Page 44 of Unleash Hades
“Power is just a tool,” Remus said with a chortle, purposely egging on his brother. “Villainize it all you like, it is a fact that some people will have power, while others do not.”
“You’re a philistine!” Romulus lashed out.
“Boys!” I chided them both this time. I shook my head, as a poisonous thought entered my mind - Remus was so much like his father sometimes, it frightened me.
Would he hurt someone like me one day?
“Romulus, what did you want to ask me?”
Romulus took a deep breath and shut his eyes. It was something I’d been working with him on since pre-school - how to channel his frustrations and control his strong feelings. Meditation, breathing exercises, centering. He had such a big heart, and big feelings came with it.
“I want to meet Aunt Chloe,” he finally said, calmly.
I froze. “Oh…”
I hadn’t kept the fact that I had a sister a secret from them. I didn’t like keeping secrets from them at all, even though I had to. I swore to be as honest as possible. When they were of a mind to ask about Santa Clause, I never told them he was real, but thatsomepeople believed certain things. I never deceived them about a tooth fairy, even as I hid the coins beneath their pillows.
Their father would lie to them enough for the both of us.
Even though Chloe occupied my thoughts each day, I hadn’t realized that my sons thought about her too.
“She’s a really good humanitarian, and I was thinking that… that…” Romulus stumbled for the words. My sweet, shy little man.
“You want to be a doctor,” I said, trying to smile at him with understanding, even as my heart pounded in my chest. “She’s a good role model.”
Neither of my sons wanted to be journalists. It was just as well, it was a horrid occupation.
Romulus would be a gentle, kind, healing hand. Remus would probably become a general, or a dictator.
“Yeah… does that make you angry?” Romulus said, closing the door after he climbed in.
“Why would it?”
“Because we don’t talk to her, ever. And I thought…”
Whatever he thought hung in the air between us, as he worried his plump bottom lip between his teeth.
They thought I didn’t like my sister.
I had cultivated that impression. I had to pretend distance between us, so that Richard could not use her against me…against the family estates. Not the way he used Adelia. How he used her to keep me in line, and when that was threatened, he sacrificed her as if she were a lamb on the altar.
Now that Chloe was a doctor, and happily married, she’d be out of his grasp. He would not be able to suck her into this life under his thumb.
One phone call couldn’t hurt. It was about the boys. Richard would never hurt the boys… right? Not even he could be so callous.
“I’ll call her,” I whispered, biting my lower lip to keep complicated emotions from bubbling up. I suppressed them, even as Romulus looked at me with bright elation.
“Really?” He let out a breath of relief.
“Don’t get your hopes up, love,” I said, patting him on the cheek. “I haven’t spoken to my sister in decades.”
That was a lie. I had spoken to her at Christmas, when Richard dragged me to see Philippa Fox and George Campbell at their Venice wedding, hoping to get a glimpse of Callum MacLachlan to discuss some proprietary technology… something about a tracker he said he wanted for our journalists in dangerous parts of the world. Small enough to be hidden in the seam of clothing.
“She’s very busy.” I wasn’t sure how she’d react to a call from me. “But I will try.”
Romulus, the sweet boy that he was, could barely control his excitement, no matter how much I tried to temper it.
“Thank you Mummy,” he said with a smile, getting up to wrap an arm around my shoulder in a side-hug.
