“You think I didn’t have my suspicions?” Cat asks me, stroking his salt-and-pepper beard. I feel like there’s more gray in it with each passing day, as if my father’s clock is finally running out. I squeeze my hands into fists and then force my fingers to release, splaying them at my sides and taking a deep breath. My pulse slows. Some of that cold recedes. My old, familiar anger sweeps up on me like a firestorm, but I push it back. I hold myself somewhere in the middle of those two extremes. “You think I didn’t know my son was up to no good? Kickin’ the shit out of prostitutes, shootin’ up. I have to wonder if he wasn’t beatin’ on my old lady on top of all that.”
“You think I never saw you beat on that son yourself? Kick him to the streets when he was still a kid? You forget that Gaz wasn’t shaped overnight; you crafted a monster in your own making.”
My father says nothing to that. He doesn’t react at all. That’s what disturbs me most. He’s reacted with blinding white rage toward me for the entirety of my life. So, what is this?
“So why pick me over him?” I ask, because I can’t take it. I don’t understand. My father’s always taken his son’s side over mine. In fact, I’m pretty sure Cat’s hated me my entire life.
“Didn’t you hear me, girl?” Cat asks me, taking another step closer, until his shins are pressed against the opposite side of the coffee table. “I told you: you’re just like me.” His gaze rakes over me from head to toe, but not like I’m his daughter.
Like I’m his rival.
I get the chills but manage to maintain a neutral expression.
“Of all my children, the only one I ever saw much potential in,” he drawls, working his jaw. He looks over at Crown as I fight this bizarre rush of unwanted pleasure at his praise. I can’t shake it, can I? That disturbing need to please the president of Death by Daybreak. To please … my father. “Are you working with the mafia?” he asks point-blank, but not like he’s willing to believe whatever answer is going to come out of Crown’s mouth. “Really, what I’m asking here is: are you going to blow up my compound the way my son did?”
That’s when I hear it, the first bit of strain in his voice, this harsh clip that tells me that no matter how calm Cat seems right now, he’s breaking on the inside. He killed his only son, and that’s affecting him.
“I have only ever had your and the club’s best interests in mind,” Crown tells him, turning along with Cat as my father laughs and moves past him into the front hall. I follow so that I’m just a step and a half behind Crown’s broad back. “Hurting Gidget, killing Gidget, that was never in your best interest. That’s true. Now, I’m putting her first.”
“You let her marry Beast, and you still wanna die for her, eh?” Cat asks, turning back to look at the pair of us like he’s so disgusted he doesn’t even know where to go from here. “I haven’t decided what to do with you just yet. But believe me, you’re not going to like it when it comes at you.”
As Cat turns away, I’m so relieved to see him go that I almost collapse against the wall. By the grace of whatever dark and dirty gods might watch over someone like me, I’m safe. For now.
“Fuck,” Crown murmurs, swiping his hand over the lower half of his face. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He turns to look at the sound of creaking on the stairs, scowling violently when he sees that it’s Grey. Crown’s gun comes up to point at the boy, but I scramble up a few steps, turn, and take hold of it. Crown very quickly releases the trigger and drops the weapon. “Was all of this worth it?” he asks me again, looking past me at Grey.
I glance back and see that my friend—and the biggest pain in my ass that ever existed—isn’t smiling either.
“This is all because of you,” Crown murmurs, shaking his head as he finally puts his gun away. I hope he’s hidden the rest of the weapons around this house in better spots because, wherever they were before, Grey will find them. I don’t necessarily know if I want him to have a gun—even if I am a much better shot. “You got a way out of this?”
“We have to kill my father so that I can take over the mafia,” Grey says, as if it’s that simple.
“As if you can just kill him and step into his role as the don. I might not know much about that shit, but I do know this: that’s a pipe dream,” I choke out, my voice acidic and sharp. It’s been a long fucking two days. I can feel exhaustion tugging at me all over again.
