Page 77 of Trouble

Everything for Family.What a load of shit. The woman who’d given her life to try and save us from his violence had proven a far stronger portrayer of our family motto than the man who’d beaten it into us every day of ourlives.

We walked through the graveyard in silence, Liam’s flashlight illuminating the gravel path and the old trees lining it. Even that prick Wesley was quiet, though I wasn’t sure if it was out of respect for where we were going, or because he was scheming up some plan to try and escape. Probably the latter. I poked him in the back with the barrel of the gun to remind him what’d happen if he got anyideas.

“It’s here,” Liam said softly, more to Audrey than to me, as he stopped in front of an achingly familiar slab of marble. I could recognize that tombstoneanywhere.

“Eleonore Steel,” she read from the stone. She didn’t speak the next words out loud, but I could see her mouthing them out to herself in the cone of light from the flashlight.Mother and wife. Forever missed, never forgotten. With love, we say goodbye. With love, we willreunite.

“She died so young,” Audrey whispered. With an anger that surprised me, she turned to glare at Wesley. “How can you work for a monster who killed the mother of his ownchildren?”

“She was weak. She betrayed the Family,” Wesley said, his voice as cold and detached asever.

“To save her kids. Are you telling me you won’t do anything you can to save the ones you love?” She looked him up and down, contempt clear on her face at his unmoving features. “I pity you. And whoever you’ve told your heart belongs to. Clearly you have nothing to give them buthatred.”

“Big words for a woman who so easily threatens an innocent just to get her way,” Wesley hissed. “You think spreading your thighs for these two pricks means you know anything about their Family? About love? You will never be more than second best. You will never mean as much to them as their own flesh andblood.”

“That’s enough.” Liam pulled his knife and sliced through Wesley’s bindings before shoving a shovel into his hands. “Dig.”

Wesley stared from the shovel to the grave, then back to Liam. “You’re notserious?”

“Deadly.” Liam stared unblinkingly athim.

“I thought you were supposed to have canonized the woman, and now you want to dig up hergrave?”

I’d never thought Wesley had any limits with the despicable shit he’d do, but apparently, grave robbing was over the line even forhim.

“We’re doing thisbecausewe loved her, you twat. Maybe she didn’t die for nothing after all. Now get digging—I ain’t telling you again.” I cocked the gun inwarning.

It took Wesley and I a good hour before I finally hit something hard with my shovel. I froze for a second when the metal scraped over something decidedly wood-like, but quickly realized we weren’t deep enough down to have reached the casket. I sucked in a breath of relief. As much as I wanted to believe that whatever Isaac had hidden away would somehow justify losing our mother, I didn’t want to come face to face with her casket. The day they’d lowered it into the ground had been more than enough forme.

“Whatcha got?” Liam asked, leaning over the edge of the grave to peer into the shallow hole we’d dugout.

“Looks like a wooden box of some sort,” I said, bending to pick itup.

It was indeed a wooden box. Varnished but undecorated, just slightly larger than an A4 sheet of paper, and maybe six inches tall. I bent to pick it up and brushed the caked dirt off its lid. “I think this isit.”

I handed it to Liam, and he flicked the lid open and grunted in confirmation at whatever was inside. “Looks likeit.”

“Put it in the car,” I instructed, turning back to Wesley with a grim expression. “We’ll need to get this filled as quickly aspossible.”

Liam handed his flashlight—and, very demonstratively, his gun—to Audrey, leaving us with the clean up. I had my own weapon at hand, but knowing Wesley, it was good if he knew there was more than one gun aimed in his general direction. I didn’t know if Audrey had ever held a gun before in her life, but as long as Wesley thought she might have a chance of shooting him before he could overpower me, we’d begood.

Whether it was due to Audrey’s watchful eye or not, he didn’t try anything, and we got the grave filled back up and smoothed over quicker than we’d dug it. There wasn’t much to do about the bare soil where lush grass had grown until tonight, but I made a silent promise to Mum that I’d come back with some grass seeds and fertilizer once we’d sorted out Dad. And roses. She’d loved roses, Marcus had once said, so those had been my flowers of choice when I came to visit hergrave.

“What’s keeping Liam?” Audrey’s voice pulled my attention to her. She was looking back in the direction we’d come, a note of worry in hervoice.

I glanced at my wristwatch and cussed. It’d been more than half an hour. He should have well been back bynow.

“Come on, best go ch—” It was only the faint flicker of movement I caught out of the corner of my eye that made me move to the side just in time for Wesley’s shovel to impact with my shoulder and neck instead of myskull.

I crashed to the ground with a grunt, pain exploding through my body from the impact. He’d put all his weight into that swing—if I hadn’t moved just then, I’d be dead, my skull cracked like a grape on theground.

As it was, I was pretty sure my shoulder was broken. I gritted my teeth against the nauseating wave of pain and looked up just in time to see Audrey take aim andfire.

The bullet went way wide, chipping a small piece of the marbletombstone.

“Nice fucking try,” Wesley snarled. He swung the shovel again, smacking the weapon out of her hand and sending it and the flashlight flying in between the graves. A metallic smack followed by complete darkness announced the flashlight’s death; murder bytombstone.

“Audrey,” I gasped. “Run!”

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