Page 80 of His Black Onyx

Chapter 41

Nate

"When was the last time you talked to your brother?"

Her question startles me. It comes out of nowhere, but yet it's spoken so firmly that it seems like she's been wanting to ask it for a while. It also shows in the way her eyebrows slant when I don't respond as she hoped.

"Why do you want to know?"

She lets out a deep, exasperated sigh. "Why can you never just… answer like a normal person?"

She frowns at me.

"It's been a while," I tell her. "Years. Maybe three or four."

"That's so sad," she says, compassion evident in her voice. "I don't have any brothers or sisters, but I've always wished I did. And you have a brother who you don't even talk to."

"We've never been that close," I argue. "Remember, he's just a half brother. My father remarried after his first wife died."

I pause, catching her attentive gaze as I take a deep breath. The weight of those memories rests heavily on my chest, and her inquiries are forcing me to visit places I usually avoid.

"I was never the son that counted. For him, that is," I go on, averting my eyes from her so I don't have to see the look on her face. I don't have to see it to know what it looks like.

Pity.

She'll feel sorry for me once she hears the truth behind my upbringing. They all do—and I fucking hate it.

"He didn't want you?" she delves deeper, sounding more cautious now.

I shake my head. "He only needed one son. One offspring he could groom to be his successor. Any other child was a burden and nothing else. Especially when the woman who bore it wasn't the love of his life."

"But then why-"

"I was an accident," he interrupts. "I'm sure my parents never would've gotten married if he hadn't knocked my mother up. It certainly is not a happy marriage."

"They're still together?"

"As far as I know," I say, nodding. "But only because they have no real reason to get a divorce. My family owns several houses all over the country. My parents live wherever they feel like at the moment, and most of the time they don't reside in the same place at the same time."

"I'm sorry," Malia says in a whisper, lowering her eyes. "I don't think my parents have ever spent a night separated from one another for as long as I can remember. They're quite co-dependent, in a way."

"Inseparable. Most people wish for that, don't they?"

She looks at me, quizzically. It's hard to tell why, but my statement creates an awkward tension between us, filled with unspoken questions. Questions and thoughts that we shouldn't give voice to.

She clears her throat, seemingly in an attempt to break the tension by diverting the topic.

"And that's why you and your brother hate each other?" she wants to know. "Because of your mothers and the different standing they had at your father's side?"

"I didn't say we hate each other," I correct her. "We were just never that close. He's five years older than me and barely even knew his mother. We both had reasons to envy the other. I always felt that my father favored him over me, that he was more important to him because he was the firstborn and the son born from the woman whose death he never overcame. On the other hand, he had to watch me grow up having a mother, a woman who didn't have it in her heart to show him the same love she was giving me."

I hesitate, filling the pause with a dark laugh.

"Though love might be a strong word," I add. "My mother was never the giving type, nurturing in a way that was only fueled by her own idea of power and success. I'm pretty sure that you could call her a gold digger. It wasn't love that drew her to my father, but hope for a better life for her and her children. Didn't quite go as planned, though."

"Because you joined the Covey?"

I shrug. "It started long before that. Becoming part of the Covey was just a way of turning my ongoing streak of petty offences into something much bigger, and more lucrative."

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