Vacant (Empathy #3) (3 page)

He has inheritance from his mother’s side and works more hours at his accounting firm than he spends here at his huge fucking house. He never knew our father; he was told the man his mother married was his dad. I’m one step away from using my whiskey tumbler to cut his throat and put him out of his misery but he sighs and starts opening up for the first time since I arrived.

He’s lonely, that much is clear. He invited me inside and asked me to stay when I first arrived claiming to be his brother. It’s the truth, hard as it is to believe. I’m his half-brother but he doesn’t know for sure, yet he didn’t ask for evidence. That leads me to believe he must have always known who his father is, but in actual fact he’s that lonely. He was willing to take me in, real brother or not. How pathetic and desperate do you have to be to invite me in to stay without any details of who I really am? Some people deserve my torment; they invite the devil into their lives and bring upon themselves debauchery. At least Blake has some balls; this fool is an embarrassment.

I swill the whiskey in my glass and wait for him to speak; his mouth keeps opening and closing, making it clear he’s trying to decide whether he should speak what’s on his mind.

“You know, whiskey in Gaelic translates as ‘water of life.’ Uisge beatha,” I murmur.

His laugh draws my attention from the amber liquid. “That makes sense. It really is the water of mine.”

Blood’s mine.
I grin to myself and debate whether I should spill some of his tonight. I already want this trip over with. I’m bored and my thoughts keep drifting to Cereus. She’s living a normal life, going to college, pouring herself into art. I miss her though, and the selfish ruling part of me is finding it difficult to stay away. I battle with my own mind every day with the choice to stay away and let her have a normal life. She isn’t normal, she’s mine and I want to claim her back. She’s meant to live in my world, give it color and chase the shadows with me. She knows the real me, learned all the details of every desire I’ve indulged in and yet she still yearns to have me in her life. I occupy her thoughts; she brought me to life in her art. I’ve never not obeyed my inner urges before and fighting to stay away from her is taking more focus than I have. I need something or someone to play with to take the edge off, and to stop me going to her and ripping her from the world she’s living in.

The moon is full in the sky tonight and every time it catches my eye through the open blind at the window, I imagine Cereus, blossoming under its glow.

I FIDGET IN MY SEAT like a preschooler. If his mouth doesn’t open and speak . . .

“You ever thought about killing someone?”

I almost drop my drink at Joseph’s question.

We’ve just finished dinner and Margaret, his wife, mocked his manhood and decided to play footsie with me under the table during the second course. She’s vile; I think I’ll take my time when killing her.

Joseph and I left the room before she returned with the dessert. We sit in his study and I accept his offering of a re-fill, and sit forward to give him my full attention. “That’s a loaded question.”

He sighs, placing the decanter filled with whiskey back on the mantle.

“Some nights I hold a pillow over her head and just want to push it down and end this misery,” he says.

Heat warms my veins from his confession. Huh, life has a way of fucking us all over. Even the tamer man holds a devil inside him, whispering and praying life will push the saint into a sinner. This Joseph I can work with.

“The amount she drinks while taking sleeping pills, she may do the job for you, or at least people would think that.” I smirk. His eyes shoot up to meet mine. I cock a brow and he quickly looks away with a nervous laugh. “You could divorce her,” I say.

His loud exhale mutes the crackling of the fire. Sweat streams from my every pore and I’m cold-blooded; this fool feels the cold like an old man on his deathbed and keeps cranking the fire up.

“She would take it all, she’s a conniving bitch. I can’t risk it.”

“Well then, it’s back to hoping she pops an extra pill with her bottle of wine.”

I feel his eyes on me, assessing whether I’m joking or not but I’m a master at masking my features. If Blake hadn’t deciphered what I was really thinking over the years, this idiot won’t come close.

“I really thought she was the one when I married her. She put on a great freaking show but as soon as that ring was on her finger . . .” He slams his glass down and refills it to the brim. “I hate her. I know she’s fucking the gardener. The gardener! He’s half her age.”

I stay silent, enjoying the show of him splintering, the rage taking over. Hmm, how I love the rage.

“There’s this woman at work . . . Sarah.” He looks over at me. “Gorgeous, bright and she likes me, she really likes me, and damn it I’m into her but I’m stuck in this marriage with a woman I don’t even recognize anymore.” He chugs the whiskey like it’s water and throws himself back in his chair. So, big brother has a thing for another woman. Perfect.

“How come you never married?” he asks, genuine intrigue in his eyes as they scan my finger then my face.

I roll my head around my shoulders before answering. Cereus is private. I like to think about her in the privacy of my own mind when a drunken fool isn’t assessing my answers.

“I’ve only ever connected with one woman and it’s on a level that surpasses stupid traditions and feelings.”

His eyes widen. “Who is she?”

“She’s the other part of me. Unique and exceptional.” I summon images of her to the forefront of my mind despite him watching me.

“Pretty?” he asks, leaning over the arm of the chair, completely engrossed.

“She’s stunning in looks and mind.”

“You’re really in love with her, huh?”

The usual turbulence washes through me when I think about what I feel for her. We are bound by something other than family blood, attraction, or normal love. She made me something other than the monster and as much as I hate to admit it, I like that she gave me something other than the craving for death, torment and blood. Don’t get me wrong, I’m content with who I am and it’s euphoria to feed my compulsions but when I wash away the blood and come down from a kill I’m still alone in my darkness, and it’s a lonely place to be. I’m the ultimate sinner and she didn’t try to cleanse me, fix me or lock me away, she just loved the sinner in me. She loved
me.

Joseph’s still giving me a knowing smile and it irritates me that he thinks he knows what he’s talking about.

“She’s my niece,” I say, and watch his brows crash together and then his eyes widen, his lids blinking rapidly. I lean towards him again, this time my tone darkening and ending on a growl. “Don’t limit what we have to the perversion running wild in your mind, Joseph. What we have isn’t driven by pesky sexual desires. You can’t comprehend what it is we feel for each other because you’re nothing like us.”

“You like to dwell in the obscene, huh?” he asks, getting brave from his intoxication.

“I’m not fucking my niece, Joseph. You should really question your own morals to even think such things.”

I don’t give a shit about morals and if Cereus wanted me in that way—sex is just a release for some people—I’d give her anything she needed but him bringing down our relationship to something so weak and human is infuriating. I’ll be visiting this Sarah of his now to teach him a lesson.

He quickly shakes his head. “No, I didn’t think that,” he stutters. The fucking liar. Like what he thinks matters. He is insignificant, a soon-to-be smudge on the carpet if he isn’t careful. He is what’s wrong with the world. Too many people like him and not enough like me. Sex is like water and food, something everyone needs to function so why make such rules and taboos about it? I’ve never thought about taking her body but even if we did fuck it wouldn’t make any difference to who we are. We’re soul mates, our bloodlines matching only makes my obsession with her more intense. She’s mine and I don’t care about anything else.

Silence falls between us and it’s not long before he’s leaving the room, calling out a goodnight.

I IGNORE THE WHORE IN her slutty nightgown, if you can call it that. A silk vest might be a better description. That thing should never be worn by someone over twenty unless they’re a model or fitness freak, which she is not. She’s standing at the stove flipping eggs. When I woke this morning this was not the breakfast I had in mind.