It's bad enough we've been erased from the Emeralds' history. It's not like that for the others, though. We did it out of safety and lack of numbers, but the others broke the rules, muddied the bloodline, and risked it all for some preconceived notion of power or love.
Ridiculous concept, if you ask me.
"Father," I answer, holding the phone a little too tightly. The realization that he's calling in any respect is hard on me. He's never nice, and all I ever wanted was to please him. Hard to do when he hates the very oxygen I use to breathe.
"Son," he quips, almost like he needs to have the first true word. Calling me son is a good way of throwing me off. "It's time you came home, don't you think?"
The smoke I'd just inhaled threatens to make me keel over at his words. Home? He wants me home? I sputter around the smoke. Unlike a normal father who would ask if I was all right or to stop drinking and do drugs because it's bad, he doesn't say a thing. If not for his breaths in my ears, I would have thought the call dropped.
"Sir?" I question, not wanting to seem illiterate but also unsure of what the fuck is actually happening.
He just told you to come home. Don't fuck it up. That desire to please him and be who he needs me to be burns inside me. It's a festering disease, waiting for the moment to overcome my body and steal every ounce of sanity left before it kills me off.
"Don't be stupid, Jordan. I said it's time to come home. Pack your things, and fly back tonight."
I swallow the lump in my throat. "I'll pack and head out," I reply, knowing that questions are a waste of time. Time is money, and money feeds his pockets, so he's not too keen on wasting a single second.
"Good. See you soon." He hangs up before I can respond, but even hearing the darkness and deep baritone of his voice has me in a fog.
It's been so long since I've seen Maxim, since I've spoken with Mother and my friends. Shit, are they my friends anymore? I've been gone so long it's almost as if I'd been painted with Wite-Out covering every inch of my existence.
By the time I'm landing on our private airstrip outside of Arcadia Township, I'm a ball of nervous energy. How does one reemerge without the knowledge of what has passed in the time gone?
I'm escorted to the family's sedan and shuttled home.
Home.
For the last few years, that's been Italy. It's been work, school, and whatever Father deemed fit for a black sheep.
The Edgington Manor comes into view, making my heart race with trepidation. This place is the root of all of my despair.
The place where I was a burden.
Useless.
Stripped of all things that label me as a son of Elijah Edgington.
"Master Jordan," Dane announces when he opens the door for me.
I don't smile. It's Dane who packed me up, telling me my life was basically gone.
He stares at me with neutrality. It's a disgusting, emotionless mask, one to hide him from culpability.
I don't respond to him, instead making my way to the entrance to face what waits for me. I have no clue what to prepare for. Father didn't sound irate or nervous. If anything, he sounded bored, controlled, as he usually does.
"He's in the boardroom, sir. Announce yourself before entering."
With an eye roll and annoyance, I walk toward my father's meeting area. Dane calls it the boardroom, which is physically correct, but he also left out the fact that it's also basically a dining room with office-type materials.
Two knocks are all I offer before saying, "Jordan, sir."
"In."
His callous words shouldn't surprise me. My father is as stiff as a corpse in a fucking morgue. That's not only around me. He doesn't have a heart. He lost it a long time ago, along with his soul, and he’s taking mine and Maxim's with him too.
"Seems things have changed, Jordan," he says nonchalantly. "Take a seat."
The room is probably half a football field in size. The table is capable of sitting at least thirty members of his team. The windows are drawn, bleeding in the soft sunlight of afternoon. Father sits at the farthest end, the head of the table. Not knowing whether he wants me beside him or as far as possible, I wait for him to command my place.
"Here is fine. Stop wasting my time."
Of course. His calling me home, forcing me rather, is a waste of his time.
I sit beside him, wondering what could possibly have changed so suddenly that he's willing to offer me my place back home. There's so much to adapt to. Life isn't what it once was. Not even people will be.
"Your brother has disgraced the bloodline, which means you're unfortunately my only hope to produce an heir, carry the Edgington name, and rule the kingdom."
Rule the kingdom. He pretends I'm a prince, a victor on the bouts of war, slaying enemies. In reality, every founding family in this godforsaken town is a puppet, one to be bent, sewn, and ruined by their lineage.
"What has changed?" I ask.
I know he said Maxim disgraced our bloodline, but there are so many ways in which he could do that. I need answers, something to grasp onto and know where to go and what to avoid.
He finally looks up at me with malice. It's always hatred in his eyes. Between my being the soft spot in mother's heart and my being the soft-hearted boy I've always been, it kills him to be around me.
I'm weak.
Spineless.
A disappointment.
"He's bedded another male."
Bedded. Another. Male. Fuck. Maxim, you stupid dick. My heart hammers, slicing me open with each smack of the insatiable gavel. I kept his secret, one I mostly forgot simply because it was a protecting manner. If I forgot what he confided in me, I would never mutter it aloud when angry, or in spite, or because it's something that's always intrigued me.
Men in founding families aren't allowed to be gay. It's not out of homophobia, either. Our town is very progressive. It has everything to do with the production of heirs.
Production because they're dolls. Pawns. Chess pieces for the cause.
Maximillian Edgington. The perfect heir had a secret as deadly as the plague. Gayness. He didn't want women, or babies, not even a future. He wanted a specific man, one I'd heard things about over the years.
"Where is he?" The question feels like sandpaper in my throat.
"He's dead, Jordan," he enunciates the word dead as if it's a disgrace and not a sadness. It's like him to brush emotions off as impotence instead of a loss. He didn't lose his son, did he? He lost his money bags, the person to drive his fortune higher and higher, the one who kept him powerful.
Now, all that's left is little ol' me, the misfit with a heart too soft to kill.
"Carrying on," he proceeds without batting another eyelash. "You are to be enrolled into Arcadia. We have been given the mission to reveal which founding children have disobeyed the blood oaths our forefathers gave."
He doesn't stop to see if I'm absorbing information, just takes a sip of brandy and continues on like I'm a socialite or client and not his son who has just been informed his brother is dead.
Gone.
My heart clamps painfully, allowing me nothing but pain. Pain isn't allowed to be felt; it's meant to be given. Nothing I do or say can change it, so, I swallow my sorrow and pretend my heart has somehow hardened in the years I've been gone.