Liars and Liaisons by Sav R. Miller
20
The veinin the center of my forehead pulses painfully each time my father opens his thin lips to speak. Which, unfortunately, is far more frequently than I like even though Harrison is supposed to be the one in charge of this presentation.
It’s a poor attempt at an intervention with everyone—from both brothers and my parents to Priya and an old colleague of mine from NEAA. Even my nephew and his girlfriend made an appearance, though they snuck off half an hour ago, likely having come just for the escape Duris provides.
Everyone else is crowding a sitting room to give speeches on why they think the estate is bad for me.
As if you can glean such insight without having spent any actual time around me. Save for Nathaniel and Priya, this is only the second time Harrison’s been out, and my parents would likely have never come if the latter hadn’t forced their hand.
My mother prefers a hands-off approach, and my father… well, he’s always been hands-on. But he can’t exactly use his fists or even that solid-gold goat-headed walking stick on me when there are so many people around.
I know it angers him, not being able to shove me around the way he used to. That’s what the estate was for—letting off steam. Even after my brothers and I outgrew it, he wanted it kept in the family because it was an easy place for his sins to die.
It’s why I took it away from him. Forged my grandfather’s signature and altered his will so it’d belong to me.
It’s also why I refuse to give it back.
“As you’ll see, Symposium Records shareholders grow antsy when a member of the board becomes reclusive for longer than a few weeks’ time.” Harrison points a laser around a chart my mother has projected on the wall, his shoulders squared and that damn bald spot shining bright under the lights. “Since you’re still technically on the board, though in name mostly, they’ve asked us here to ensure your interests still align with the company’s.”
“They don’t,” I deadpan, swiping at a piece of dirt on my knee. “I couldn’t give a single fuck about Symposium or any of the other labels, agencies, or talent under our management.”
“You certainly don’t seem to mind the billions you’ve raked in because of them.” My father’s beady eyes drill into me. He leans back in a black leather armchair, disapproval and disgust etched into the wrinkles on his face.
“Billions owed to me because of my last name. Much of what I inherited is there because of Grandfather’s work, long before you and Harrison took over.”
“That’s your problem,” he snaps, disgust morphing to outright anger as his face reddens. “You think you’re owed shit just for your existence. News flash, boy: the world isn’t going to reward you when you spend all your time partying and getting high—or whatever the hell else goes on in this fucking mausoleum.”
Slowly, I swing my focus back to my oldest brother. He watches me like he isn’t exactly sure who he’s looking at anymore. “Take me off the board. I don’t care. Probably a bad business decision, keeping me on anyway when I’m a shareholder in your competition.”
When he left his father’s label, Aiden’s smaller, newer company, Orphic Productions, cut into a decent portion of Symposium’s clientele. It eats at Harrison, the same way it eats at our father.
“We can’t just do that,” he says with a shake of his head. “Removing you would mean shifting a majority into non–James family hands. I won’t jeopardize the company, not when I’ve worked so tirelessly to make it what it is.”
“In any case, the parties aren’t the problem,” Nathaniel says, glancing at Priya. “It’s the bad press that surrounds them.”
“No, the problem is the parasite we have living in our midst, taking up residence in our family’s home and providing absolutely no contributions to our livelihood whatsoever.” My father’s index finger points in my direction. “I raised you boys to be opportunists, but also to be functioning parts of this family. If you can’t fucking do that anymore, boy, then perhaps you don’t deserve to be in it.”
White-hot rage simmers in my blood, heating my skin. I slide my gaze from his ruddy face down to where his hand cradles that golden goat head, half-daring him to cross the room and use it. For old times’ sake at least.
Give me a reason to make him pay right here, right now, instead of having to play the long game with my vengeance.
If he’d kept his own anger in check when we were all kids, perhaps my love for playing and creating music wouldn’t have fizzled so valiantly in my mid-thirties. Maybe I wouldn’t have burned out and holed up here, unable to so much as touch an instrument for weeks without thoughts of spiraling despair.
