CHAPTER 8
“She doesn’t want to see you anymore. Selena found out about your brother and father and she thinks you’re despicable. She wants you to leave and never come back.”
Rosie’s words still reverberated within Eric’s mind. The stab of pain he’d felt had been unbearable. He’d been afraid of what Selena would think if she ever discovered the truth about his past, but he hadn’t imagined she would despise him for it.
Who was he kidding? Until he’d met her he’d felt the same about himself. He was ashamed at having acted so cowardly and had only recently learned to forgive himself. He’d figured that if he’d met her that perhaps he really did deserve happiness, but he’d been wrong. Now he saw it as punishment, to let him meet his soul mate, then have her hate him.
Eric sat in silence as he stared at the floor. He’d walked for hours the day before, simply walking with no destination in mind. He’d somehow found himself in the Garden District, and let himself into a beautiful home on Saint Charles.
It was occupied, but he didn’t care. He simply couldn’t bring himself to be in the silence that came with the other world. He thought back to the last couple of years of his life and wished with all his might that he’d acted differently.
“Please, mon frère, I promise this will be the last time,” his brother had begged. Étienne had been his younger brother by two years, though most everyone thought they were twins. Few could tell them apart.
But looks were the only similarities they shared. Where Eric was a serious and responsible man, Étienne was frivolous and wild. On several occasions he’d spent all of his money in houses of ill repute, and then gambled in an attempt to make it back. Unfortunately for him he was terrible at all games. He’d then come to Eric, begging to be bailed out, afraid of what his father would do if he found out. And Eric had always done so.
This time, however, he’d caught Eric in a foul mood. Determined to teach his brother a lesson in growing up, Eric had refused him. It seemed that Étienne had understood, for he said nothing more for weeks. Eric assumed he’d figured out a way, or finally had been brave enough to speak with their father.
One day, while at home, three large men came to call. Both Eric and Étienne emerged from the study.
“We are here to settle your debt to Quinlan,” one said. All three rolled up their sleeves as he spoke. Eric’s heart immediately sped up as he realized these men planned to settle the debt in a non-monetary way. His body prepared itself for a fight even as his brain worked fast to find a solution.
“Please,” he spoke in a tone he hoped would calm the men’s tempers. “If you tell me how much he owes, I will have a draft written and we can settle the matter.”
“I’m afraid it’s too late for that.” The man took a step towards Étienne, who took a step back. Eric made to stand in front of his younger brother to protect him, but before he could move the other two were on him. Each one held one of his arms preventing him from interfering.
The lone man took out what looked like a baton and like a crazed man began to beat Étienne. His brother tried to fend off the blows, but the man was much larger than he, not to mention the fact that Étienne had never been a good fighter. Eric struggled against the men holding him, but they were both about twice his size.
He watched helplessly as his brother was beaten to a pulp. The lone man pulled out what seemed to be a large dagger and raised his arm over Étienne. Étienne lifted his arms in a defensive manner, and Eric’s scream of despair lodged in his throat.
As the man’s arm descended onto his brother, Eric received a sharp blow to his head that knocked him forward. His world tilted and turned black before his body hit the floor.
Eric awoke to screams. He felt hands lifting his head, feet shuffling about. When he opened his eyes, the scene before him reminded him of the gruesome events that had transpired.
“Where is Étienne?” his father demanded making Eric’s head throb with each word.
The room’s expensive rug he’d been lying on was stained with blood. His blood. A few feet away was another puddle, that one much larger than the one he’d created. A large dagger lay in the middle, also covered by blood.
He knew then what had happened. Étienne was dead, and it was all his fault. If only he’d paid the debt.
Eric fell into a deep depression that no amount of alcohol could ease. He blamed himself for his brother’s death, believing that no amount of money had been worth his life. His father constantly reminded him that he believed the same.
He’d been nudged awake by one of the men he was playing against in one of the more popular gambling houses. He was so inebriated he couldn’t make out the numbers on his cards. Deciding to cut his losses he folded and left.
It was three in the morning when he finally arrived home and he went into the study in need of more whiskey. He walked in and lit a lamp that was set on a massive oak desk in the middle of the room. Eric walked over to a small table that contained his favorite drink along with snifters. He poured himself a glass of the amber drink and turned back, and froze. There, in front of the desk on the expensive Aubusson rug lay his father’s body in a pool of his own blood.
