brazenresolute

[brazenresolute]

Funerals are for the living

Tears left streaks on the cheeks of those that wore makeup. My mother, aunt, some cousins, my sister-in-law. As I glanced over the small crowd surrounding the gravedigger, I noted something.

Ember was the only one not sobbing. Her tears fell slowly, quietly. Her breathing wasn’t hasty; it was steady. Her shoulders didn’t quake and her sobs didn’t mingle with the others. Her gaze was empty, cold. It gave no clue as to what she was thinking or how she was feeling.

She’d always been a beautiful woman. Brilliant blonde locks that fell around her lithe torso in soft curls. Whether they were natural or produced with a curling iron, I didn’t know. If she moisturized her face morning or night, I didn’t know.

I did know her striking ocean blue eyes pierced through me each time they met mine in the many years she’d been part of our family.

The family I was born into was the Manzella Family. Destined for greatness and doomed for a short life. It was rare for anyone in our family to die of old age or disease. Though those diseases, I was willing to bet, were brought on intentionally.

Killing the person from the inside out? Undetected? What better way to get away with murder.

My great grandfather was the first man to die of old age in our centuries-old heritage. I knew of the darkness my father and brother dipped their toes in; I intentionally stayed away from it. If I’d done any business for their darkness, I didn’t know of it. I didn’t want to know.

However, Ember’s birth family was a different story. Or so I was willing to bet.

See, I didn’t lose when I bet. Blackjack, poker, roulette. I was banned from a couple casinos on the strip and one in Miami for good reason. Counting cards and taking chances was my thrill.

What was Ember’s? Was it watching her husband be buried six feet under?

A whole month after his murder, Apollo Manzella was being buried in our family’s cemetery. His headstone didn’t mark the year of his death yet, but a picture of his goofy ass smiling was captured in the locket below his name.

The minute I’d heard of my brother’s murder, I’d taken the first flight home. I wasn’t allowed to see the crime scene. No matter how much money I flashed at the investigators or how many threats I spewed at them. There was no security footage, they said when I asked for it.

It was one thing to bury his body. To watch him physically leave the land of the living. It was another thing to believe masked, unknown robbers shot him twice. Once in the head, and once in the chest. To steal what? Less than what was in his bank account.

The number of people that could get into the property was limited unless invited.

And it was that. That disbelief that gave me the motivation to find my brother’s killer. Or killers. Whoever had done it would pay. Eternally.

A hand clapped on my back, jostling my thick frame a bit as I stood off to the side. My brother was the class clown. The goofball that made everyone laugh while I stood back and watched everyone. I was the observer. Plenty mistook my standoffishness as being timid.

No one paid attention to me until I got a couple tattoos in college and started working out with the football players. And, while I was more than just interested in women, no one matched my interests. That didn’t mean they didn’t fawn in college or even after college.

“You alright?” My father’s deep voice was captivating. Apollo had the softer voice, taking it from our mother. His brown eyes held my green ones for a long moment before I forced mine away, glancing down at the ornate casket that held my brother’s lifeless body.

The funeral home was able to reconstruct his face for us to have the casket open for viewing and visiting. It almost looked like my brother. Maybe if he was smiling, it would’ve actually felt like him too. The fucker would never smile again.

And that thought alone was poisonous. Dangerous. It had ice cold revenge slithering through my veins, replacing the red hot blood that boiled on occasion at the memory of what happened to my brother. Shot in the head at close-range. Brain matter was on the ceiling and several pieces of furniture according to the report I’d read countless times.

But there was something off. Not to mention the lack of security camera footage or the way the cop that signed off on the report refused to consider it was first-degree murder of any kind. To consider it was anyone other than robbers. Especially since some jewelry, Apollo’s laptop and wallet, and some other small things were taken.

The funny part? The safe was untouched. The cop was surprised when I even asked him about it. Well, he tried to hide it from taking over his gaze and expression. But I’d seen it. The millisecond that the emotion made his brows lower and his eyes soften. I saw it, and I knew there was more to this case than they were letting on.

Now, the thing was… Did her family hire him? I knew of every cop and detective on my father’s payroll by name and face. I could pick them out of a lineup without having even met some of them in person. Even then, why would my father want Apollo dead? He was the heir to the family’s throne. Intentionally, because I didn’t want it.

Though, what did it matter now?

Fucker left me as the sole heir to our family’s fortune. It almost felt like one last, giant ‘fuck you, brother’.

I nearly smiled at the thought and turned to look at my father once more. His brown eyes held sadness, grief, and some anger. But not towards me. “I'm as good as I can be,” I managed to muster.

The sound of my voice pulled the attention of a few other people and, when my gaze slid away from my father’s, it landed right on Ember’s. Her bright blue eyes held tears that threatened to follow the others that streamed down her cheek. Held something else, too, that I couldn’t put my finger on.

Sure, I could’ve asked her or her father about Dusty Gomez. With my brother, the only connection they made us one big family, dead, I wasn’t so sure I could trust them to be honest with me. And I planned to take matters into my own hands.