Page 42 of The Heir
She fucking hated him. Hate was too small of a word to express how deeply my mother’s disdain and disgust ran where Easy was concerned. How an emotion could be that enthusiastic and not shared, was beyond me.
“You don’t have any hard feelings toward her?” I quietly asked.
Easy’s eyes tightened like I’d asked a question he didn’t understand, “That woman never wronged me, Blaze.”
“I mean– You said I was all you had left of my father… and she ran with me.”
He slowly shook his head, one side of his mouth tipping up in a smile. “Crystal and I are different. We’re two different souls with two different lived experiences. We are probably more alike than not, in principle. We both protect people. It’s in our bones. Wedon’t think, we just do it. We use different sides of the law to do it…” He shrugged.
“Is that all?” I had to force the words past a lump in my throat.
The youth-distorted memories I had of the mob war always left me second guessing half of what I thought I knew.
“What do you mean?” His brows flinched and he brought his beer up to sip.
“I don’t know. She just– Hates you so passionately. So– fuck.” I shook my head, not understanding it enough to describe it. “I just don’t know how one person comes to feel that way about someone and the other party wishes them well. It’s weird, but— Most of my childhood was.”
Easy killed his beer in one long haul. He licked his lip and stared at the floor a moment before he began to nod.
“Yeah. I never was her favorite person.” He grew so quiet I thought that was all he was going to say, but then his breath hitched, and his eyes lifted to a picture on the wall. I saw his lips slowly shifting, like he was searching for the right words.
“She loved my brother. I’m not talking about this sack-chasing shit you see nowadays with young bitches. That girl was his fucking soul mate.” He pinned me with his gaze and his eyes watered over.
He clenched his jaw and slowly relaxed it, “I married Trista, and she was taken, and I was dealing with that—”
He huffed and shook his head with a laugh, “No. I wasn’t dealing with it. I was reeling from it. Spiraling. I didn’t know how to protect her. I failed to protect her. The mob got her. I didn’t think she was coming home, and I was lost in the coke. And your dad died–”
The way he spoke gave me chills. Donnie was staring intently at him, probably as lost as I was. Did I stop him? Did I let him get it out? I was sorry I’d pushed him to tell me anything about that shit. He’d told me to not look back, and here we were, at my insistence.
“He wasn’t just a brother. He wasmyfucking brother.” Easy thumped his chest, and his eyes went wide and wild.
“Mine,” he whispered, in a way that sent chills down the back of my arms. “And when I lost him.”
He shook his head, and his eyes slowly focused on me, and his breath hitched.
“We lost him–” he amended, giving my shoulder another squeeze. “I should have been there for her and you, but my own pain–”
“You’re human, Easy.” My voice suddenly sounded like steel; it made him flinch and look at me in an odd way. “You had Aunt Daisy, your wife, the club. Every corner of our world was a dumpster fire, no one expected you to put them out alone.”
“He’s right.” Donnie agreed, holding his beer with both hands.
His knuckles were tightening and relaxing in a way that betrayed his anxiety.
“I know,” Easy admitted, “Oak was there when I couldn’t be. He looked out for ya’ll. He was a stand-up mother fucker. Always will be. I don’t blame her for going with the man who stepped up when–”
“When he needed to.” I finished for him, before he could label himself a failure again.
“Yeah.” He huffed and reached for another beer.
I swigged, not wanting the beer to get warm.
“If I ask a question, will you be honest with me?”
An engine dulled and was killed when it turned onto the driveway.
“Always, nephew,” Easy promised, glancing toward the rider that had dismounted and was starting toward us.
I couldn’t see him yet, but I asked, hoping to get it out before they were in ear range.