Eric’s drink slipped out of his hand sending a spray of glass and liquid flying. He raced to his father’s side. “Matthias!” he yelled for his butler. The household staff had already retired for the night, so it took him a while to show up in the doorway, where he too froze.
Eric cradled his father’s head on his lap as he rocked him and cried for his loss. Matthias ran for help, but in truth they both knew there was nothing that could be done. Eric was now completely alone.
As the days passed the rumors began. People loved intrigue and gossip, and the fact that there had been two deaths in his family so close to one another seemed to fuel the suspicions. They couldn’t prove anything of course, but everyone seemed to believe he wanted to dispose of any threats to his inheritance.
Eric felt so alone and full of guilt that he wished with all his heart that it had been he who’d been killed. The belief that he was somehow responsible, or that he could have prevented their deaths threatened to suffocate him. If he’d only paid the men who were after his brother, if he’d only been home instead of at a game table when his father was murdered, he could have prevented their deaths.
He doubled his efforts to make himself numb to the pain. He spent all day and night in taverns now, picking a fight with whoever he could, praying that someone would take his life for him since he was too much of a coward to do it himself.
And one day he got exactly what he wanted. He was on his way home, walking through Pirates Alley, when he realized he was being followed. Unarmed, he stopped and mocked the assailants. “Come out of the shadows you filthy cowards!” he yelled. “You spineless pieces of merde, are you afraid I’ll send you home to your mother in pieces? Are you not real men?” he laughed. He knew damn well a child could take him in the condition he was in, he could hardly see straight.
He saw two shadows emerge from the dark, both carrying daggers so long they could well have been used as swords. He knew at that moment that their intention was not merely to divest him of his money, but of his life as well.
For a second he considered fighting for his life, but as they neared he realized he had no more fight left in him. Eric closed his eyes and opened his arms. The first man struck from behind, followed by the second from the front. He felt pain only at first, but as his life drained from him the pain ebbed.
Then men pulled back and he slumped to the ground. He knew they were watching him, even though he could no longer see. He felt their presence. As he took his last breaths he felt a calm wash over him. It was over. The pain he’d lived with for months now would finally end.
Or so he thought.
Eric awoke a while later. He was still in Pirates Alley, only now the scenery had changed. It was daylight and there was a crowd gathered. He walked over trying to see what had caused such a look of horror on the fac
es of the men and women standing around.
“Excuse me, sir, what has happened?” he asked an older man who stood at the edge of the circle, but the man ignored his question. Eric asked yet another person, this time a tiny woman who was a little further in, but she too ignored him.
Eric found it hard to believe someone could ignore him; his size alone could get attention. He decided to see for himself. He pushed himself in until he reached the site that had everyone so enthralled.
The authority was already clearing out the people in the area, but the site itself had yet to be cleaned. There was a pool of blood in the center of the alley so large it was obvious that whomever it came from did not survive. But the body was nowhere to be seen.
It didn’t matter. Eric knew who it had been. Him. The memories of the night before flooded him and he almost heaved as bile rose to his throat. Only it wasn’t really happening, he realized, since he had no body. He was an apparition.
He lost track of how much time passed, but he stood there staring down at the last traces of himself until the sun went down. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye he saw a light so bright that it begged for him to turn and look right into it. But he knew in his heart and soul what that light was, and he could not make himself go.
Now, with his mind no longer muddled by the alcohol he saw what a fool he’d been. He behaved like such a coward he was filled with shame. He drank himself into a stupor every day causing his father even more grief. It hurt him to think that his father’s last thoughts of his eldest son were that of disappointment. Yes, he’d been a coward.
He turned his head away and the light slowly dissipated. Several times since, the light had shone for him, called to him, but he never felt worthy.
It wasn’t until Selena that he’d thought that perhaps he could have been mistaken. That perhaps he did deserve happiness, and that maybe God didn’t believe him guilty for his family’s deaths. He forgave himself and he believed she loved him enough to see past his mistakes.
He’d been wrong, and the pain of her rejection cut deeper than the blades that had ended his life.