5. A Gathering Storm

CHAPTER 5

A Gathering Storm

Everett

Just a few nights ago, the air around me had been so filled with the blasting, deafening music that Roman's shouting into my ear resembled someone's distant whispers. Tonight, in the luxurious dining room of my family's Manhattan penthouse, where sacred icons and family heirlooms adorned all the empty surfaces and walls, the scrape of my knife against the fine porcelain plate screeched loudly enough to make all three of us stiffen.

"Excuse me," I murmured, cutting the honeyed duck more carefully. Even chewing seemed to produce an echo that bounced against the walls and ceiling.

Father poured himself a shot of whiskey and offered it to me. Although I shook my head immediately, Mother glared at us both like I'd downed the entire bottle and did a little dance on the table.

"He's old enough, Lavinia," Father grumbled.

"That may be, but is he wise enough not to succumb to the sin of gluttony?" Mother's tone implied I had already sinned.

If only you knew , I thought. My appetite may not have been related to food and drinks, but I was growing more and more ravenous for heated, sweaty bodies, smashing and colliding in a mass of dancing sinners, my hand brushing accidentally against a muscled arm or a firm abdomen. I would devour him if I could.

If I could get over this guilt.

"What gluttony, Lavinia? Look at the boy. In a healthy body, there is a healthy spirit." Father had finished eating. He enjoyed his whiskey and opened his tablet on the table. With mild frustration, he removed his plate to the side, looking around for Mary, who was still on the clock. I assumed she was cleaning the kitchen after preparing all this food.

Mother said nothing for a while. She ate slowly, chewing each bite mindfully and washing it down occasionally with water. Then, as I neared the end of my meal, without looking at either of us in particular, she spoke. "I saw Barbara from my book club this morning." The high pitch carried a note of foreboding that only I heard. I had been roped into this conversation far too many times.

"Oh?" Father was focused on his tablet, listening with only one ear.

"Joe Bob is recovering from back surgery," Mother continued idly. "Joseph took over the management of their holdings. Barbara said they couldn't be more proud of him."

My teeth clenched. If I had to trace back through my life, the earliest time I could remember being compared to Joseph Burton was in a kindergarten recital. Mother had melted over Joseph's opening hymn. "Voice of an angel," she had kept saying for six months. She had never acknowledged my part in the recital after the first night's "It is done," which had forever removed any and all desire in me to appear on a stage again.

"Barbara says Joseph is seeing a girl from his church group," Mother said as if reporting on something totally unimportant. The thing about Lavinia Langley was that nothing was ever unimportant if she took the time to speak. It was the precious time that could be better spent in self-reflection and prayer. "You went to that church group, Everett. You must know her."

"Um, maybe. That was a long time ago. What's her name?" I instinctively reached for my water.

"Anita Blakely. I'm sure you've met her. Such a fine, sweet girl," Mother pressed on. "Barbara showed me a photo of her with Joseph. Such a handsome couple." That pitiful tone of voice irked me. "Have you given it any more thought?"

"Huh?" I thought I'd missed something in my momentary anger.

"The church group, Everett," Mother clarified with growing impatience.

I looked at Father, but he was absorbed in a memo on his screen. It was from that Jacobs fellow, like all the memos of the past week. It was that Urban Planning business I had a profound lack of interest in, which Mother had pointed out several times. You could join your father and learn the art of negotiation , she had said on a few occasions. Yet whatever grand new development project they were working on would be the same as all the projects they had developed in the past. A big, expensive hotel or some office spaces near the Hudson. I could almost see Roman lying on the street in front of it when businessmen gathered in the lobby.

"Everett?" Mother was close to snapping.

"Oh, I mean, yeah, I'm just not sure I have time for that," I muttered into my glass.

"Speak clearly," Mother said tersely.

I sighed and looked at her. "I'm a little busy for joining a church group right now."

"Are you looking for work?" Mother asked. It was her way of picking up a pinch of salt and rubbing it right into the open sore on her Ivy League graduate of a son. The unemployed Ivy League graduate.

"Yeah," I lied. It wasn't common for me to lie, and it never failed to heat up my face. In my whole life, there was only ever one thing I lied about. I was so good at lying about it that I had nearly convinced myself.

"Very well," Mother said. "It's well past time for you to choose an internship."

I held my breath and gripped my glass hard in my hand, not letting any other muscles react. "Yes," I said.

