When we got there, I found out Cillian had a few horses that legit belonged to him. Apparently, he hadn’t limited his riding hobby to my ass alone. I knew Kill had played polo in his youth, too, and was more accomplished than I (insert shocked emoji here), but when we hurled our tall frames onto two twin, black Arabian horses and began riding, it was pretty clear we were both skilled.

Cillian handed me a helmet, a saddle, and a pair of boots. He looked like an eighteenth-century aristocrat in his gear, and I wondered if he enjoyed being so perfect twenty-four-fucking-seven. From the outside, it looked exhausting.

We headed to the neck of the woods, the saddle—made of rich leather that’d been broken in by my brother—tinged my nostrils with an earthy scent. I’d missed riding. There were signs scattered across the woods warning riders about hunters (ironic). When Cillian shot me a sidelong glance to see if I cared, I shrugged, aided my horse, and galloped forward. Straying far on a horse I wasn’t familiar with in woods I didn’t know was supremely stupid, but I knew my brother was responsible enough to keep us both alive.

Kill caught up with me quickly.

“So, are you still playing the part of Auguste Dupin and scheming Sylvester’s downfall?”

Of course he’d reference an Edgar Allan Poe character before Sherlock Holmes. Kill thrived on being different. He probably thought I was under the impression Auguste Dupin was some sophisticated French dessert. I rode faster, making him sweat for the conversation.

“He’s cooking something up,” I clipped. “Years of being an asshole make me an expert at recognizing shitheads when I see them.”

“I trust your instincts,” Kill drawled with his usual, grave politeness, ignoring the pack of blonde stable girls who burst out of a corner of the woods, giggling and pointing at us. Cillian didn’t even spare the groupies a look. I realized, with some annoyance, that I wasn’t particularly interested in sampling their goods, either.

“Then why aren’t you backing me up on this?” I seethed.

Did Kill’s hatred for me trump his love for Royal Pipelines? I tried to remain calm. Cillian loathed emotions. I wondered how, exactly, he was going to give Da the precious heirs he was obviously waiting for when my older brother was appalled by any type of emotion, lust included.

“You started this, put things in motion. Now it’s your job to finish it,” Cillian explained, aiding his horse and quickening its pace, his back straight as an arrow. We kept chasing each other, changing paces. I remembered his words: “Everything is a pissing contest.”

I launched forward, catching up with him.

Song of the day: “Wild Horses” by The Rolling Stones.

“I don’t like tests,” I hissed.

“I don’t like taxes,” he deadpanned. “But guess what I’m doing every April fifteenth? Let me give you a hint, not five Californian cheerleaders on my friend’s fourteen-thousand-dollar carpet.”

I almost laughed. For all his shittiness, my brother was cooler than a Trader Joe’s cashier.

“That sucks,” I groaned, referring to Syllie. I still couldn’t remember the orgy.

“Welcome to adulthood. Leave your joy and creativity at the door.”

“What if I can’t nail him?” I dug my nails into his horse’s coat. I’d noticed Kill was warming up his black Arabian, aiding him frequently, like he wanted to jump him. I found it typical that he hadn’t even given his two favorite horses names. He was impersonal, even to the things he was fond of.

“Shame for Royal Pipelines, but we had a good run,” he said dispassionately, staring ahead.

The horses lunged like a dream and took to the saddles well. They were young but calm and good-natured. We rode into the thick of the woods, surrounded by trees and moss. There was a clear path leading hell-knows-where, the sun seeping through the needled pines, the fresh scent of earth surrounding us.

Cillian was just as suspicious of Syllie as I was. That’s why Syllie loathed him. And it was why Kill hadn’t ridiculed me when I presented my theory.

“You want to see if I fuck it up.” I snapped my fingers, finally getting it.

My brother removed an invisible piece of lint from his riding coat. “You need a good challenge. Just make sure to hang the rebel in the town square instead of humping his leg when you’re done.”

“Fuck you.”

“Language is a powerful tool, ceann beag. You better stop abusing it.”

“Meaning?” I gave him the stink eye.

