Liars and Liaisons by Sav R. Miller

4

I don’t feel particularlybad about what I did.

In truth, I haven’t felt bad about anything since Sydney, and even then, my melancholy is more resigned to the fact that her death seems to have permanently altered my ability to make music. She’s impeding my life in the most inconvenient way, and if she wasn’t dead already, I would strangle her until I felt the last little breath escape her lips, just so she could have a taste of what it feels like to be forced to live while you can’t get oxygen to your lungs.

But I don’t feel bad about what I did to Violet. What I’m going to do to her.

Perhaps I would if I believed her whole naive and innocent act, but for her to have been involved with my brother for any amount of time would require at least a shade of darkness residing in her heart. If she’s anything like him, she’s just really good at hiding it.

I watch from the bedroom window as she exits the hotel building. Janus, one half of my security team leads, greets her as she approaches the curb, then ushers her into a waiting blacked-out SUV. She pauses before climbing in the backseat, glancing directly up at me, though I don’t think she knows I’m standing here.

There’s a momentary flashback to the day I first saw her outside the James estate, the situation eerily similar to this one. Now, I’m certain she’s aware of the evil within.

If not yet, she will be.

My skin itches with the need to retreat, to surround myself with the ghosts of Duris, so I gather my things quickly and leave the bedroom.

In the adjoining suite, I find a tattooed man lounging on the pullout sofa, plucking at a black Viper guitar with fingers covered in silver rings. His brown hair curls slightly around his ears and droops onto his forehead, even as he stares up at the skylights in the ceiling with silver eyes, humming softly to himself.

My feet pause, almost refusing to let me through the door. Interactions with my nephew over the last few years have been limited on my end. Outside of investing in and managing the board of the record label he and his mother started, I stay as far out of his life as possible.

The kid struggled a lot, growing up in the spotlight, and in recent years, he seems to have turned things around. I have no desire to taint his progress with my devolution into despair and ruin.

A strand of hair brushes my temple, but when I reach up, it’s gone. The itching sensation remains, and I scratch with a fervor that makes my skin ache.

“Would probably be easier to avoid me if you went down the fire escape,” Aiden says, craning his neck over the arm of the sofa and flashing me a boyish grin. “Aren’t you supposed to be good at sneaking around? Most people didn’t even know you were here last night.”

Most people. I wonder if he’s aware that I was with Violet or that she’s Nathaniel’s ex. If so, I’m sure he’s not the only one who knows—and the fact that Nathaniel might know I spent the night with her fills me with a perverted sense of glee.

I wonder if it’s already eating him alive.

Sighing, I step into the room and cross the floor, stuffing my hands in the pockets of my pants. The same tailored pair from last night since I hadn’t planned on staying out overnight.

“This coming from a man who once tried to evade all of New York City just to take some girl on a date.”

“I did evade the public actually. But is that what you were doing last night? I didn’t peg you as the wine and dine them type.” Aiden chuckles, cradling the guitar in his lap as he pushes into a sitting position.

He twists toward me, and I note the black hoodie he has on—where a photo of the girl in question is plastered across the entirety of his torso, her rose-pink hair and blue eyes on display.

“I’m not. Nor am I interested in dating at all and certainly not someone I’d have to work this hard at to keep my privacy, if your presence alone is any indication.”

“Lack of privacy isn’t always such a bad thing.” He points at the photo. “Worked out pretty well, if you ask me.”

“Jesus Christ.” I can’t imagine being obsessed with someone to the point of needing to wear their face on my clothing when they aren’t around.

The lacy crimson panties in my pocket sear red-hot accusations into my thigh, and I curl my hands into fists, ignoring them.

“Then again, I didn’t sneak around with someone who’s off-limits.” He cocks his head to one side, arching a dark brow.

I stare back at him, unflinching. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Okay.” He shrugs, setting the guitar at his feet. “But you do know last night was a televised, photographed event, right? News crews, a photographer from Vogue. The mayor of this island went all out for his cause.”

My gut sours, dread clawing at my organs, but I keep my features schooled.

Janus and Arsen would’ve had the bodies cleaned up before anyone could find them. That’s what I pay them to do. No one would’ve seen their drug-addled corpses, and if they did, I certainly wouldn’t be standing here, a free man.

The James family wouldn’t survive that large a scandal. Not all of us anyway. Not unless we played our cards just right.