"I always thought you might join your father's company. You would have a good start, Everett, but you cannot expect to be treated like you are placed above everyone else. People have worked for your father their entire adult lives. If you would join him, you would have to learn, but you would learn from the experts." Mother chatted for a time, drafting the exact plan of action for when I inevitably conceded and joined Father's company. Even though I knew I was running out of time, I didn't see a bright future hanging around Dad's office all day long. "…remember, at all times, that we are all Children of God. Do you pray? Everett? Oh, Lord, give me patience."

"Hm? Oh. Yeah, yes. I pray, Mother." This wasn't a lie, exactly. I had prayed for a long time to be cured of my affliction. When that went nowhere, I continued to pray out of habit and for nothing in particular. At times, it felt like I was speaking into a void, but it was not as simple as that. Even though I was nearly certain the void was completely empty, I prayed in that hypocritical way of ancient pagans who converted to Christianity just in case the church was right about the afterlife. I prayed as a backup, even as I found myself stepping further and further from Him.

"Good. Work is important, but your relationship with God is paramount. These are dangerous times we live in. Isn't that so, Harold? It has never been easier to stray from His path. Temptations lurk in every shadow, behind every corner, and we must fortify ourselves with prayers and His name in our hearts." She droned on for a time longer, but my heartbeat drowned the sound of her voice.

When had it all become so messed up? There was a time—I was almost certain of it—when we had been a normal family. Mother had always been a devout Catholic, but it hadn't dominated her life like this. Father had been busy with work, but he had always had time for his family over dinner. And I…

I had been too young to be attracted to anyone. But looking back, I could almost point out the times that had so clearly informed me I would be the way I was. The fiery jealousy of Joseph Burton receiving my mother's fondness and attention morphed into vicious hatred with just a touch of possessiveness. Or the daydreams of a fast and budding friendship with Felix from elementary school, who was the second tallest and the fastest in our class and who had a mischievous smile I always wanted to look at. But I had been too young for any of that to bother me.

My father distanced himself from his family due to work. He still whispered some defense of my character in Mother's hardest attacks, and for that, I was grateful. But Mother and I had gone down different paths, each taking a step further, each pushing the other to entrench themselves deeper. And here we were, having dinner, not enjoying a single bite of it. Here we were: a son who was destined to be a disappointment and an outcast, a mother who couldn't stand her child, and a father who didn't notice much of anything.

Once my mother's words stopped coming, she only added that I should read the Bible tonight. In her sermon, she had spooked herself about all the dangers of the modern world, and she feared that darkness would tempt me to my downfall.

But you don't have a clue how far I have fallen , I thought grimly as I promised to read verses before sleeping. And even though I took the Bible into my hands once I was in my room, my attention slid off it and returned to someone I couldn't get out of my head.

The existential dread he had shared with me had haunted me since that night, but I didn't mind. It was better than the dread of spending an eternity in Hell. The dread Roman had given me was something we could act on. He acted on it. He went out to make a difference. And Hell? I doubted I could do anything to change the one-way ticket I had booked. And if I could, I was pretty damn sure I didn't want to. Not if it meant I could never be myself again.

Roman

I worked a morning at Neon Nights shift on Friday and stayed there afterward. Mama Viv had been gone all day, performing at a charity competition in Central Park. Tristan and Cedric attended the competition and swung by Neon Nights to share a bottle of champagne because Mama Viv had crushed it and won first place. In doing so, her charity won a ten-thousand-dollar donation from the sponsors of the event.

"Your Highnesses," I greeted them from the bar, and they joined me.

Tristan took the barstool in the middle, and Cedric sat to his left. "Hush, Rome," Tristan said, raising an eyebrow at me.

I glanced around. "There's nobody here." I looked at Bradley behind the bar.

Bradley shrugged. "I already know."

"Why is it a secret, anyway?" I asked.

Tristan and Cedric exchanged a look. My best friend decided to explain it. "Would you want a crowd of paparazzi in here?"

"My family is not so well-known in America," Cedric elaborated with much more patience. "But that could change if a foreign royal was interesting enough."

"And hanging out in a run-down gay bar would be interesting enough," Tristan said.

I didn't completely understand it. "How is that a bad thing?"

"I don't want to be infamous," Tristan muttered.

There was an agreement of sorts. Cedric was allowed to half-ass his royal duties from New York in order to be with Tristan, but he needed to keep the fragile image of royal decorum intact for the time being.

