Page 164 of Drown My Sorrow

I’m going to recommend he liquidate some of the estates he’s keeping. He doesn’t need fifteen of them. His family has also dabbled in commercial property and own some prime real estate.

The money is in several banks, some offshore. Luckily, whoever was the person handling the estate before kept immaculate records.

It’s just a lot.

And then this morning. All we could feel was her devastation, the quiet dying. She was withdrawing into herself, and there’s nothing I could think to say that would stop her, that would bring her back. I was helpless.

Her calling the Daane was a relief, no, her calling on us was a relief. Shale sits down beside me.

I turn my head and study him. “The things they say about her will leave scars. How we act will determine how deep.”

Shale just stares at me.

I shrug off the memories and turn away from him, watching the doctors wheel a man lying on a bed down the hallway.

“My brother died in front of me. Stabbing. He just stepped out into the guy’s way at the wrong time. Such a stupid mistake, but there it is. It happened. When the media finally found my parents, they blamed me. The media turned on me, then. They accused me of doing drugs, neglect, abuse, all the things that make everything worse. I loved Noah. He was mine. But my parents said it, and if they said there was smoke, there must have been a fire, right?”

I glance up, catching Shale’s eye.

“So, you ran.”

“Where else was there to go? I didn’t want to live in a world where my pain meant I was a monster. They poisoned my memory of him with hate. So I found an island, and I left it all behind.”

I puff my cheeks up and blow my breath out.

“And here we are,” I say bitterly. “Same foul world I left, and they have wasted no time reminding me why we would be happier on our island.”

Shale considers it carefully. “You don’t want to be here?”

“I don’t. I hate it, and I can feel myself unravelling. The anger and bitterness I left behind is returning. This place is terrible.”

“It’s too late to go back.”

I surge up out of my chair, pacing away from him. “Don’t you think I don’t know?” I hiss, angry at everything but him, but with nowhere to throw it but the alpha. “I realise we’re here to save her, to protect Kelly’s family’s legacy if we can, but I don’t have to like it. Maybe I’m allowed to have a meltdown. Maybe I can miss our lives. It was simple, but it was the life I chose.”

Shale stands up and snags my wrist and drags me down a couple of corridors and into a garden area. I pace around, my rage contained only by my skin, but it feels like it’s going to burst out of me.

“Gael.”

I growl at him. When he approaches, I fling out my hand.

“Stay away from me.”

He ignores me and steps into my space. I stiffen, uncomfortable and hating that his touch makes the rage fizzle.

“Are you ever going to truly let down those walls?”

“I did. I have.” Lies, all lies.

“No, you haven’t. You still are an island of one, otherwise, you wouldn’t find solace in a bottle. You’d go to your pack.”

I look away. “Of course, you know I’m drinking. Can’t do that. Everyone’s suffering.”

“It’s not your job to take care of everyone.”

“Then whose is it?”

“All of ours,” Aspyn says. “We all take care of each other.”

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