“Just saying.” His face is relaxed, amused even. “I like to check event pictures and pick the best ones to send to Riley and my PR manager so they can upload them to their socials. Riley usually doesn’t until I get back because she likes to make me work for the attention.”

My eyes narrow. Is he blushing? Just at the thought of his little girlfriend?

I take a step in his direction. It should upset me more that my own family couldn’t pick me out at a masquerade party, but that’s not the primary pressing matter. “What did you—”

“Ah, my two favorite boys in the world!”

A knock on the door sounds at the same time a feminine voice clips lightly through the air, and I force a small smile onto my face as my mother and father enter. Her dark hair is pulled back at the base of her neck, her green eyes bright and crinkling at the corners.

She practically launches herself into my arms, and I catch her at the waist to keep from bowling over. My father hangs back, his face hard as granite, immersed in something on his phone. His right hand grips the twenty-four-karat gold goat head of a walking stick, and despite my best efforts, the sight of it makes my muscles stiffen.

I can still feel the blunt force of that goat striking my back, forcing me to my knees.

I’ve always wondered how he got the blood off it.

Sniffing, my mother pulls away, frowning as she gives me a once-over. “Jesus, Grayson, you reek like cheap booze. Are these the same clothes you had on last night?”

“You dragged me here and didn’t let me pack an overnight bag,” I reply in a monotonous voice. “Hotel soap and deodorant can only do so much.”

“Glad to see that mountain house has done absolutely nothing to improve your attitude.” She pinches my cheeks, then glances past me at Aiden. “And you, my darling boy, were incredible last night. Your pitch was perfect, and your acoustic numbers almost brought the crowd to tears.” Pride beams from the corners of her mouth, and Aiden shifts his gaze down, as if unaccustomed to the praise. “How’s Calliope? New York? Your father?”

Aiden stands, slinging the Viper onto his shoulder and securing its purple strap across his chest. The upside-down Medusa tattoo on his right hand seems to ripple with the movement, winking beneath his silver rings.

He shrugs, stuffing his hands in his hoodie pocket. “Mom’s fine, New York’s fine, Dad’s… well, he’s Harrison James. As long as he’s making money, nothing else really matters.”

There’s a slight bite of resentment dripping from his words, and I feel a tug of empathy in my stomach. I know better than anyone what it’s like to have a father who cares about his son as the talent more than his flesh and blood.

Even now, mine won’t pay me a lick of attention. Not since I’ve been squandering my social and professional lives by hiding out, refusing to do his bidding. I think he’d be happy if I went back to teach despite not having supported the career shift in the first place.

At least then, I wouldn’t be a massive blight on the James family name.

“Well, I’m sure that isn’t true.” My mother reaches for her stepgrandson, pulling him into her arms. He loops his around her shoulders, and I pretend not to notice how hard he hugs her back.

“When you’ve got an asset that makes as much money as you do for your father,” mine starts, finally deigning to look up from his phone, “you’ll understand why very little else matters, boy.”

I work my jaw as his eyes lift, dark pools of disappointment meeting mine.

The old fucker stares me down, his gray hair practically white in the hotel’s lighting. I wish I could walk over and deck him, just once—knock him to the ground, watch him stain the hardwood floor a deep blood red.

For what he did to me, growing up, and what he did to Sydney. What they all did to her.

But revenge like that can’t be rushed. It requires finesse and time, and I don’t have the luxury of either of those at the moment.

Right now, I just need to get home.

My mother pulls away from Aiden with a sigh, shooting me a look. “Can we please try to get along for more than five minutes? For once? There are paparazzi outside, you know, just waiting for an opportunity to expose the James family as the dysfunctional mess the public thinks we are.”

“Dysfunctional is one word for it,” Aiden mutters.

“Don’t worry, Mother.” I bend down, pressing a kiss to her forehead, all while keeping my eyes on my father. Just so he knows I’m not finished—we aren’t finished. “I’ll head out.”

She gripes about me leaving, but inevitably lets me go. I shove my hands in my pockets and stroll to the door, feeling my father’s gaze heavy on my shoulders. Somehow, he makes it to the exit before me, and he grabs my shoulder as I try to pass through without incident.

Deep, rigid lines crease his face as he glares at me.

I yank my arm from his grasp. “Careful, Father. I’m not as young and frail as I used to be. Push me around now, and I might just rip out your tongue.”

“Don’t threaten me,” he spits, leaning in so his angry red face is all I see. “You stay away from that girl, Grayson.”

A grin graces my lips. “What girl?”

