Unholy Union

I push the door open quietly. 

The foyer is dark, but two candles burn on the table beside the door, and I can see more of them in the living room. That prickling at the back of my neck intensifies when I hear the sound of liquid being poured. Apart from the crying, it’s that quiet.

“Good whiskey,” a man says. A man whose voice sends a chill along my spine. I know that voice. “You have good taste, Adam. I’m surprised.”

“Liam take your sister and go to your room,” Uncle Adam says. I hear the tension in his voice. 

“No, stay, Liam.” It’s the other man. 

“I’m not going anywhere until he leaves,” Liam says, sounding angry. 

The man chuckles.

A heavy silence follows, and Simona continues to quietly sob.

I close the door and steel my spine as I take the few steps that will carry me to the living room. To where this stranger whose voice I recognize is waiting for me. 

For me.

I don’t know how I know it, but I have no doubt I’m the reason he’s here. 

And when I turn the corner, the scene is unreal. Tension like nothing I’ve felt before.

Liam is sitting on the sofa his expression angry but just beneath that anger, I see uncertainty. Fear, maybe. He’s comforting Simona, my younger cousin, who has her face buried in his shoulder. 

He looks up at me, his jaw tight. 

My uncle is standing. He’s a large man, well over six feet and built powerfully, but just behind him stand two others. Strangers in dark suits, one with a scar running down the side of his neck. 

There’s one other man. The one whose voice I recognize. Whose eyes I still remember. And I have no doubt he’s the one to worry about. 

He’s sitting in my uncle’s favorite armchair. No one sits in that chair. 

This man, my monster of eight years ago, is the only one whose posture is relaxed. 

Leaning back against the worn leather back, he has one leg crossed over the other, right ankle at left knee. His charcoal suit is a shade darker than those of the other men and about a thousand times more expensive. I know good quality. I grew up with it. 

His face is softened by the glow of candlelight as he watches me with curiosity. I think how deceptive that light is because I know the hardness inside his strange silvery-gray eyes. 

And I remember that night eight years ago. I remember that he never answered my question. 

“Are you a monster?” I’d asked him. 

I hadn’t needed him to answer, though. 

I already knew he was.

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