Page 2 of Misguided

She was tapped out and tired of life, and I knew it as well as my father and Derek did, that she welcomed death.

Dad sighs at the far end of the long table, running a heavily adorned hand over his rapidly aging face. “Koen …”

“No, Rollan. I’m done.” I shake my head, hands braced on the back of my seat. “Done with you tryin’ to direct my future, done with both of you lookin’ down on my choices, and done with you actin’ as though you wish I’d never been born.”

He doesn’t deny it, instead choosing to sit stoic as I take my leave from the place I used to call home. It lost all semblance of family when Mom left us. Never will be home again.

Derek chooses to ignore me by staring down at the table, yet his wife watches me go with a hint of jealousy; as though she wishes she could up and walk out like I am. I snort a pitied laugh at her dead eyes, at the shell of a woman she is. That is what being a real von Essen does to people—drains them of all distinctive traits until they’re compliant zombies.

Unlike my father and brother, I don’t get a kick out of stripping people of their free will. Bullying others around simply because I was lucky enough to be born into a family that has lorded a fucking name over the lesser for decades, was never my game.

That sick game of cat and mouse is their specialty.

I might share the same physical features as my blood, but on the inside, where it counts, I’m nothing like them. And that couldn’t make me any fucking happier.

The cool night air bites at my collar as I step out the front doors of the house, and I shrug my cut a little higher on my shoulders, relishing it’s comforting weight as it hangs on my back. The Fallen Aces are my home now; best decision I ever made.

My father? My brother? They’re dead to me.

Them and their million-dollar empire of hollowness and misery.