My Stepbrother, My Enemy {BL}-Chapter 247: Freedom Tastes Wrong

3rd Person Pov

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Ethan’s stomach churned uneasily. He straightened up a bit, his fingers instinctively gripping the arm of the chair until his knuckles hurt. The chilly night air drifted in with the officers, bringing along the faint scent of wet pavement and something metallic he couldn’t quite place.

The older officer cleared his throat. "He was found dead earlier this evening in a remote motel on the outskirts of Hayseville. It...looks like it was a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. There was a suicide note."

Each word fell into place..."found dead," "motel," "suspected suicide", but they didn’t quite register in Ethan’s mind. They lingered there, like awkward subtitles in a movie he wasn’t sure he wanted to watch.

He found himself fixated on the officer’s mouth as he spoke, watching the mustache twitch with each word, half-convinced that if he stared hard enough, the words might rearrange into something less final.

A car accident, perhaps. A bar fight. Or even a dramatic exit, with Logan riding off into the sunset with his horrible web of lies and secrets. Anything but this.

Inside him, an odd, heavy stillness filled the space where grief should’ve been. First, disbelief hit him, sharp and persistent, like his mind was outright refusing to accept this news. Then confusion washed over him, thick and swirling, because nothing made sense.

Logan? In a motel?

The man couldn’t even stand the sight of those, he always thought five-star hotels were more suited for him.

The guy who treated every surface in their house as his own kingdom, who’d rather sleep in his truck than admit defeat to a lumpy mattress? And suicide?

The thought was almost laughable. Yet, a shameful sliver of relief snaked through the confusion...relief that the yelling and the constant fear of setting off his uncle’s temper had suddenly and violently come to an end.

The man who had stepped in for his absent parents and set every rule, every limit, every version of Ethan that was allowed to exist... was gone. Just like that. Ethan felt like a bird that had spent years in a tiny cage, suddenly realizing the door was open, only to realize he didn’t know how to fly and wasn’t even sure he deserved to.

He noticed he was gripping the door too hard when his fingers started to throb. The younger officer gave him a sympathetic nod. "We’re very sorry for your loss. If you’d like us to call someone—"

"No, I’m... I’m okay," Ethan replied, though his voice sounded distant, even to him. He forced a small, polite smile, the same one he used for his coaches after tough games...because that was just what people did, right? They smiled. They nodded. They pretended the ground wasn’t tilting beneath them.

The older officer continued gently, "We’ll need you to come down to the station tomorrow, whenever you’re ready. There are some formalities, identification, the note, next steps regarding the dealerships and the estate. Take your time tonight. Is there someone who can stay with you?"

Ethan shook his head, the motion feeling almost robotic.

There was no one, he was alone.

"I understand," he said, even if he really didn’t. The words came out on autopilot, years of being the golden boy kicking in. "Thanks. For coming out here, I appreciate it."

The officers hung around a bit longer, clearly used to dealing with people who broke down in doorways, cried, or at least asked frantic questions. But Ethan just stood there, blinking, so they offered their final condolences and stepped back into the night. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

Their footsteps thudded softly down the porch steps, and soon the cruiser’s taillights faded down the quiet street.

The door clicked shut.

The house felt like it exhaled around him, suddenly vast and empty, every room stretching out as if it had doubled in size while he wasn’t looking.

The silence pressed in from all sides, thick enough to taste, more intense than the silence that followed Noah’s "we need a break," heavier than those nights he’d spent awake, listening for Logan’s Mercedes in the driveway. Ethan leaned his forehead against the cool wood of the door for what felt like an eternity, eyes closed, trying to make the words stick.

Why now, especially when he’d been barking orders about the dealerships just last week, insisting Ethan "step up"? And the money, the fifteen million. None of it screamed "man about to end it all."

Logan Seymour was not the kind of guy who gave up. But he was the type who made everyone else feel like they did.

Ethan pushed away from the door and wandered into the living room, flipping on lights as he went because the darkness suddenly felt too intimate, too knowing. He sank onto the couch, the same spot where he’d been dozing earlier, and stared at the blank television screen.

A strange, half-hysterical laugh bubbled up in his chest and escaped before he could stop it, short, sharp, and completely inappropriate.

"Great timing, Uncle Logan," he muttered to the empty room, running a hand through his messy blond hair. "I finally decide to stand up to you, and you pull the ultimate plot twist. Classic, really committed to the act."

The laugh went away quickly, leaving that same confusing mix of emotions behind. Disbelief still dominated, loud and insistent, whispering that this had to be some elaborate prank or a seriously messed-up dream.

Any second now, Logan would burst through the door, smelling of whiskey and cheap cologne, demanding to know why Ethan was sitting in the dark like a loser. But the house remained stubbornly empty. No heavy footsteps. No slamming cabinets. Just the low hum of the refrigerator and the distant ticking of the hallway clock.

Beneath the disbelief, that relief crept back in, quieter this time but impossible to ignore. It felt shameful, almost wrong, like he was betraying some unspoken family code by not being devastated.

Logan had been a constant, awful presence...abusive, controlling, the only adult who stuck around after his parents left.

And now Ethan was... free? The thought twisted his stomach. Free to do what? Run the dealerships he never wanted? Face college applications without someone yelling that he was wasting his potential? Learn to breathe again without waiting for the next explosion?

He leaned back against the cushions, staring at the ceiling cracks he’d memorized years ago.

Ethan rubbed his face with both hands, the stubble on his jaw scratching against his palms.

"This is insane," he said aloud, just to hear a voice in the too-quiet house. "I’m over here spiraling like some amateur detective when I should probably... I don’t know, cry or something?"

But the tears didn’t come. Instead, his mind drifted back to Noah, how he would’ve handled this with that quiet perceptiveness, tossing out some sarcastic comment that somehow made everything feel lighter.

The ache of missing him sharpened for a moment, mixing with everything else until Ethan wasn’t entirely sure which pain was which anymore.

He stayed on the couch until the first hints of dawn began to lighten the windows, the questions still swirling, the relief still whispering, and the disbelief still refusing to let go. Logan was gone. Really, truly gone.