Page 124 of Falling Into Forever
He’s melancholy when he speaks. There’s so much he keeps locked away, but even with all his secrets, he’s quickly become a trusted friend.
“Thank you, Grady. Listen, all I was saying is, if I have to choose between Saylor and Trent, I’ll choose her every fucking time.”
Dark, maniacal laughter rings out from the front of my house.
“What was that?” Grady asks. He heard it and is on alert too. But I know that laugh.
Trent.
There’s some shuffling in the hallway, and then Trent enters my room and props himself up against the wall as the door silently swings beside him. I’ve never seen him so disheveled. His shirt is wrinkled like he’s slept in it for days, and the neatly trimmed scruff he prefers is an unkept mess. His jeans are no better, and he’s missing a shoe.
I scan his body from top to bottom and hate what I find. His eyes are listless and unseeing. And the worst part is, he’s leaning against the door because he can’t hold himself up.
“Dante?” Grady asks. I’d forgotten he was still on the phone.
I open my mouth to answer when the glint of metal has me clenching my jaw tight. Trent holds a gun haphazardly in his hand, and it’s pointed at the picture on the other side of my bed.
The shot rings out, but it doesn’t sound like you hear in the movies. It’s not a pop or a bang. It’s like someone crashing cymbals together over your ears in quick succession, and even when they stop, the sound lingers, disorients, and makes your eyes sting.
My ears ring, making it impossible to understand whatever Trent’s saying. I blink and shake my head, but nothing unmutes the world.
The phone is still in my hand. Take care of her. Protect her. Tell her I love her. It all mixes with the bell in my head, but I can’t bring myself to say it.
I don’t want to admit I’ll never hold her again, but the way Trent stares at me with disgust and rage, I resign myself to the situation my brother has put me in. It’ll take more than a miracle for me to walk out of here alive, but that doesn’t mean I’ll go down without a fight.
“Find her for me. Please.”
“Dante!” Grady’s voice almost pierces the haze in my head, but Trent’s lips are moving, and he makes a twirling motion with the gun in his hand. He’s telling me to hang up.
“Take care of her, Grady.”
I hang up, stare at my brother, and pray to the gods above for a miracle.
* * *
Time feelslike it’s moving backward. Grady will have called the police by now, so I try to keep Trent talking until they arrive. It’s harder than it should be with my ears still ringing, but it’s my only chance of survival.
“It was supposed to be you and me. That’s what you said.” Trent’s words bleed together, and the menacing void slowly consuming him into nothingness claws at my sense of duty. “But then she had to get in the way. Then that baby I didn’t want. Now, after all this time, you take back the whore who threw you away. You chose that slut over your own flesh and blood,” he roars. His temper ignites, and he loses his balance.
My fists flex at his derogatory remarks, but he isn’t making any sense. None of our issues had anything to do with Saylor until he brought her into it.
I watch warily, reasonably sure I could take him, but I won’t risk getting shot—not yet. Not when he’s so volatile.
“Everything would have been fine if you’d only listened to me. Now? Now we’re going to lose everything. Everything,” he cries. “And you don’t even care. You’re throwing away millions of dollars to spite me. You’re a coward.”
“I’m not the one who ruined things, Trent.” I keep my tone even, but my words are barbed with wire. “If you’d stayed clean, we would have had the world at our feet. But you couldn’t do it. Not for yourself, not for me, and not for a little girl who thinks you hung the sun.”
“She loves you more than me.” He’s back to being petulant, and that seems safer than volatile.
“I’m there for her, Trent. If you’d only show up, you’d see how much she loves you, but you don’t give her the chance.”
“Liar,” he seethes. “Lena loves you more. The media loves you more. Even my own kid loves you more. No wonder you’re the one that he kept.”
Our father has always been Trent’s bargaining chip. He’s used my guilt against me for the last time, though.
I don’t take the bait.
“How much do you owe this time, Trent?”