Even now, I can only do it when I think of a woman I’m not even allowed to have. Who doesn’t even want me.
If my father had been better, perhaps we all would have been. Maybe Sydney would still be here instead of rotting in the ground in a Duris cemetery while I keep her sister in my employment just to feel like I didn’t completely fail her.
At a certain point, I suppose you have to own up to your own mistakes and atone for your sins as an adult. It’s just difficult to feel like the choices made up to this point weren’t direct results of the environment I knew and understood.
A father’s anger never leaves you. It molds and shapes with its heat and volume for the rest of your life.
My mother shifts, squeezing my bicep, as if she thinks it might stop me from launching across the room and putting us all out of our misery. That’s the thing about generational trauma—so much of it could’ve been avoided if the universe had only made Ezekiel James impotent.
“Can we try to stay on track, please?” she asks, running a hand over my head the way she did when I was little and sick. “Grayson, darling, we’re simply worried about what the seclusion here is doing to your mental health. We know you haven’t been sending sheet books to your own agent or any research to the school during your sabbatical. That isn’t like you.”
I swallow over the knot in my throat, trying to ignore the tenderness of her concern. I could tell them about my recent discovery—how I’ve found a fucking muse and written three new scores in the last few days—but I don’t want them to know.
If they know, they can exploit it. Just like they did before I left the industry to teach.
Just like they did to Sydney.
Not my mother, of course. She’s as distant from all of this as I am, except when someone in the family drags her in to clean up my messes. As if she isn’t still recovering from having me at seventeen and making up for the unfortunate loss of her innocence that my existence created.
I wrap my fingers around hers, giving a gentle squeeze back. Sitting here with all of them feels like a public endeavor, and though I’ve started making music again, the desire to be where the people are has not yet returned to me.
Even now, in the comfort of my own home, I’m ignoring the anxiety clawing its way up my throat and planning an exit.
“I think we should talk more about the parties.” Nathaniel downs a drink from where he’s seated at the minibar in the corner of the room. He points the crystal tumbler in my direction, a little off-balance. “I mean, Dad mentioned them, but why is no one talking about what goes on at them? What causes the bad press? They’re hideously dripping in debauchery with people in Duris reportedly able to hear them from town. Only a certain number of people are granted admission to each one he throws, and yet slightly less than those who enter ever leave.”
“How do you know that?” my father clips.
Nathaniel shrugs. “I went to the last one to check it out. Since everyone is always so tight-lipped about them or can’t seem to remember a damn thing after.”
Four other pairs of eyes shift toward me. The remaining pair stay on Nathaniel, and I can’t help the swell of raw satisfaction in my chest at the realization that his narcissism might be his downfall after all.
I’m certain our father wasn’t aware of his ventures up the mountain. But my brother never was very good at keeping his nose to himself or sating his curiosity in other ways. Now, they’re likely rethinking his involvement, assuming his attendance at my parties also means he’s participating in the insidiousness. Because he’s never been able to help himself from indulging in anything that might make his ego feel good.
Still, he levels me with a look of cool disdain. “What are you doing to them, Grayson?”
One corner of my mouth twitches. I almost let it curve up. “Killing them.”
The room goes utterly silent. A few seconds later, chaos erupts like a volcanic explosion. I excuse myself and slip into an adjoining room while they argue over the merit of my “joke,” lighting a cigar in the hopes that it might do something to calm my nerves.
The smoke invades my nostrils, pulling me back to the matter at hand as the irate chatter quiets through the door. A glance at the fireplace reveals that horrific, mangled face among the flames, and I curse under my breath at the realization that Sydney’s ghost hasn’t fucking gone anywhere.
Like everyone else, she’s just biding her time, and I’m quickly running out.
The door to the room opens and closes softly, quickly. I swear, the temperature drops at least three degrees, and the lights flicker when Ian Crane enters, hands shoved in the pockets of his black slacks.
