"Nope." He fought back a laugh. "Or at least not in a 'let's have omelets' sort of way."

"I've already cut the fucking onions, we're having omelets."

"Sure."

"Goddamn it, Neal...can you just pretend for a second this is normal? That we bloody eat fucking omelets together? Jesus Christ."

He said nothing else as I chopped, slicing with ease through the tomatoes next, then grabbing a stick of butter.

"Where is the salt?" he questioned, and I could feel him peering over my shoulder.

"I don't add salt, I add pepper."

"No salt? What?"

"Yes. No salt. I have enough things giving me high blood pressure, thank you," I grumbled.

"Not a decent omelet without salt," he muttered under his breath. When I turned back to him he pretended to whistle as if this was some damned show tune.

Luckily that was his last comment as I prepared everything. I flipped the omelet once over in the pan and then onto his plate before I took the table salt and put it beside him.

"Thank you." He dumped far too much onto his plate before taking a mouthful. "Not fucking bad."

"Can you even taste it? It looks like it's being vacuumed into your mouth." Watching him eat was always a sight; you'd think he was starving.

Pulling up a chair next him, I picked out my eggs, staring at our reflection in the stainless steel across the island for a second. As always, when it came to muscle, he had me outmatched. He was like a tank. I'd always hated how he towered over me growing up.

"Did you ever feel like Father hated you?" I finally threw it out there, to which he coughed, his face turning red. Rolling my eyes, I handed him a glass of water. "Is the question really that surprising?"

"From you...yeah." He rubbed his neck. "Did you feel that way?"

"I'm not talking about me, I'm talking about you. But no, never. I always knew Father loved me."

"Must be nice." He hunched over his plate.

"So you did. You felt like Father hated you-"

"Liam, I ate your omelet; will you clue me in to what is going on now?"

"Wyatt feels like I hate him," I admitted, sighing and not bothering to eat. "He's jealous of Ethan, and worst of all, he thinks less of himself."

"Huh."

"Huh? That's all you have to say? Huh?"

He nodded. "I'm not sure what to say. It seems normal to me."

"How is thinking I hate him or being jealous normal?"

"Maybe not for you," he snapped back. "You are Ethan. You were always naturally good at everything in front of you. Even when you were sick you worked twice as hard and still proved you were better than me. It is normal for someone who struggles to be jealous of someone who doesn't. No matter how great Wyatt is, Ethan is going to outshine him, and that sucks for Wyatt because Ethan isn't doing it on purpose. He is just being himself. You, on the other hand, did it on purpose."

"Me? I was basically crippled-"

"How long is that going to be your excuse, Liam? You went out of your way to prove to Father that you were better than me and I...I did nothing but watch because I didn't want to screw up again as your brother. I made one mistake and you couldn't let it go. Fine. Whatever, we were kids, I learned to live with it. But what about now? Are we much better than we were before? Yes. Will I still stand beside you even if you continue to berate me? Yes. You're blood. You're my baby brother. I remember the day you were born. I'm proud of that. However, have you ever been proud to have me as your older brother? No, because it's the one title you can't have. No matter what you do or how great you are, you will still be the second son of Sedric Callahan. It's ironic to me actually, but had you been born first, you'd be an amazing older brother because I'd be happy to follow you, and you'd never worry if I was going to stab you in the back for the title that should go to the first son."

I opened my mouth to speak, to say I didn't want to be first, that he was wrong, but once again, all my words failed me. He'd stated everything perfectly as if he had been waiting years to speak...maybe he had been.

"We are going to need something a lot stronger than water if we are going to have this conversation." He got up and searched through the cabinets until he found the cooking wine. "Good enough?"

"Good enough." I nodded, finishing the water and outstretching my cup.

"One glass for you, the bottle for me." He grinned before taking a drink. The fact that he could still genuinely smile...

"I'm not sure if I've ever been proud," I whispered, staring at the red wine, like blood in a cup. "However, I have been grateful."

"Grateful?"

"Yeah." It was the truth. "I thought about it a million times. You could have asked grandfather for support. With Shamus on your side, you would have gotten the Irish support. You had the Irish wife, the birthright, the ability...they could have followed you. If they had, Olivia would never have gotten greedy; she'd have been happy to be the next head of the house and that would have been that. The moment Father was gone, you could have killed me with ease."

"Huh." He drank.

"Say huh, one more time-"

"This is the reason why I could never be the leader. My mind doesn't work like that. You've thought of how I could be Ceann na Conairte a million times. Just a simple alliance here, murder your brother there. No biggie. You thought of that, probably with ease too. Meanwhile, I'm just trying to keep myself alive and not embarrass our family. I'm the point and shoot guy. You don't make the point and shoot guy the Ceann na Conairte."

He said it like it was that clean cut. "You were supposed to have all of this, Neal. The title, the power, everything; how could I not think you wanted this?"

"We're different. All I've ever wanted was my family safe. A little respect and to live in more luxury than I could ever want...I have all that. Why more? See, you don't think that way, you think I can have the world if I just clear a few bodies. I can't explain to you why I am this way. I am. That's it. We are a peacock and a raven."

"So what do I do if I have two sons who are the same? What do I do if both Wyatt and Ethan don't naturally sort out like we did?"

He shrugged. "You have two choices: pray that you are dead before they choose to kill each other, or make it hard for them to live without one another while you are still alive,"

Easier said than done.

TWELVE.