Cedric's older brother, Alexander Louis Valois Montclair, who was as much of an eye candy as the rebel prince here, hated the arrangement. He had initially wanted Cedric to marry a French marchioness. Cedric ran away from the arranged engagement, leaving the marchioness free to fall in love with Cedric's younger brother, Maximilian. The two announced their engagement just a few weeks ago, helping the standing of the royal family in the eyes of the public.

"Bread and games" was the old motto.

Verdumont was heading into a heated election, Cedric explained. There was a coalition of parties calling for the abolition of the monarchy and the severing of the country from its traditions. To a degree, I understood the want to leave the past in the past. We all understood it. Even so, the parties inclined to support the monarchy in Verdumont argued that having a monarch as the figurehead made the prime ministers behave better. Something about the concentration of perceived power in a single individual resulted in the political leaders in Western monarchies acting with less opulence.

Even so, Cedric lived in a sweet penthouse a block away from us and visited the bar daily, if for no other reason than to see Tristan.

"I get it," I said. "I think I get it."

Tristan sighed. "It's beyond my pay grade."

That made Cedric laugh. "In short, I'm to be as quiet as a little mouse until after the election."

"No stripping on the stage, then," I concluded.

"Absolutely not," Cedric said.

Tristan, his eyes turning a little glassy with the idea, added, "But only until the election."

"I am available for private shows," Cedric purred near Tristan's head.

"And I am ending this conversation," I declared.

Mama Viv walked in a moment later and was met with a few cheers of congratulations. The bar was fairly empty, although that would change in just a few hours.

"Ten grand, huh?" I asked after kissing Mama Viv. She wore her biggest purple wig and a similarly dyed dress. Her heels added four inches to her height, and her makeup made me think of long summer nights on some exotic island. "And what did you get?"

"Oh, darling, I got the finest Elderflower Whisper in the waiting lounge," Mama Viv said with the tone of someone who couldn't be more grateful. "We must learn how to make it. I want it on the menu for the next cocktail hour."

"You were majestic today," Cedric said.

Mama Viv hugged him. "Thank you, darling. I'm so glad you were there." Mama Viv sat on a barstool with us, opened a nightshade fan, and cooled her face with quick, practiced motions. "How are we prepared for tonight, Bradley?"

"I'm on top of it, Mama Viv," Bradley said. "Just waiting for Zain to bring some extra garnish so we don't run out."

"What do you think kept him so long?" I wondered aloud.

"Work," Bradley said simply. "I think they're in high demand right now because of the holiday."

"What holiday?" Tristan asked.

"I think it's the Prophet's birthday," Bradley said, his face apologetic for not offering anything more. "Anyway, I've seen Zain delivering groceries everywhere on top of his family helping the poor. It's part of the tradition. In the worst case, someone will have to pop over there and bring what I need."

"I can do that," Tristan offered predictably.

We chatted about this and that for a while longer. Then I remembered a delivery from the morning shift. "Oh, Mama Viv, there's some mail for you under the bar."

Her confusion matched what I had felt this morning when a courier delivered the envelope. Bills came through electronically here, and the only mail Mama Viv received were holiday postcards from former patrons who moved away.

Bradley found the envelope under the bar and examined it. "This looks official."

Mama Viv took it, her hand trembling only slightly. She tore it open and pulled out a quality stock paper it contained.

I watched as Mama Viv's gaze darted across the paper, her expression morphing from confused to enraged to frightened. "Impossible. This is impossible." Her voice dropped by an octave. "They can't do this. This is outrageous."

An air of urgency settled around us. We all leaned toward Mama Viv, who stood and paced, reading the letter again. It was clear that anxiety and anger wouldn't let her sit still, but her pacing did little to calm her. "What is it?" I demanded.

"This cannot be happening," Mama Viv said.

"What? What can't be happening?" I asked, my chest tightening with worry.

Huffing, Mama Viv held the letter in both trembling hands. "Can they do this?" The plea in her voice was heartbreaking, her eyes welling with frightened tears. She looked around helplessly at her bar. With her lips curving down in a devastating expression of loss and defeat, Mama Viv let the letter fall from her hands. "Excuse me," she whispered, turning away and all but running into the back, where a hallway and a staircase led to her apartment above.

I was the first to leap at the letter.

And hot rage blinded me.