I loathed his self-control. It freaked me out. I imagined he was one of those sociopaths who could fuck someone for hours without coming just to punish them. He was that disciplined.

“Priceless and worthless are the same sum, presented in different manners. Words make you or break you. By cursing, you reduce yourself to someone who cannot convey their feelings sufficiently.”

“Okay, Geoffrey Chaucer Jr., back to Sylvester. What do you think he’s planning?”

“Considering he asked for more shares and a substantial raise a few months back and got turned down for both, I imagine he knows he’s on his way out and wants to stick his hand in the honey pot before it’s too late. He could skim millions from the company. Billions, if he’s ambitious and feeling extra vindictive.”

He said billions in the same tone I said pennies. That sum was utterly disposable to him.

Kill took a sharp turn. I followed. We were riding around what looked like an archery range—not Sailor’s, which was in the heart of the city. This one looked like some sort of a camp. I wondered if she’d ever been here, before remembering I didn’t give two shits if she had.

Cillian asked me about college, and then about Sailor (“the feisty redhead,” to be exact), then proceeded to say the most shocking thing that had ever come out of his mouth.

“The Fitzpatricks take care of their own, Hunter. Even so, I don’t need to tell you we have a strict eat-your-young policy. But Da doesn’t hate you.”

“Which one?” I inquired when we began to make our way from the woods back to the stables. “Yours, or the Eastern European fucker who porked our mom?”

“The one that matters,” he quipped. “The one that’s putting you through hell so you can walk away with the skills it takes to run one of the largest corporations in the world alongside me.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Believe, anyway. We all have scars,” Cillian said icily. “Some of us choose to wear them like fine jewels; others hide them. You simply try to ignore them. Face your problems, ceann beag. Because guess what? They’re not going anywhere.”

“I’m glad you managed living away from your parents—from your family—from age six unscathed. But I’m not you. And let me tell you something else that might rock your world: I don’t want to be you, either. I wanted a father. A mother. A goddamn brother and a baby sister. The whole package. I didn’t want the private schools and the horses and the wealth. I just wanted a family.”

“A family was never in the cards for either of us,” Kill hissed, ramming his feet into the stirrups like a beginner. His horse bucked, unused to its owner raising his voice.

I slowed my pace, eyeing him.

“Mother has been on antidepressants since Aisling was born and was unfit to take care of a hamster, let alone three kids. Da was rarely home. He slept in the office more than half the week. The nannies were not allowed to live on Avebury Court grounds, because Mom feared Da would have sex with them, a fear that was not unwarranted. In the time you were away, she went to rehab twice. Aisling has been tossed around between nannies like a tennis ball. Calling them a mess would be the understatement of the century. They sent us away because they knew our best chance at surviving this family was having minimal contact with it. The truth is, I was born to inherit the Fitzpatrick mess and shoulder all the family issues, you were born to avenge Athair’s infidelity, and poor Aisling was born to try to patch up the chaos they’d created.”

I didn’t know my mother suffered from depression and dependency, but I was too poisoned by loneliness and neglect to find compassion for her.

“Yeah, well, worked for you.” I gathered phlegm, spitting it to the ground. I didn’t know that about Aisling, but it didn’t surprise me. My baby sister was a cactus: adaptable, easy to keep alive, and thrived on next to nothing. Kill and I were different creatures—athletic and spirited, wild and unrestrained.

“Quite,” he said, robot-like.

“You didn’t care that they tossed you aside because you think you’re above love, don’t you?” I didn’t think he was capable of feeling it. I didn’t think I could, either, but that’s because I was below love, undeserving of it.

“Love is a great marketing strategy. Sells a lot of books, movies, and diamonds. Aside from that, I do not consider myself a big fan of it.”

“No marriage for you, then?” I asked. Kill was thirty, and about as likely to settle down as a wild fucking boar.

“I will, to someone who is fit to sire my heirs and feels comfortable raising them away from the city—from me.”

“Are you going to time-travel to a century where an idea like this wouldn’t earn you a slap in the face?” I wondered aloud. He laughed, actually laughed and shook his head, muttering, “Little Na?ve, so na?ve. Money’s a great incentive to be anything, even a glorified slave.”