Control.
“Do you believe that hearing your siblings’ statement will affect yours, Miss VanMarche?”
“Of course not, but it’s standard procedure?—”
“We’ll decide what’s standard procedure or not, ma’am,” the detective on the right said. The fact that a middle-aged man was being so condescending to my sister—boringly normal as it was—burrowed even further under my skin than my youngest brother’s antics.
However, I wasn’t as quick on the draw as Jack.
“You don’t talk to her that way,” he said, his voice sounding more serious that I’d heard in over a year. “She’s basically a genius, and a hot-shot lawyer who’s literally changing the world out here. A little respect would go a long way.”
“You don’t need to lap at her feet, Jackie,” Chris said bitterly from where he was pacing. “She’s not coming back no matter how much you beg.”
PEACE.
SERENITY.
CONTROL.
“Apologies, my partner meant no disrespect,” the detective on the left said.
Were they doing some sort of good cop/bad cop routine?
The idea made my teeth itch even more than they were already. My inner wolf longed for nothing more than to snap at the mortal man and their shifter detectives who were in our territory. If this was how they treated the most powerful shifter family on the East Coast, I hated to think how they interacted with regular civilians.
“We just want to get to the bottom of this and make sure justice is served to your family. Now, if you wouldn’t mind starting from the beginning...”
I thought I was used to the somewhat tangled dynamics of my family—after all, it had been that way my entire life—but in the two hours it took for all of us to say what we needed to say, give our alibis, as well as our contact information for said alibis, I realized my family was really fucking annoying.
Between Chris acting like everyone was mortal enemy number one, Penelope shielding herself from the horrors of the situation with her legalese and being objective about the situation, and Jack having the attention span of a squirrel looking for his next fix, I was utterly exhausted and my nerves frazzled.
My father had often told me I was the most even-keeled of all my siblings, that I was the one who had inherited my mother’spatience, but I’d never experienced it as starkly as I did during what was objectively one of the most stressful times of my life.
“Finally, they’re gone!” Jack said with a sigh before beelining straight to the liquor cabinet in the transitional hall between the drawing room and the social kitchen. “Anyone else want to drown their sorrows?”
“My God, Jack, could you be any more pathetic?” Chris snapped, his canines already out way farther than they should be. But Jack just looked at his second oldest?—
Wait.
That wasn’t right anymore, was it? Luther was gone so...
“Oh no,” Jackie said in exactly the type of mocking tone that a twenty-five-year-old stunted man would use. “Is big bro going to yell at me for drinking the no-no juice?”
“You’re ridiculous. Our father is dead!”
“Yeah, and so is Luther! But you haven’t even mentioned him once! I know you were always jealous and gunning for his position, but we just lost two family members, so yeah! I’m going to drink about it! It’s not like I can actually get intoxicated for longer than five minutes, so excuse me for wanting a second to be numb and catch up with the bombshell that was just dropped on us!”
“Guys, come on,” Penelope said with a sigh. I was fairly certain my sister was more even-keeled than I was. Father had always been reticent to acknowledge that, though, because it meant his most practical child had moved to the other side of the world. “This isn’t the right time for this.”
“Says the woman in another country who doesn’t have to deal with this in person,” Chris continued.
PEACE. SERENITY. CONT?—
“Just because I’m not physically there doesn’t mean I’m experiencing the loss of our father and brother any less,” Penelope said. Her calm helped me regain my emotional footing.
I couldn’t say when I’d last needed so much mental grounding. I’d had quite the temper during puberty, frustrated with my position and feeling like a joke down to my name, but I’d calmed down since then.
Or so I’d thought.