He wears a long coat, its collar pulled up against his neck. At first glance, he doesn’t even appear to have a head, but then his carefully coiffed black hair reveals itself. Almost violet blue in the flames’ glow.
Behind a pair of circular, wire-rimmed glasses, the copper eyes tracking my movements appear red the closer he gets. His gait is meticulous, as if every step he takes requires conscious thought. He has several inches of height on me, tall as a fucking tree, so I almost have to tilt my head back just to look up at him.
Years ago, I found that comforting. He has an essence of darkness around him that allows you to hide your own within, and when we were just starting out at NEAA, I thought that was what I needed in a companion.
For someone’s shadows to blanket the stars in my vision.
Until I realized darkness like his will swallow you whole and leave you with nothing. That not all night can coexist. That’s the difference between dusk and dawn—the gradient of evil.
And I didn’t want darkness to add to my own.
I wanted light to snuff out.
“What blackmail does my family have on you?” I ask finally, setting the cigar on the obsidian-colored glass ashtray by my elbow.
He chuckles, the sound deep and throaty. “No blackmail. There’s this thing called free will—maybe you’ve heard of it?”
“Heard of it. Not the biggest fan of its execution.” I lean back against the bar, taking his lean stature in against the background of the dark room.
“Your being here right now is the very definition, my friend.” He takes the cigar, puts it between his lips. A plume of smoke puffs into the air between us, the cigar butt glowing a fierce red with his next inhale. “I’m supposed to be here to report back to the dean. Either tell him why you’ve not been communicating or tell him you’re doing great.”
My eyes meet his, but I don’t say anything. Waiting.
“Guess I’m not the character witness everyone thought they were getting.” He smirks. “I’m not your judge, Grayson. You don’t answer to me.”
“Glad to hear it. Not that I need your validation.”
“Sure, sure. Just the validation of the girl you’re hiding on the property.”
Violet. Fuck, the complete shit show of my family drew my every thought away from her for the first time since I’d laid eyes on her.
I glance toward one of the windows, at the night sky and the lake beyond, squinting to see if I can make out any sort of movement out there.
I wasn’t thinking when I threw her clothes into the water. Around her, I’m never thinking. That’s only a fourth of the problem where she’s concerned.
Still, I did it to keep her from coming back to the house while my family was inside. The reveal is supposed to be in stages, and I want to be able to sit back and watch her presence utterly destroy my brother from the inside out.
Clearing my throat, I look at Ian and narrow my gaze. “How do you know about her?”
His smirk grows. “Priya tells me everything.”
“Priya’s soon to find herself unemployed.”
“Ah, don’t be too hard on her.” He stamps out the cigar, clearing his throat. “I did ask how you were. Thought I’d at least be polite. She seems to think you’re smitten with your brother’s ex, and I told her that sounded just like you. Lecherous and deviant.”
“I’m not smitten.” I’m fucking obsessed.
Bringing her here was a definite mistake, but I can’t do anything to change that now.
Wouldn’t if I could.
She thinks she’s leaving here when I’m done with her, but the truth is, I won’t ever be.
As if summoned, the door opens again, and I turn, ready to lay into my closest friend for her loose lips. I should bury her alive outside for the betrayal alone, but it isn’t her that comes through.
It’s Aiden and his girlfriend, the pink-haired security analyst. Or whatever she does at her brother’s cybersecurity firm—I’ve never been able to pay attention when someone talks about it.
The pair parts, and at first, all I see is an actual sea of crimson. Pale skin splattered haphazardly with ruby red and watery footprints to match. As if she had been dipped into a lake of blood and tossed right onto my doorstep.
My veins ignite, confusion burning a path to my heart. Doe eyes gloss over as they lift to mine, outlined by the mysterious red liquid smeared all over her delicate face.
But she doesn’t look particularly delicate now.
She’s the volatile sort of sunshine—the implosion before the world ceases to exist.
And she’s aiming destruction right at me.
