Vows in Name Only
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Naima Simone
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HarlequinOne
“What the hell are you talking about?” Cain Farrell snarled, surging from his chair in his father’s library.
His dead father’s library.
Barron Farrell had to be dead for Cain to step foot in the mausoleum where he’d suffered a hellish childhood. As soon as he’d graduated from college at twenty-one, he’d left and never returned for a birthday, a Christmas, an Easter or even a potluck dinner. It was bad enough he’d spent twelve-hour workdays with his father at the offices of Farrell International, the conglomerate that had been in his family for four generations. But he’d vowed eleven years ago to never again grace the hallowed halls and marble floors of his father’s historic Beacon Hill mansion.
It figured the old man would do something as contrary as having a heart attack and dying just to get Cain to break his promise.
He’d always been a manipulative bastard.
Speaking of bastards...
Cain stalked across the gleaming hardwood floor, ignoring the dark leather furniture gathered around a cavernous fireplace, the winding staircase leading to the next level, the floor-to-cathedral ceiling shelves packed with first editions of the classics his father had never bothered to read. If Cain looked too long, the memories always lurking at the edges of his mind would seize the opportunity to slither in and torment him. To inflict punishments like the ones he’d received in front of the very desk behind which Daryl Holleran, his father’s personal attorney, perched.
God, Cain hated this room. This whole goddamn house.
Fury bristled inside him. He drew to a halt in front of a large bay window, but the view of the private walled garden didn’t consume his attention. No, the other two men sitting silently in the room claimed that distinction.
Two strangers he’d never laid eyes on before this afternoon. Two strangers whose presence had been requested at the reading of Barron’s will.
Two strangers who, according to Daryl, were Cain’s brothers.
Half brothers.
“Cain,” Daryl said, his smooth baritone placating, as if he hadn’t just announced that the multibillion-dollar company Cain had been groomed to run was no longer his. “I know this is surprising—”
Cain snorted, pivoting and jabbing his tightly balled fists into the pockets of his black suit pants. “Surprising? No, surprising is Big Papi coming out of retirement and returning to the Sox. Surprising is finally discovering the location of Jimmy Hoffa’s body. Surprising is the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse riding down Commonwealth. This, Daryl, is bullshit,” he snapped.
To his credit, the older man didn’t flinch at Cain’s caustic tone. But then again, Daryl had been Barron Farrell’s lawyer for the past thirty years. The man probably had skin as thick as an elephant’s ass.
“Be that as it may,” Daryl said, picking up the small stack of papers from the desk, “it was your father’s decision, and Barron was adamant and very clear about the terms. Controlling shares in Farrell International are to go to his living heirs. But only if you and your brothers agree to remain in Boston and run the company together for the period of a year, starting from the date this will is read. At the end of the year, you can decide to helm it together, or Cain, you can buy out your brothers’ shares and Farrell International is yours. If any of you refuse to adhere to these conditions, then the company and all its subsidiaries will be liquidated and sold to the highest bidders.”
It didn’t make any more sense the second time around.
“There’s one more stipulation,” Daryl added.
“Of course there is,” Cain growled.
“It concerns you, Cain.” Daryl paused, and for the first time, Cain glimpsed uneasiness flash in the older man’s brown eyes. Which set off an almost painful tightening of his stomach. If this unflappable man was discomfited, that spelled trouble for Cain. “You must spend the next year here. In this house.”
Cain didn’t move—couldn’t. Because if he even dragged in a breath, he would explode, and the fury that howled inside him would consume this room and the people in it. Barron hadn’t been satisfied with hijacking Cain’s future. No, he had to manipulate his son into his own personal nightmare.
That son of a bitch.
“So just because the asshole who knocked up my mother demands it, I’m supposed to give up my life in Washington and move here?” The bearded giant in the black thermal shirt, faded jeans and battered brown boots who Daryl had called Achilles shook his head. “She might have given me his last name, but that’s all I got from him. I don’t owe him a damn thing.”
Or you.
