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Because my grandfather favored me for a reason. He chose me over my father, over Theron even before he knew Theron wasn’t blood. It wasn’t because I was the firstborn. It was because he saw something in me he liked. He saw himself. His sharpness of mind. His disciplined nature. His need for balance between right and wrong, justice and consequence.
And he saw his own rage.
I would carry the family after his death. It had been decreed from when I was only sixteen. My father had accepted it. He’d had no choice once my grandfather learned the truth about Theron’s true paternity. Ironically, it was my father who had given him that piece of information. I still don’t understand why he did that. Was he so afraid of my grandfather? Was he so controlled by him that he would deliver his wife to the old man? That he would ensure the destruction of Theron’s future? Or did he do it to punish my mother for humiliating him with her affair?
The music reaches its crescendo as I finish the bottle. I get to my feet and I hurl the decanter against the far wall. The sound of expensive crystal smashing is momentarily satisfying. It feels good. Violence feels good. It always has if I’m honest with myself.
I stalk toward that wall, glass crunching under my shoes as I tear the racks that hang there down. The music drowns out my thoughts while I rip the room apart, instruments of torture, some for show, some for use. I don’t discriminate. I destroy them all, tearing down shelves, turning over benches, ripping leather from wood.
His books I tear in two before feeding them to the fire. I open the cigar box. Still half a dozen in here. I pick one up, smell it. Nothing quite takes me to that dark time as this smell. It still lingers in my study too. I should tear the walls down. Throw away anything the stench clings to no matter its value. I should bury any memory of him, including his portrait, and maybe with it I can bury this side of myself.
But as I look around the room, at the destruction I caused, I know I can’t. I know that’s not a possibility.
I drop the box to the floor and open the cabinet where more bottles of scotch are lined up in a neat row. I take one, twist the cork and break the seal to drink from it, feeling the burn on its way down. I’m about to start on the second part of the room when I hear a noise. Barking. The dogs.
I turn to the door. And standing there in black leggings and my Barbour that’s entirely too big on her is Mercedes, her hair loose and soaked down her back. Her riding boots caked with mud. I wonder if she, too, walked. The dogs stop at her side as if she were their master and not I and they all watch me, the dogs curious, Mercedes something else as she takes in the state of things. The state of me.
“Kentucky Lightning came back without you.” She enters the room. “What the hell are you doing, Judge?”
I don’t know why I feel so caught out. Like she’s seeing some part of me she was never meant to see. A part that I’ve worked very hard to hide.
“You don’t answer your fucking phone and it’s pouring out so the dogs can’t pick up your scent. Your mother said you left over an hour ago in a rage. What did you do to her? She looked terrified. What the fuck is going on?”
Paolo comes running into the room stopping short when he sees me. “You were right,” he says to Mercedes.
“Take the dogs back,” Mercedes tells him without taking her eyes off me. “I’ll stay with him.”
Paolo looks unconvinced especially when his eyes dip to the bottle. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
She turns to Paolo. “I’m fine. Go.”
“No, he’s right, Mercedes. You need to go,” I say.
She makes a point of sweeping her gaze over the room. “I don’t think so. Unless you’re coming with me.”
“Paolo,” I say.
Paolo takes her arm but she shrugs it off. She turns to him. “Go. I’ll be fine.”
Paolo looks between us.
“I’ll be fine,” she repeats.
He gives me one last glance then nods, and leaves with the dogs. Mercedes closes the door. She goes to the CD player and turns the music off. The sudden silence is heavy, like a solid thing.
I watch as she strips off my coat and drops it on the leather chair. Grandfather would have had a fit.
She comes right up to me and takes the bottle from my hand. Never taking her eyes from me she drinks a long swallow.
“You should have gone with Paolo.”
“Why? Because you’re drunk?”
I reclaim the bottle and drink, then set it aside. “Go to the house. Now.”
She cocks her head to the side and steps closer. “No.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
