“Poor Aidan. Only Callahan left now. Quite the burden to bear,” one man says to another. Both are dressed in black suits, overcoats, black sunglasses on, scarves wrapped tightly around their necks.

“Ironic, isn’t it?” the other says.

The man says something in reply, but by then they’ve walked past and I don’t hear what he says.

It seems to take forever for the people to leave the Callahan gravesites—three yawning holes, side by side. The family plot. At last, only one person remains, wearing the requisite suit and overcoat. He’s far enough away that I can’t make out the precise details of him. Close enough, however, that I can tell he’s exquisitely good-looking, like some sort of fallen angel. Dark hair. A jaw full of stubble. Dark eyes.

 There’s a hand on my shoulder.

“Essie.”

It’s Max. I turn to look at him, to find his brow furrowed in concern. “C’mon. It’s time to go. It’s freezing out here, girl. Don’t want you getting sick, right?”

His worry is touching, but I ignore what he’s said. I nod over to the Callahans’ graves.

“That’s him? That’s Aidan Callahan?”

Max looks. “Couldn’t say. I’ve never seen him before. I’ve only heard his name mentioned.”

I scan the figure of the stranger at the other end of the cemetery, knowing that I’m right. Who else would hover over a grave like that? Like I’m doing right now?

Suddenly, as though he can tell he’s being talked about, Aidan Callahan turns and looks right at me. For a long moment, we stare at each other. The only thing that separates us are the graves of our loved ones. Max squeezes my shoulder.

“Seriously, Essie,” he says. “I’ll bring you back here whenever you want, but we’ve got to get you out of the cold.”

I let him lead me away. As I trip and stumble numbly over my own feet, all I can think about is Aidan Callahan. I think about the fact that I will do anything in my power to avenge my brother.

I think about how far I will go to eradicate the Callahan name from the face of this planet for good.

EIGHT

ESSIE

Five Years Later

Hatred is a curious thing. It feeds you, threatens to completely overwhelm you, yet at the same time, it leaves you feeling hollow. Hungry. It encases you, enshrouds you, but you never feel warm, never feel protected. It’s an empty thing, yet it can completely consume you, demanding you never forgive, never forget. Five years have passed, and I still haven’t forgotten what happened, haven’t forgotten the pain of losing my brother, haven’t forgotten the promise I made that day I stood in the freezing cold at Vaughn’s gravesite.

Back then¸ people were very fond of telling me that time would make things easier, time would heal the pain. Give it enough time and I’d be able to get on with my life, I’d be able to move forward. In one sense, I suppose they were right. For weeks after Vaughn’s death, I wasn’t able to do anything. I slept on Max’s couch. I went through dozens of boxes of tissues. I stopped eating. I couldn’t sleep. I was a zombie. I would have been evicted from the apartment eventually, but I didn’t let it get that far. I only went back there once to get the few irreplaceable bits and pieces. There wasn’t much. The Christmas tree Vaughn brought home had drooped and turned brittle because no one had been there to water it. I left behind our meager furniture and the few small treasures that me and Vaughn had saved for. The new tenants could have them, for what they were worth, or the landlord could throw them away. It didn’t matter to me.

The only thing I took with me was a bag full of clothes, a small photo album containing what few pictures of my parents still remained, and the tiny rectangular box I found wrapped in Christmas paper in the back of Vaughn’s sock drawer. The gift he’d been hiding from me.

And, of course, I took my anger with me. Anger at myself, for not picking up that damn phone when Vaughn called. Anger at my brother for leaving me here alone. Anger at the Callahans. Mostly anger at the Callahans.

I stayed with Max for a while. He gave me my space. He only once tried to tell me that time would make the hurt better. Though he put it in such a way that didn’t make it sound patronizing, that didn’t minimize every awful feeling I was experiencing.

“It’s not always going to be like this,” he said. His own eyes had been red. Even though he’d been getting up and going to work and eating and getting sleep, I knew he was badly affected by Vaughn’s death, too. I knew that he missed him almost as much as I did.

I’ll always be indebted to Max for standing by me. For years he helped Vaughn out, but then it was my turn, it seemed. I’m not sure where I would’ve ended up if he hadn’t been there at the time to provide me with a place to stay, to force me to eat when the days were passing and I could barely take more than a bite or two.

It was Max who suggested I look into getting a job that might lead to something else, a job that could turn into a career, to give me some sort of focus outside of my grief. I think I surprised us both when I said I wanted that job to be at a law firm, and that I knew exactly which law firm I wanted to work at. I let Max assume I wanted to be a lawyer. I couldn’t tell him the real reason I wanted to work at Mendel, Goldstein and Hofstadter.

******

If Vaughn were alive today, he’d be proud of me for sure. Sometimes, I look around at my apartment, my own apartment, decorated with furnishings I chose and paid for myself, a closet full of professional clothes, a fridge stocked with food, and I wonder how it is I made it this far. By all accounts, I have made it. I’m successful. All those people who told me that time would make it easier and that I’d be able to get on with my life would say that’s indeed exactly what happened. I’m a responsible adult, handling her shit. I should probably be thinking about finding a boyfriend, getting married, maybe having a kid or two.

Thing is, that would require me losing focus. I can’t attribute my standard of living to a drive to succeed, or even a desire to show Vaughn that I really can take care of myself. There’s only been one thing driving me this whole time, and that is my need to see the Callahan Corporation completely destroyed.

It might seem like letting a seriously intense revenge plan overtake your every waking moment would render you an awful person to be around, the negativity turning you into someone that others avoided at all costs, but that hasn’t been the case at all. If you didn’t know me, you’d think I was like any other girl in her mid-twenties, who hangs out with friends, goes out on dates, and has a favorite bar she hits up after work.

Four and a half years ago, I was hired as the legal secretary at Mendel, Goldstein & Hofstadter. For a while, Arturo Mendel was one of my bosses, though he had no idea who I was. To him, I was just another eager-faced secretary who toyed with the idea of becoming a lawyer but decided the path was too rigorous, the demands too great.

“A career in law is certainly not everyone’s cup of tea,” Arturo told me one day, not long after I’d first started working there. He’d said this to be kind, to make me not feel bad about myself. I’d had to bite my tongue. I came so close to telling him I could give a shit about a career in law. That there was only one reason why I was there, and that reason was Aidan Callahan.

I don’t think Arturo knew I was the girl he called that day to offer to pay for the funeral. Perhaps my name sounded vaguely familiar when I first started working for him. More likely, he’d long forgotten about the poor girl and her dead brother the moment he’d signed off on Vaughn’s funeral costs.