Born Wrong (19 page)

“When will it be over?” I ask Brayden, causing him to actually pause what he's doing to stare at me. “What's the final objective here? Killing Stephen?”

“I'm afraid it's a bit more complicated than that, but I think that's the thread that will unwind the knit. If we get rid of Stephen, everything else falls apart.”

“But it's not an endgame move?” I ask him, suddenly desperate to just be finished with this. I think it's my anxiety about …
her.
My secret. I still haven't decided exactly how it is that I'm going to get over to see her, but I have to try. Brayden sighs and touches his earpiece again, turning to face me with his arms crossed tightly over his chest.

“Stephen is a complicated man from a complicated family, Mr. McCann. Where you or I might let certain things go, they have a tendency to hold grudges that … evolve over time.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Sydney asks from behind me. But I don't look at her, not yet. If I want to be able to focus on
anything
besides her lips, it's best if I just don't see them.

“It means that this isn't just Stephen's problem anymore.” I lean against the wall while we wait for our clearance and puzzle through the facts. I wonder if the others are hiding more secrets from me, like Naomi was. What else is there that I'm not seeing? “This is a Hammergren problem.”

“Uh huh.” I don't sound particularly friendly when I respond. “And that means what?”

“It means,” Brayden begins, and I imagine that whatever it is he's going to say, I'm not going to like. “That Spin Fast Music Group no longer belongs to Stephen, which means it no longer belongs to the family.”

“And so how is that our problem?” I ask him. See, that's where I really get caught up in all of this. Now, don't get me wrong, I think Stephen is absolutely fucking bat shit insane, but I see how that rage got focused on America. Even Indecency. I mean, it's a stretch, but if Stephen blames Travis for America leaving him, then why not take revenge on the thing that meant most to him? But why are we involved? America isn't even our friend, just our manager. We could fire her tomorrow and there'd be no connection. Hell, I
would
fire her tomorrow if I thought it would make any difference. She might sue the crap out of us, but at least we wouldn't be getting corpses delivered to our hotel on a regular basis.

“Dax, America is the one that got him … I won't say fired because that's not the right word, but forcibly removed from the position of CEO. Granted, he still has a seat on the board, but the company his grandfather started is no longer under the Hammergren's direct control.” Brayden laughs, but it's not a funny sort of a laugh. It's an
I can't fucking believe what I'm saying right now
sort of a laugh. That scares me. That really, really fucking freaks me out. “Forty-nine percent of a multi-billion dollar company just isn't enough when your head is lost in the feckin' clouds.”

“How the … how the fuck?” I ask because, I mean shit, why? Why?
That uptight bitch,
I think in my head, squeezing my hands so tight, my leather gloves creak. “How did she even manage that?” Brayden sighs and shakes his head, reaching out for the handle of the door.

“You'd be surprised at what that woman is capable of,” he says respectfully. “Long story short, they lost the company. They blame America. They blame you. And when the Hammergrens decide your time is up, you clock out. I'm sorry, Dax. I almost wish they had a personal vendetta against you. But they don't. They probably don't even know your name. Somebody down here is feeding information up there. For now, they're lookin' to make America suffer. Eventually, they'll get tired of that and decide it's time for the fun to be over with. This isn't the scary part; that's the scary part. And it doesn't matter if you're here or there, they will find you. I'm sorry Dax, but with the Hammergrens, it's blood in, blood fuckin' out.”

“Even though I've done nothing?” I ask, because maybe I'm just thinking too logically about things. Crazy people don't operate under the same principles as the rest of us. What makes sense to one person, baffles another. Brayden puts his hand on my shoulder and his back against the door. Cool air blows in and swirls through the kitchen, making the pots and pans on the overhead rack sway gently. In his green eyes, there's a carefully kept story, one that I'm not going to get.

“Don't think too hard about it. It'll only hurt your head. Trust me, I've tried to make sense of it. Sometimes, bad things happen to good people.” Brayden tries to smile, but it's so forced, it gives me a stomach ache. “And that's why I'm here. Just try and think of me as an Irish Batman, and you'll be alright.”

And then with that particularly satisfying bit of information, he kicks us out the door and into a van, so I can spend the next two hours sitting next to my mother's corpse.

Sydney sits across from me, on the other side of the wooden casket. She's wearing a long sleeved, black shirt with cut outs on the shoulders, flashing me these little hints of tattoo when she adjusts her short skirt, pulling it down so that it sits mid thigh. Underneath it, she's got on a pair of nude nylons that I have to literally pinch myself to ignore. Looking at her in all black, I'm guessing she was trying to dress for a funeral. I appreciate that, but Sydney Charell doesn't look anything like a mourner. The only two places I could imagine her right now are at a club or in my bed.
Crap.
I squeeze my eyes shut and rest my hand on the wooden lid. It's nailed shut, but I keep touching it anyway, just to make sure it's not going to pop open and assault me with a flurry of hushed curses from beyond.
I'm sorry, Mom. What kind of son am I that I'm staring at a woman's legs right now? You must be so disappointed in me.
But I don't
want
to sit here and think about my mom's bones. I want to pretend this box is full of dirt, rocks, sand, whatever. Anything but what's really in it. I'd much rather be thinking about Sydney's mouth on mine.

I run my hands over my face. In the face of death, the promise of life is that much more beautiful to behold. I drop my hands to my lap and look at Sydney.

“Thanks for coming,” I tell her, still unsure as to why she's even here. We're not friends, just acquaintances thrown together through random circumstance. Still, I can't stop thinking about my parents' first meeting. This is probably the hundredth time it's brushed through my mind while I've been around Sydney.
Your parents were in love the moment they met. They didn't know it, but everyone else did. Most especially me. You don't look at a woman the way your father looked at your mother, not unless you've already been bought and sold. It was her eyes, I think. Blue as the lake in the rain.