"I sustain myself with the love of family."

~ Maya Angelou CORA.

When my driver opened the door for me, the very last person I expected to see standing in front of Merry West Hospital with a tulip in hand was Declan, dressed in casual jeans and a dark blue button-down shirt, along with his leather jacket.

"What are you doing here?"

He handed me the yellow and red tulip with one hand and reached up with the other, brushing my hair behind my ears.

"I know," he stated.

"You know?" What?

"Cora, I love you." The smile he was forcing slowly fell from his lips. "I love you more than I thought it was humanly possible to love anyone, which is why when I realized you were hiding something from me I was hurt and confused...but I realized you love me, too. That's why you didn't tell me your cancer was back...and it's okay. I get it. I wish you had, but I understand why you didn't. However, that doesn't change the fact that I know, and it doesn't change anything, except for the fact that I'm going to be right beside you. You and I are going to fight this and win, just like we did in the past."

I stared at him in amazement...and I was positive I fell in love with him all over again. I had no clue what I'd done to deserve him, but I would do it again. I would do anything for him.

Reaching up, I placed my hand on his cheek. "I'm sorry-"

"Cora, it's fine-"

"I'm sorry because," I repeated again, cutting him off. "I made you worry when I don't have cancer."

He was about to cut in when he paused, his eyebrows coming together in confusion as he gawked at me.

"What?"

"I'm as cancer-free as I was last year and the year before. I'm healthy and cancer-free," I repeated.

"Wait, but Evelyn said the hospital called about you starting chemo tomorrow and you're here today for blood work..."

"Not me, my cousin." I hadn't wanted to tell him because I didn't want to talk about Imani ever again with him, not after the hell she put us all through. "She has cancer. I'm paying for it and acting as her emergency contact. She's been calling me for weeks and honestly it's driving me insane. I kind of hoped I'd help her get better and she'd just accept it without digging up the past. That's why I came tonight."

He wrapped his arms around me and took a deep breath. "Thank fucking Jesus bloody Christ."

He laughed so hard I shook with him, wrapping my arms around his chest.

"I still get to keep the tulip right?" I asked against him.

"You can have whatever you want..." He broke away slightly. "As long as you promise never to keep secrets from me again."

I held my pinky figure out. "I promise to never keep big secrets from my devilishly handsome husband ever again but reserve the right to have tiny secrets here and there for his own good."

His eyebrow raised and he grinned, locking his pinky with mine. "I can live with that."

"Are you going to come in with me? To see Imani, I mean?" I asked, and he stiffened.

"Sorry," he said, even though he didn't mean it. "I know she is your family and despite everything she has done you will do what you think is right, but I'm not as forgiving as you, love. Those who cross you or me are never welcomed back. It's just the way I am. But go we can have dinner after you're done."

There was no point arguing; that was just how Declan was. He didn't believe in forgiving outsiders.

"I'll be right back." I kissed his cheek before going around him. He stood there and waved until I could no longer see him, then I focused on the hospital around me.

I made it to the elevator as it was opening, and sure enough, there was Imani. Her brown hair was shaved, exposing her bald head, and even her eyebrows were gone.

"Cora?" She smiled at me as if we were old friends, and for some reason staring at her bothered me... Is this how I looked back then?

"Imani?"

"Shocking right?" She rubbed her bald head as the nurse pushed her out of the elevator and I backed up. "I thought I'd just get it over with. I look horrible don't I?"

"No. You look like a fighter." I smiled, moving to take over for the nurse behind the wheelchair. "Where are we headed?"

"I just wanted to see the city lights. I figure I'll be too sick to get out of bed for a while so should enjoy it while I'm still feeling strong enough."

I understood that feeling. We walked in silence until we reached the reached the exit. I took off my coat and placed it on her lap before pushing her out. The city had been astonishingly windy that month.

"Isn't Chicago just beautiful?" she asked when I moved us over to a bench.

"No place like it," I replied, sitting down.

Silence.

But then again, after all these years, what else could we be but silent?

"How is your family?" she asked.

I couldn't stop the smile on my face. "Amazing. I have two kids, a baby boy, and a seven-year-old girl. She's a chatterbox and always excited. Declan says she's just like me...even though we adopted her, it really does feel like she is ours. They mean more than the world to me."

"I can tell you are happy..." She didn't finish her statement. "While I was in a mental institution, you were living the dream."

"I would hardly call my life a dream, Imani. Let's just leave the past in the past." I didn't want to talk about this.

"Whatever you say...after all, I'm supposed to be the grateful one. I have no money, my father's now dead, and my mother is God knows where with all of our money."

My money. The money they'd lived off of all their lives was the Wilson family money given to me by my father. It was theirs, I had said it a hundred times, and yet they still didn't get it.

"We should head back inside. It's cold," I said, getting up.

"What's cold is ditching your family for a bunch of white people," she muttered under her breath; I again ignored her. You would think after all these years, after everything we had gone through, she'd just shut up by now. "You sold out, Cora-"

"No. I chose my happiness over yours. You think you are the first person who tried to make me feel guilty? Why? Because I'm not living to the standard they want? Because you are unhappy? Sorry. I chose me, and it might not be perfect, it might not be a dream or a fairytale, but my good days outweigh the bad. That's all we can hope for in life, isn't it?"

She didn't answer, so I just pushed her back. That was enough Wilson family bonding to last us another decade. I'd make sure she got her treatments and then I was done.

DECLAN.