“Oh, don’t play games with me. You know exactly what I’m talking about, and if you hadn’t disappeared with her before I could catch you, I’d have kicked you out on your ass in front of the entire gala last night.”

“Why, so Nathaniel could disappoint her instead?”

He jabs my shoe with the walking stick. “I mean it. I didn’t allow you to go play ghost in Duris so you could screw up our family. Get it together, stop antagonizing your brother, and get your dumb ass back to New York. I’m tired of your goddamn pity parties, not to mention your actual parties. Thank fuck no one wound up dead last night, like they normally do.”

A part of me wonders if he realizes he’s talking to his fully grown child the way you speak to a toddler or maybe even a dog, and then clarity hits—he’s doing it on purpose.

Everything Ezekiel James has ever done has been precise, thorough, and calculated. It’s why he rules the music industry, why I strive so hard to be his opposite, and why Sydney is dead.

Dead and not ever coming back.

And I think, if not for her, maybe I’d listen. Go back to my penthouse in the city, make my commute to the university three times a week, and teach undergrads the importance of music theory and cohesive composition. Maybe I’d win another Academy Award for a score in a documentary or find new talent for Aiden’s record label.

But that’s hard to commit to when I haven’t written anything in weeks. Have scarcely touched an instrument, much less long enough to compose.

Because of him and Nathaniel and all the others like them.

The ones who don’t give a shit if they snuff out dreams, so long as they get whatever it is they want in the end.

So, I simply turn away from my father and ignore him completely.

* * *

Several days pass,and the ghosts of my home once again become my best companions. Priya stops by to berate me a couple of times, though she mostly comes to check on the housekeepers, Willow and Micah. As if I were some sort of monster who’d deprive the girls of food or salary rather than ensure they were properly cared for.

Even if they aren’t permitted to roam the grounds alone. They’re also not supposed to venture down the mountain but once or twice a week, which is why they flood the foyer when Priya shows up, taking the phone data cards and fresh-baked goods she brings from New York.

They aren’t prisoners per se. Not like me. I just prefer to know where my staff is at all times.

After the gala, I spend every night poring over countless texts and sheet books, looking for something familiar that I can waste a few minutes on.

Just something that might spark even a bit of creativity before I lose my mind entirely.

The longer I stay holed up here, staring at the fire until I see my former student’s mangled face, the more invested I become in my family’s demise.

When I’m not glaring at the fire, I’m thinking of her—long hair that shines like tumbled obsidian, lips that look like delicious red apples and somehow taste of them too.

I’m thinking of the files I’ve found on her. The debt procured in her name that seems inordinate for a twenty-five-year-old woman.

She has family in North Carolina, and she speaks to her mother several times a week. The calls last hours, and if I were to tap into the line, I’m certain they’d be filled with laughter and warmth, the likes of which I can’t fathom.

My relationship with my mother, though decent, has always been strained.

I’ve never laughed around her.

Violet appears to spend the majority of her time thrift shopping, sowing the earth with varying types of plants, and making the people around her smile. Janus, whom I’ve had tailing her since she left the hotel last week, even caught her giving all the cash in her purse to an apparent unhoused person as she got off the ferry in Aplana Island.

Until I saw the photos of the act, I’d genuinely thought people only did that in movies.

The amount of time I spend thinking about her is becoming a problem.

In fact, the first time my fingers stroke the sacred ivory keys for longer than three seconds, it is as I think about the soft, silken feel of her skin and how her lips felt molding against mine at the gala that night.

How she didn’t really know who was beneath that mask, even if she hoped it was my brother. She still took that chance, gambled for the sake of excitement, and a short tune bursts free from the tips of my fingers as the memory rears its head.

My body has become so unaccustomed to the sound of music at this point that I sit, staring at my hands in denial. For a long time—so long that Arsen knocks on the door and lets me know Priya’s gone back to the city.

It’s late, and I can’t fucking move. Can’t drag my thoughts away from the smoky doe eyes, or the lilt of her voice, or the blush of her naked body.

The longer I sit, the louder the silence becomes. That horrid, haunting melody creeps its way back in, pulsing in the recesses of my brain like the waves after an earthquake.

This time, I ignore it though.

I ignore everything. Even my father’s warning from the other day.

I won’t stay away from Violet Artinos.

In fact, I won’t even wait for her to come to me.

I’ll go to her and drag her to Duris if I have to. Drugged or kicking and screaming—I don’t fucking care what I have to do.

Her refusal is no longer an option.