Page 82 of Tethered Souls
His chest heaves as he spits out his rage, as he demands Maddox’s attention, pulling it off Alexis. “You want to know who stabbed you in the back thirteen months ago?” Vinny asks as he turns his head to me. “I did. I thought I stabbed you in the fucking heart though. I would have cut off your fucking head if I’d known I’d missed.”
He glares at me, and I stare calmly back, inhaling the sickly smell of his fear. His adrenaline. “Myers stabbed me,” I say, my gut trusting Aleric’s claims over his. Although both of them have motives to destroy this Family, Vinny would die for his father. Aleric would die for no one but himself.
Vinny sneers, “He wouldn’t have missed your heart.”
The first tendrils of doubt wrap themselves around me. “Myers was spotted by Aleric, who had the sense to capture it on camera.”
Vinny pales, not knowing that was a lie. He tries to come up with a reason for what “Aleric showed me,” but it takes him too long, and he knows it.
“He’s my father,” he says simply.
“And we were yourfamily. Talon thinks of you like a brother. He would’ve fought for you,” I say.
He scoffs. “He fucking left, didn’t he?” There’s a tear in his eye that he angrily blinks back. “None of you deserve to live after what your whore of a mother did to this family.”
I still, wondering if he knows. “What did she do?” I ask, my voice flat.
“She killed Caden. He loved her. Tried to give her the world, andshe killed him.”
“He killed himself,” Maddox says, the first crack in his mask, in the raw, wavering words that show he can stillfeel.
“Because she drove him to it. All she had to do was love him back, and instead she asked forspace.He was with her for thirty years while she lay in a fucking coma, feeding her, combing her hair, removing her piss and shit so she would not wake up to tubes. He gave hereverything, but then she becamewoke.” He sneers at me, his eyes hard and so full of a hatred I’ve never seen, never suspected until tonight.
“She wanted to know if what they had was real, if it wasn’t just because her father sold her to him, wrapped her up in a godsdamn bow and told him she was his, so she demanded space. He loved her enough, he left, but when he came back three years later, she still wasn’t ready! He was my uncle, the only family my father had left, and she killed him!” He’s shaking now, full-on yelling, and I know that he believes what he’s saying.
But Father didn’t leave because ofher.
He left because ofme.
Or is that just my paranoia talking? A coincidence of timing? Are the memories I have false, crafted from the mind of a boy feeling guilty over breaking up his parents – something so many kids feel? Did Father really yell at her about me? About my lack of magic… Or did he actually leave because she asked him to, and Mother never told us because she didn’t want to be the bad guy? Is that what she was so afraid of us finding out when she left this room? Not that she cheated on Father when she had me? Just that she’s the one who tore this family apart?
My jaw locks. There are too many questions in my head. Too many doubts.
But right now none of that matters. All that matters is Vinny is guilty.
“The Shadow Domain never would have followed you.”
He lifts his chin. “We were going to rebuild the Red Demons.” The Family my father’s father ruled in New York before the human gangs ran them out and they came down to join ours. When Caden married Mother, their men, what few remained of them, came with them, but they all died during the war between the Blood Fangs and Death Hunt.
I stare at my cousin, wondering how I missed all this pent-up rage. Was it always there? The entire time we grew up together? Are all the memories I have of us nothing but a lie?
Or did it recently fester?
My gut says it is the latter, that perhaps Myers acted alone when he tried to kill me thirteen months ago. Then his son found out somewhere along the way and demanded to know why.
Or perhaps that’s just me being sentimental, not wanting to believe that two people so close to me hate me this much.
At least it’s not just me they hate,a dark voice says.It’s all of my brothers too.
“You’re a traitor to this Family, Vinny,” the reaper says calmly, having clearly heard all he needs to hear. “For that, the punishment is death.”
“Fuck you all.” He opens his mouth and sticks out his tongue, but Maddox is on him before he can bite it off. His fingers pinch Vinny’s jaw, forcing his teeth apart. He shoves the nutcracker sideways between his lips, then he forces it to stay there with his magic. Vinny is to die, but it will be by our hand.
With our cousin bound, silenced, and helpless once more, Maddox straightens, then steps back.
“Kill him quickly,” he says as he walks away, and I know he isn’t coming back to this mess. He needs a breather from it all, and I can’t blame him. So do I. I want nothing more than to turn on my heels and find Micha, but I can’t.
I am the Boss of the Shadow Domain.