“You're doing it again,” Sydney says, leaning forward. Her blonde hair hangs over her eyebrows and covers her ears, framing her beautiful face in gold. “Disappearing somewhere. Tell me about it.” I glance up at the men in the front. There's a pair of them sitting in the captain's chairs in the center and one driving the van. I don't even get to do that, for safety reasons, of course. The men aren't carrying rifles or frowning through the windshield, looking for trouble. They're just all sitting there, bored, dressed in jeans and T-shirts. It's a little unnerving. They look so ordinary. I turn back to Sydney and lean in. With the soft drone of the radio and the roar of the highway, I doubt they can hear me, but it doesn't hurt to be cautious.

“You don't want to know. I have the most asinine thoughts running through my head.”

“I don't care,” Sydney says, tilting her head to the side. “I like your mouth, and I want to hear what it has to say.” I draw back a bit. Her breath is tickling my face and making my stomach tight. At least I don't get another fucking hard-on. Mom can at least be glad to know her son has
some
modicum of self-control. I pat the box apologetically.

“I'm thinking of my parents. Of their first meeting. Or at least what I was told of it anyway. My grandmother liked to remind me how perfect they were together, just so I'd remember what it was that I'd destroyed.” Sydney blinks rapidly, like she's trying to make room in her head for what I'm saying. Her blue eyes are beautiful, open and eager. I'm not used to people looking at me like that. Nobody takes me seriously here anymore. Blair, Kash, and Wren have known me too long. Naomi's too wrapped up in Turner Land, and the world only sees what it wants to see. Sydney, though, I can tell by her face that all she sees right now is me. I look away and try to control my breathing. My heart is pounding and my throat's gone dry again. I try to remember if Naomi ever looked at me like that, if maybe that's why I fell in love with her because right now, I feel like I could trip head over fucking heels for Sydney. As hard as I try though, I can't remember her orange-brown eyes ever looking at me with this openness. Yes, she listened. Maybe she even understood. But it wasn't like this.

I glance away and focus on the black scuff marks that mar the back doors.

“What happened?” she asks softly, her voice like a feather, trailing across my skin, light but oh so powerful.
Fuck.
I shake my head and clasp my hands together, sighing and leaning forward again. Just because it's not entirely a secret anymore doesn't mean I want to share it with the world.

“I was … ” I try to think of a different way of explaining.
Born wrong.
That's what I always say. But in truth, I don't exactly know
how.
I don't know the medical reasons responsible for my mother's death. Nobody ever bothered to tell me that, only that I was responsible for it. I was there and she wasn't, period. “My mother died in childbirth, so my father hates me. This,” I reach out a hand and gesture at the box. “Is just the icing on the cake. I don't think he'll ever forgive me for this.”

“Born wrong,” Sydney says, trying the words out on her tongue. “That explains the tattoo then?” I nod, but I don't make eye contact with her again. I'm too busy staring into my past and wondering how the hell I'm going to get through this without opening another wound. The way I see it, that's not possible. I'm going to walk out of there with a bleeding wound, a hole in my heart that'll take months to heal. That's why I don't visit my family often. It's more pain than pleasure. “But Dax, you do know that you're not to blame, right? For either event. You can't help being born. You didn't bring yourself into the world. And this, I mean, come on. This doesn't even have anything to do with you. You're just caught in the middle.” I've heard this before, of course, but the guilt is buried so deep, I don't know if I'll ever truly believe that.

“Anyway, it doesn't matter. I just want to get this over with.” I don't mention the other thing I have to do when I'm there. I still haven't figured out how I'm going to get away from the security guards. I definitely can't take them with me, not for something as delicate as this. I have to go confront this secret before Stephen uses it to confront me. You can't get burnt if you're already standing in the flames.

“Well, I'm here if you need help through this, if you need me.” I smile softly and look back up at her, holding my breath like I did last night. It helps me stay in control of myself. If I can pause my breathing, slow my heartbeat, why can't I put a pause on this? I'm coiled tight, though. If it breaks, I pity the person who has to watch it unwind. I don't want to put Sydney through that. Just because we're physically attracted to one another doesn't mean she wants me to pour my heart and soul into her. “I'm a pretty good listener, believe it or not. The girls at the club
always
needed someone to talk to. I never wanted to talk about a damn thing going on in my life, so I became that person. At first, I thought they were all crazy. Who the hell was I to them? I couldn't help with their problems; I could barely handle mine. But eventually, you realize, it's the listening part that's all that matters. Sometimes, you just need somebody to hear you. It's that simple. Once it's out there, it's not all on your shoulders anymore. You can split the burden.”

“If only everybody lived by your principles, Sydney,” I say and she grins at me, uncrossing her legs and recrossing them on the opposite side. I do
not
stare at her nylons. I hate to say it, but I think I have a fetish or something. Sydney's tall black heels and her tights are drawing more of my attention than her breasts.
Not that I should be looking at all. Goddamn it.
I pull out my new phone and check for messages. Nothing. My dad assumes I'll show up, and he's right. Why should he check in on me? I've always done what he's asked me to. Hasn't made any difference in how he feels about me though.

“It's never too late to start,” she says, sitting up a little straighter and grabbing a glance out the front window. The sky is starting to brighten, ushering in a new day. In no time at all, I'll be standing on the gray porch that wraps my father's house, shaking hands with him and hoping my grip's firm enough this time. It's never been good enough before. “You know, I meant to say that I really enjoyed your drumming yesterday. I've listened to some Amatory Riot songs before, but I never took the time to really listen to the drums. You make me want to take up the art.”