Page 43 of To Have and to Hold

Theo

Fromthatmomenton,when Connor caught me with Violet on my breath, I’d become dogged in my mission. Tunnel visioned. Nothing to do with him. Nor with the plan to take down both families with my evidence and Violet’s suffering, to use his team and take over. I wasn’t doing this anymore. Couldn’t pretend, wouldn’t fake it. My mind would implode, my body turn itself inside out if I had to wait a minute more.

I wasn’t leaving her to suffer a second more than I had to. She was getting out. Nothing, absolutely nothing, mattered now. I didn’t give a shit about any of it. Connor knew it, too. He left for New York the second he could, but not before reminding me of my duties to him, what he held over my head. In the early hours of the morning after the party, with my family arriving at any moment, he’d dragged me out of bed to say goodbye.

“Once it’s over,” he said, leaning against his car with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face, “we can get her into some sort ofwitness protection. She’ll be safe. We can do it sooner, even, as soon as we have what we need. Get her out and hide her away, but that day isn’t today, Theo.”

He knew from my reaction that meant nothing. And he just sighed, slapped me on the back and told me not to do anything stupid. He had to leave, or he might be considered an accomplice to whatever I was about to do. He had his own issues to contend with, his own people to report to.

“Come visit,” he huffed at me before sliding into his car and pulling away, leaving me standing on my driveway in the pitch dark, the stars in the sky hidden by clouds. Violet was just over there, on the other side of those trees, maybe being violated. I couldn’t let it lie anymore, couldn’t witness a second more of her suffering and not save her from it.

Hours after Connor had left, artfully dodging a conversation with my father, I stood there again, watching the trees, wondering if I stared hard enough if it could save her. My jet-lagged family were in the house, packing up Charlie’s stuff, Lucy, his fiancé arguing with them behind me about keeping it for herself. It was mine now, all of it. Not hers, though she had tried, asking me point-blank if it was worth her time. I’d told her no, and she took it on the chin. But she wanted the property. Harped on about the home she’d built there. No one cared. She worked with Violet, I'd seen her on the cameras, cold and distant with her, no emotion at all as Violet withered away before her eyes. Fuck Lucy. When I tried to ask her about Violet, I was met with a hard stare and a shrug.

Fuck. Lucy.

With Connor gone, Charlie dead, I just needed the rest of my family to fuck off so I could be alone and bloody think for a minute. I’d taken to traipsing through the woods, never going as far as crossing the boundary into Rafe’s compound, but close enough that I could see the fences lining the property.

There were no visible cameras or guards, but it was a very well protected place. None of the cameras I’d hacked into showed the woodland. A potential path to Violet.

Everyone left for their hotels an hour after Connor, leaving me alone to stew. It was funny, not once was it mentioned that I might not feel comfortable in this house. That the idea of sleeping under the same roof as where my brother was brutally murdered might unsettle me. But nothing. It crossed no one’s mind. A good crime scene cleaner later, and the place looked untouched.

I sat at the kitchen island, my laptop in front of me and a coffee to the side. One of Connor’s cigars burned in an ashtray, the acrid smoke occasionally encouraging me to pull in a drag. Smoking had always soothed my nerves, and these big fucker cigars were for the worst of occasions.

“I can’t see a way,” Christian said, his face on the corner of my screen. We were working the problem together because he outright did not want me to just break in there and take her. It would mean most likely death, and my demise wouldn’t save her. I debated breaking in there with a gun and pointing it at her before letting them have me. Was the only salvation we would get our deaths?

“You’llneedtostartworking on your rapport with Rafael,” Father said, reclining on his dining table chair and looking me up and down. “You’ll be required to attend his functions, immersing yourself in church culture. That’s the only way you’ll build that trust.”

“I don’t want his trust,” I spat back, glaring at the man who’d made me. Made all of us. One twisted up mess of children. “I’m not interested in being associated with that prick.”

Father leaned forward, and despite his age thirty something years above mine, he was intimidating. I could take him in a fight, I thought, my reflexes faster at pulling out a gun, but the memories of how terrifying I’d found him as a child made me want to shrink up a little. “You want everything to do with him. You’ll do everything he demands of you, like it’s the best thing you’ve ever tried.”

“Do you know what he had Charlie doing?” I asked, interrupting him. “Do you know what that prick made him do to Violet!?” My voice rose as my mother walked in from the kitchen, a tray of drinks in her hand.

“Now now, don’t argue,” she said in her usual flat inflection. “We need to work through this… loss like a family who cares for each other. To do it any other way would look…”

“Gauche,” I finished for her, not looking in her direction even when a glass of clear liquid appeared before me. She placed a large whiskey in front of father before sauntering off again, agreeing with gaucheness being uncalled for.

Mother and my youngest two sisters were in the sitting room, pretending to mourn while the staff cooked and cleaned around us. I wanted them all to fuck off. But they’d only lasted a few hours in the hotel before coming right back to get down to business.

I stared my father down, willing him to ask what I knew. What Charlie did. I didn’t even really know myself, it was guesswork from what he’d said. And I understood the horrific hypocrisy that came with my anger.

Consent was the difference.

“Tell me what he did to her,” I said, each word careful and pronounced, slow. Demanding.

There was a glimmer of regret, or maybe gas, but something uncomfortable crossed over his vision before he shuttered it away. “I don’t care what he did. He was doing as told by me. Be perfect for that man. We need him. Our family is in a precarious place, the newest members. We need to be perfect, valuable. Violet and Charlie have failed.”

I seethed. "I would beg you to finally fucking explain, but I expect you’re going to tell me now your precious oldest is dead, and your daughter hasfailed.” I gulped the vodka down, just fucking opened my gullet and poured it straight into my stomach, my jaw twitching a little at the alcoholic burn. “Lay it on me, you prick. Why are you so bloody obsessed with joining this fucked up organization so far from home?”

“Insubordination won’t be tolerated, Theodore,” he replied like he was chiding a small child for stealing ice cream from the freezer.

“Don’t tolerate it then,Father,” I threw back. “Fire me, go to your next in line. One of your daughters would be perfect for the job of buttering up the illustrious Rafael Delucci. And not just in his bed.”

“One of them is doing a sufficient job at the moment. But don’t think I won’t send another his way if she stops fulfilling her duties. Rafael is our top priority.”

"You said she failed," I replied.

His jaw ticked. "Her failure is pushing him. Charlie told me he was growing more unhinged. That works for us."

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