had done.
When he came out, he didn’t notice me right away, he was busy saying goodbye to a client, and I took that moment to study his form, seeing the things that I knew only I could see. I saw that underneath the smile he kept on his face, he was pretty much broken. Maybe as much as I was, even.
I could see the dark circles under his eyes that told of sleepless nights, could see his scraggy cheeks that told of a lost appetite. He just wasn’t well.
Good, I thought.
My heart simply couldn’t soften for him. It couldn’t. Any good memory I’d ever shared with him was long gone. Anything nice we’d given each other was simply lost. This wasn’t my brother. My brother had died long ago–in my eyes, that is.
“Marie!” His eyes landed on me and his tongue uttered my name in disbelief. I could see his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed thickly, his look betraying him and revealing how he was shocked and worried at the same time, though I could tell he didn’t want to show it.
“Hello Brother!” I said with a tight smile that was only there to tell him how much I was disgusted by his presence, and I knew he could easily understand it. “What? You thought you’d never see me again?”
“Uh…”
“Let’s go inside, you don’t want us to make a scene, now do you?” I said then I waved him inside. “After you.”
He paused for a moment, obviously not knowing if he should come inside or not, but finally realizing he couldn’t get away from it. The look in his eyes when he found out that Brad would be joining us was just priceless.
I sat down at the head of the table, having him sit on the opposite end, and then Brad put the file in front of him.
“What’s this?”
“Sign” was all I replied with.
He opened the file and his eyes widened. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” he said in shock. “You want me to sign my rights to the company over to you?”
“Exactly!”
“Absolutely not!” he said, jerking the file away from him.
“Brad!” I called, my eyes not leaving my brother, who was snarling at me while I smiled, as if my heart wasn’t breaking from the inside.
Like he had been told to do, in one second, Brad pulled his gun out of his jacket pocket and put it to Joseph’s head.
My eyes stung with the tears I wanted to shed at the sight of him all shocked, scared and frightened.
I’d made sure Brad understood very well that hurting Joseph wasn’t my intention, not at all, but I needed him to taste his own medicine. He deserved to experience some of what he’d put me through.
“Marie, what are you doing?” His voice had none of the venom it’d had in it when he spoke to me just a minute ago; his eyes were pleading and his hands were shaking slightly.
“Just like you did, Joseph,” I told him. “I’m forcing you into signing your approval of something I know you wouldn’t ever want.”
“You can’t be serious!” he said.
“Oh, I am, and you will sign, Joseph,” I said, getting up and going to stand only two steps away from where he was sitting. “You know why?” I asked, not waiting for his answer. “Because you’re afraid, you have a gun pointed to your head, and all you can think about right now is how, if you don’t please the one who has you at their mercy, your head will be blown off–and you don’t want that.”
“Marie, stop this! I did something wrong but it was the only thing I could do,” he swallowed. “You wouldn’t have ever agreed and I had to save Janna. I didn’t have time to convince you, and you wouldn’t ever be convinced. I knew you wouldn’t. It was the only option I had.”
I snorted, “Because you’re an idiot. She had a wonderful brother who would save her no matter what, a brother who you couldn’t be compared with no matter how much you tried.” Tears finally found their way out of my eyes. “Do you have any idea what you put me through?”
“I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry, I had no other choice,” he begged.
“You put me in that car again, Joseph,” my voice cracked, and my tears wet my cheeks even more. “I was all alone, trapped in one place while the whole world was in chaos around me. I knew no