Page 102 of Jesse

“I read enough to know what they mean.”

He smiles at me. “It wasn’t personal.” Then he frowns. “I want you to know… I did my best, Jesse.”

I’m suddenly tired of this. All of it.

Tired of being me. Tired of being part of this family. Tired of… him.

I haven’t actually seen or talked to my oldest brother in years. If I’ve ever been in this room, it was so long ago, I can’t remember when that was.

“You know who did all this?” he asks, pointing his glass at the windows so fast, whiskey sloshes over the side.

“You,” I guess.

He nods. “Me.”

“Well… what should I say about that?”

He turns towards me and for a second I think he’s gonna fight me the way he did Joey. But he doesn’t. He walks over to a door—a door my floor doesn’t have—and opens it up. “Come on. What I really want to show you is upstairs.”

Upstairs. In the penthouse.

“I asked Joey to come but he’s…” Johnny shrugs, trying to think of the right word to describe what my middle brother is, then decides on, “Not being cooperative.” He stares at me for a moment. “But you. You won’t be able to help yourself. You never did have his control.”

I actually laugh at that.

But Johnny doesn’t care. And he doesn’t wait for me either. Just disappears inside.

I want to go back to Emma. Forget about all of this. But he’s right.

I never did have Joey’s self-control.

So I follow him. There’s no way I’m not going to follow him. I haven’t been up in the penthouse since my uncle died thirteen years ago. That’s when my father went insane and made all the living arrangement changes. Put us all on separate floors. Compartmentalized us. Why?

I’ve thought about that a lot over the years. Why did he want us all separate?

There was only one explanation that ever made sense.

So when the day came… when the people came… they couldn’t get all of us at once.

And they’d get me first.

Did I believe it?

Maybe not back then when Zach and I first came up with the idea.

But I do now.

The penthouse was my father’s office before he died. We never lived up here. We never came up to the very top of the building more than a handful of times.

But I’ve never been up there through this door. So I have no idea where this will take us.

Emma is right. Living in a building like this is not normal.

Nothing about the Boston family is normal.

Johnny is already throwing open the door at the top of the stairs when I start climbing after him. Neither of these doors have codes to enter. So whatever this is, it was never a secret from Johnny.

Part of me feels sorry for him.