep said. “He didn’t…”

“Molest you? 
Take pictures for his friends?” Rose swallowed. “Guess I was just lucky.”

“Bud—”

“Don’t call me
that!” She backed away from Keep’s hand. “That was
his
nickname for me.”

“Sorry.” Keep’s
twitching turned violent. “I didn’t know…we didn’t know.”

“He only…he
started…it was worse after Mom died. He said he was lonely.”

Brew made his
first noise. A guttural profanity that didn’t sound human. He raised his eyes
to her.

He didn’t
deserve to look at her face.

“You can’t let
him out of jail,” she said. “You can’t.”

He exhaled. I
doubted he wanted to take another breath. “Temple has the money. They won’t
care what Dad did. They just want to sell.”

Keep sneered. “Then
let Dad out. We’ll be waiting for him.”

They could play
vigilante all they wanted. It wouldn’t give Rose her childhood back. It’d just
make an even bigger headache. More blood.

“You kill Blade,
and Temple comes after Anathema,” I said. “And they’re strong. Organized. Half
my men are in jail or dead, and I’ve got a gun pointed at my Sergeant at Arms.
We wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“So what?” Keep
ground his teeth. “We just let him out?”

“We go to war
with Temple, everyone dies. Including Rose.” The thought might have ended me
right there. A blow to the head or a bullet to the chest didn’t hurt as much. “Let
Temple have their money. We keep the drugs. Sell it ourselves. Make a profit,
find some guns, and then deal with Blade once he’s out of jail.”

“Ex is looking
for those drugs,” Brew said. “You keep that bag, and it’s the start of another
war.”

Naivety didn’t win
battles. But I didn’t expect to win. I expected to survive.

“We’re already
at war.” The gun rested heavy in the holster. “This will be our last stand.”

Brew reached for
Rose. She stiffened but didn’t pull away. He didn’t hesitate. She fell into his
embrace, buried her head in his chest, and was lost under the shaking of her
curls as her silent sobs wracked her entire body with a sorrow I’d commit to
memory. Every last painful shake, every mournful gasp for air, every shamed and
humiliated and helpless shade of pink staining her skin with a blush that had
no right to desecrate her beauty.

I hated it.

And that was why
I’d remember it. That’s why I needed to remember it.

No one would
ever hurt Rose again. Nothing would ever reduce her to shades of her memory and
fears of her past. I’d go to war to prevent anything from harming her again.

With an Angel
like Rose to live for, I had no excuse to die.

I needed my
guitar.

Just one song. Just
one chord. One note. Something. Anything. Just noise that could clear the
silence from my head, and the screaming from my memory, and sounds and grunts
and clipping of headboards from my past.

I needed to
play. A hard song. Something that took a lot of concentration and bruised my
fingers and forced me to work.

Except I learned
those songs already. Clapton to Metallica, Hendrix to Santana. I burned through
those challenges. I used those melodies to unburden my mind and lose myself in
a reality of pure music.

A delusion. Why
did I punish Keep for his addiction? Mine was worse, and I didn’t have chemicals
surging through my body controlling my thoughts. I just had me. My own mind. My
own actions. My own distractions that never really worked, it just tucked it
down, down, down and muffled the cry of my past in jazz and blues and rock. Songs
I hated and songs I adored and songs I never even listened to because I had to
learn the tabs before the silence took me again.

Before he took
me again.

Sorceress had
plenty of music. Piped in and cheap and straining the speakers with rough bass
that would break the subwoofers before the girls dancing broke any wallets. I
had no guitar. No piano. Not even a damned kazoo. And I couldn’t sing along to
the re-mastered hip-hop pumping the girls’ hips.

My throat closed
not long after I spoke those horrific words. I could sing anything without
hurting my vocal cords. Pop or country, jazz or rock. But the truth punished my
throat like I gargled with sulfur, swallowed a cigarette, and slashed my
windpipe to prevent the revelation from scorching my lungs.

One bottle of
whiskey wasn’t enough. And sharing it with my brothers wasn’t a family bonding
moment. I lived every day with the secret of the man our father truly was. They
needed the drink more than me. They needed the truth more than me. My brothers
idolized a monster, and like a devout churchgoer losing faith, the world felt a
little smaller, a little darker, and a little crueler. There was a lot to
learn, and I didn’t think we had enough time to understand it all.

Thorne didn’t
let Brew go, but I didn’t think he was going anywhere. The drop-off time came,
went, and extended far beyond any courtesy Exorcist would have tolerated. The
Coup would either think Brew turned or that Thorne finally killed him. Either
way, they warned of blood and violence and my brothers already tried to say
goodbye.

I didn’t know
what I hated more—their apologies, their guilt, or the thought that I would
never see them again.

And that I would
be the reason.

Thorne hated it
more than me. He hauled me up from the steps and forced me into the club. Lyn
nodded us into her office. She calmed down, but only because neither of us were
covered in blood.

Thorne closed the
office door. The thumping music and jeering crowds drowned into silence. No
guitar. Just quiet. Just the rasping cadence of my breath and the soothing,
masculine exhale from Thorne. His breathing was music enough, or had been,
before I left his bed the last time. Before everything was ruined, and
everybody was lost, and I had just laid in his arms and traced the ink on his
chest and let myself feel safe for those few seconds before dawn.

He was either a
blessing or a curse. My captor became my guardian, hero, and warden. Now he was
something more I didn’t want to admit.

But I had no other
secrets to keep from him, and that relief was the only solace I had experienced
the whole day.

He didn’t reach
for me. I hoped it was because of our argument from earlier—words we shouted
that neither of us meant that protected us from the truth. I prayed he’d be
angry about Exorcist. Or that he would gloat for being right about the danger I
faced. I wished every warm and comforting feeling I experienced in his bed was
imaginary.

I handled his
wrath and his pride and his indifference.

But I couldn’t
take his pity.

He watched me in
silence. Sighed and sat on the couch, spreading his arms out over the back. Inviting.
Intimidating. I could only imagine slipping under his arm and resting against
his chest.

And so I did.

His heartbeats
jumbled with mine. They didn’t sync or pulse in time. I didn’t think they ever
would, but that was okay. So long as he still had a heartbeat.