Page 56 of Wicked Attraction

“This isn’t about me, Cal. I’m doing what the fuck I’m supposed to do. This is about Sadie and how the Ashby Organization will change if she doesn’t pull through. Is that something you give a fuck about? If not, get out. Now.”

I pointed toward the door because I was tired of his shit. He could leave right now, and I wouldn’t give a fuck. If Sadie woke up, she would bring him back into the fold. If not, then there would be one less member of the family. Two less if you counted Ava Rose.

Cal smacked the table as hard as he could, fury turning his skin red.

“She killed my fucking wife! Why should I give a shit what happens to her?”

“Because she’s your goddamn mother!” Terry’s words came out in a roar that reverberated around the room. He glared hard at Cal. “She’s the reason we’re all here. The reason we all have what we have.” He shook his head. “Grow the fuck up, man.”

“Fuck you, Terry.” Cal was at the brave stage of drunkenness, with his chest puffed out and shoulders broad like a peacock. “You don’t know the half of it.”

Terry smirked and shook his head, dismissing Cal’s words.

But Virgil sat up tall and leaned in. “If we don’t know, tell us, Cal. Tell us what you know.”

Cal shook his head, taking another long pull of the whiskey bottle. “You don’t want to know. Not really.”

“And I thought Kat had a flair for the dramatic.” I shook my head, knowing Cal was enjoying this little bit of theater, his moment in the spotlight. “Just fucking tell us what you think you know.”

Cal kept shaking his fucking head like some shitty little school kid with a bit of grown-up gossip to share.

“Open your goddamn mouth and speak, Cal!”

“I did it!” His words echoed in the now silent room; his chest heaved as each breath rushed out of him.

“I fucking did it! I shot her. My own fucking mother. I wanted to kill her!”

Instead of tears to match the anguish etched on Cal’s face, bittersweet laughter spilled out of him, more bitter than sweet.

“Yeah, that’s right,” he sneered. “It wasme. Poor little nerdy Calvin Ashby sitting behind his little rat wheel, only good when you need someone smart—which you aren’t!”

I was on my feet in an instant, gun in my hand, aimed right at my baby brother. I didn’t give a fuck. All I saw was red as the words spilled from his mouth, naming him as Sadie’s would-be murderer.

“I’ll fucking kill you myself.”

Virgil beat me to the punch as he barreled toward Cal, armed with nothing but the muscles and skills he’d honed over the decades, the fury he’d built up.

“You did what?” Virgil pulled his arm back and let it snap forward like it was tethered to a fucking band. Landing a hit square on Cal’s nose.

“You fuckingshother?” Another hit in the same place, like a robot doing what he was programmed to do.

“How could you,” Virgil roared and hit him again. “She’s our fucking mother!”

Calvin fucking laughed. No, that sound was no fucking laugh. It was a keening howl, a fucked blend of laughter and tears.

“She killed Bonnie. I loved her. I brought her back from the brink of fucking death, and Sadie killed her. What if it was Maisie?”

Cal laughed again, the sound resonating deep as it bounced off the walls. “Yeah, that’s right. Imagine it was Maisie’s head with a bullet hole right through it. Imagine those big blue eyes, dead and vacant, having to identify her pale, lifeless face, no longer full of color and laughter.”

Virgil punched him again, splitting Cal’s lip open while the crazy fuck laughed and laughed. “Don’t talk about Maisie, and don’t change the fucking subject. You tried tokillmy mother.”

He flashed a bitter smile. “She’s my mother too,” he said with a drunken sneer. “The same mother who let you get fucked by grown men,” he said, slurring. He looked at me too. “Yeah, you too, Jas. I know all about it.”

Something inside of me snapped, and it wasn’t just because Calvin had tried to kill Sadie. It was the arrogant fucking sneer on his face as he taunted me with his supposed knowledge, the way he reveled in throwing it in my face and Virgil’s.

“You motherfucker!”

I pressed the barrel of my gun against the forehead of my baby brother, the one I held in my arms and promised to protect the day Sadie brought him home from the hospital.

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