Page 59 of Cruelest Contract
“She just told you to shut up,” Fort points out.
Tye shrugs. “Abuse turns me on.”
Cecilia giggles. “Must have been exhausting to keep track of you all when you were kids.”
“Yeah, we were terrible children,” Tye says.
“Fucking nightmares,” Getty declares.
“Except for Julian,” Fort says. “He was never a kid. He started issuing orders the minute he could talk.”
“True.” Tye hops off the tailgate and stretches. “My earliest memories involve being yelled at by Julian. But he wasn’t alwaysa dick. Like when he used to tell me not to rip the heads off flowers because it hurt their feelings.”
“That was Mom,” I say. “Whenever she’d bring us into the greenhouse you’d always vandalize her daisies. To make you stop, she told you flowers had feelings too. You started to cry and tried to put the petals back together. So she picked you up and tickled you until you laughed.”
“Did she?” Tye’s voice drops, his tone newly somber.
Getty turns around and stares at me.
Fort, standing a few paces away, puts his hands on his hips and gazes at the sky.
“I haven’t seen a greenhouse,” Cecilia says softly.
“It’s gone,” I tell her. “The day of our mother’s funeral, Dad took a tractor and kept ramming it until it was knocked over. He just couldn’t stand to look at it.”
“Because it reminded him of her?”
“Because it’s where they were waiting for her.”
Beside me, Cecilia sits in frozen silence, waiting to hear me tell her the story that all of us already know by heart.
“Things were different back then. Sure, we had security but not like we do now. Nearly all of the ranch staff was up at the summer camp with the herd so the place was almost empty. My dad brought me and Tye up to the camp for the first time. We were only supposed to stay for one night but we ended up staying for two. Meanwhile, Mom was back home with Getty and Fort, both of them too young to come with us. Two of our most trusted enforcers were watching over the house.
“My father had no shortage of enemies but there hadn’t been a Mafia war in years. Then a longtime rival, part of the west coast Delfino family, felt like he’d been disrespected. Dad was the target but he wasn’t home. The killers had already neutralized our security guards plus a poor cowboy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were waiting in the greenhouse.Mom went out there real early every morning, before we were awake. She loved her flowers. Maybe they told her if she went with them quietly then they wouldn’t go in the house and kill her babies. We’ll never know. There used to be a big willow tree outside the front gate. They stood her up against the tree, put a bullet in her head and propped her up against the trunk. In a sick joke, they tied up her arm in a way to make it look like she was waving hello.”
Cecilia lets out a small cry and covers her mouth. I feel an emotional tremor pass through her body.
“And that’s why every single fucking traitor we find gets cut from ear to ear.” Getty’s tone is lethal and he stares darkly into the brush. He spots a mid-sized jagged rock on the ground, scoops it up and throws it with such savage force I don’t even see it fall.
There’s more to tell.
How we’d been betrayed by a man who’d been part of my father’s crew for a decade.
How my father spent an entire year savagely deleting every single one of his enemies from the world.
How Fort and Getty, the sole survivors of the day, were alone in the house for hours until a friend of our mother’s stopped by with a peach cobbler and discovered a scene of unimaginable horror.
I didn’t see any of that.
But I have my own memories.
What I remember is two police trucks suddenly careening into camp.
I remember my father’s unearthly wail of anguish, a sound that I hope to never hear again.
I remember holding Tye’s hand at the funeral and how no one could persuade Getty to come out of the cabinet he’d crawled into because he’d scream when anyone touched him.
I remember Mel making us scrambled eggs while carrying Fort on her hip. She was the only one to realize we hadn’t eaten all day.
