One week later...
Only you can make all this world seem right
Only you can make the darkness bright
Only you and you alone can thrill me like you do
And fill my heart with love for only you
The Platters' song was playing throughout the house. Lexi felt a shiver run down her spine: she hadn't even finished her breakfast yet.
"Baking a cake?" she heard Sean's voice.
He was talking to Billy, who had been using baking as therapy for the past seven days.
"Baking a cake," Billy repeated his brother's words to confirm.
Sean leaned towards Lexi and kissed her on the lips. She returned the kiss, though the terrible song left a strange taste in her mouth.
"You're doing well, Billy," Sean praised, while looking for cereal.
They hadn't had much opportunity to leave the house in recent days; in fact, they avoided it as much as possible, so their supplies were limited to things they could find and store easily.
"I need to get out of this house," Billy said with a worryingly psychotic tone in his voice. He had been like this for several days.
"Soon," Sean replied shortly.
The song seemed to be ending, but Lexi wasn't foolish enough to think it wouldn't play again. The boys glanced at the ceiling.
"It's not working," Billy said angrily, stirring his cake batter. "We're not getting answers."
Sean stopped what he was about to say when Marian appeared in the kitchen and wished everyone a good morning. In Lexi's opinion, her aunt had also seemed a bit psychotic lately. She wished Marian a good morning too.
"I'm baking a cake," Billy repeated when Marian seemed curious about his activities.
"Good," she said in response, smiling at Sean and Lexi.
In recent days, Sean had been somewhat distant and distracted. At first, Lexi had tried to break the bubble he had built around himself, but she soon realized the right approach was to let Sean decide to burst it or invite her in.
He was always carrying the polaroid of a dead boy. A child.
She knew it had unsettled him. They had had a serious argument because he had involved children in his little "revenge" against Lale, but Sean had no intention of hurting them. The child in the polaroid was someone Finn had ordered to be killed.
Sean was waiting for Elliot, so he occasionally checked the window and his phone. He was now on the phone, apparently with Ed. Every day, his godfather called to check on them.
"[...] we need the information to understand my father's connection to the family," Sean said, returning to the breakfast table. "Yes, yes. We're all fine. Alexandra is busy with the Harry Potter audiobook and Billy has decided to pursue his forgotten childhood dream of becoming a pastry chef."
Lexi smiled at Billy's expression. Sean said goodbye to Ed and returned to his seat beside her, ignoring Billy's glare.
"Stop teasing him," Lexi requested. "It hasn't been easy for him. For anyone, really."
YOU ARE READING
E M P I R E
Romance"You could be a king. You could have an empire" Lexi and Sean had known each other since childhood and had lived a story for years that involved love, family, business, kisses and guns. When life's turns put both couple together, they try to figur...