Achilles didn’t say the words aloud, but they quivered in the air, and Cain ground his teeth together. Of course, the possible dismantlement of the business Cain had worked on for most of his life wouldn’t affect this man. Losing the business for which he had endured the intolerant, merciless Barron, the business Cain had dreamed of one day heading...that wouldn’t concern this man either.
He hadn’t suffered for it.
Hadn’t sacrificed for it.
But Cain had.
It was his legacy. His due for surviving and outliving Barron Farrell.
And yet, Barron had found a way to rip it all out from under him.
“I have to admit, when I received the phone call to attend this mysterious gathering, I wasn’t expecting a family reunion,” the second man, Kenan Rhodes, drawled, eyebrows arched over the distinctive blue-gray eyes they all shared. Farrell eyes. “But I have to agree with Achilles, is it?” At the giant’s nod, Kenan shrugged a suit jacket–covered shoulder. “I have a position with my family’s business. A good one. And leaving it would be like turning my back on them. What would be my incentive to do that? I didn’t know Barron Farrell personally, but I am aware of his reputation. And no offense, but I have no reason to give him my loyalty.”
Cain stared at the two strangers, and though the will had announced them as brothers, he felt no pull toward them. No familial connection. Hell, except for the eyes, none of them would be mistaken for family.
Kenan, with his light brown skin, close-cropped dark hair and neat goatee, was biracial. Though they all shared tall, muscular frames, Cain and Kenan were wide-shouldered and lean, while Achilles boasted a broad, powerful build that wouldn’t be out of place on a football defensive line. Add in the shoulder-length, nearly black, curly hair, beard and tawny skin and he rounded out the most diverse family tree since Brad and Angelina’s children.
Still... That Cain’s father had cheated on his mother didn’t shock him. His infidelity hadn’t been a secret in their house. What astonished him was that Barron had fathered not one, but two illegitimate children. Barron might not have cared where he stuck his dick but the thought that he would leave the fate of his company to the whims of men he hadn’t known? Cain couldn’t line that up with the controlling bastard his father had been.
But then, apparently Barron had been aware of his sons all the time. And he hadn’t bothered to acknowledge their existence until it benefited him. Until he could shift and maneuver all three of them like pawns on a chessboard.
Now that coincided with the Barron Farrell Cain knew.
“I don’t expect your loyalty, and I’m not asking for it,” Cain stated. His flat tone belied the anger and yes, fear, roiling in his veins. “Both of you are right—you have your lives. But today, mine just changed forever. Not only did I find out I have two brothers I never knew existed, but everything I’ve—” suffered for “—worked for is suddenly not in my control but in the hands of strangers who, as you put it, don’t owe me a damn thing. Yes, you can walk away, and nothing changes for you. For me, though? Everything changes. I don’t have the option of walking away.”
Panic welled up in him. “I don’t have—”
A legacy. Control. Power. A voice.
His teeth snapped shut, grinding together, trapping those betraying words inside him. Trapping the plea that would inevitably follow.
Had his father resented him this much—hated him this much—that even from the grave he relished the thought of Cain humiliating himself to beg these strangers to help him? To save him?
Yes. Yes, he had.
The swift and concise answer rebounded against Cain’s skull and everything he’d ever felt for his father—rage, grief, confusion, bitterness and God help him, love—swirled in his chest like a tornado.
“Fuck this,” he growled, stalking across the room and wrenching the heavy library door open to storm out. Air. He needed air that wasn’t tainted by his desperation and helplessness. By his weakness.
Almost immediately the incongruous sounds of gaiety slapped him as he stepped into the hallway. Right. The reception. How screwed up was it that the circus in the library had temporarily made him forget that over a hundred people congregated in the great room and formal dining room to mourn his father? He snorted. Mourn, hell. From the loud chatter, bright laughter and clink of glassware, he couldn’t tell if they were all there to celebrate his life—or his death.
Exhaling, Cain pivoted sharply and strode toward the rear of the house, in the opposite direction of his “guests.” In his current mood, he wasn’t good company and he damn sure didn’t feel like fielding condolences.
At least Barron was in a better place.
If one could call hell a better place.
