Disgust threatens to consume me. “Everything he’s done, and you still put him on a pedestal.”
Another surge of nausea as a thought strikes. “You put that fucking statue up in town, knowing she’d have to walk past it. To see it, after everything he did to her.”
Like he was something to celebrate.
My father doesn’t say a damned thing.
I rip the cabinet open, searching through and yanking out files, checking every single one until I have a bundle in front ofme. It’s thick – thicker than I expected, and my stomach surges. “Is this it?”
“Everything is in there. But before you judge me, just listen. Please.”
“Oh.” I shake my head. “Too fucking late for that, Charles. I’ve already judged you. You’re just as guilty – as complicit in this – as he was.”
I can’t bring myself to say his name. “I’ll be in touch to arrange Nia’s living situation, because she’s not staying in this house with you.”
Not yet. I have to prioritize.
Kennedy comes first. Always. As she should have done from the beginning.
He stiffens. “Now wait a minute—,”
I move faster. Far fucking faster, fueled by rage that reddens my vision as I slam into him. My hand finds my father’s throat. And the man that raised me – that I looked up to, and idolized, and trusted – he shows me his throat, tipping up his neck.
He submits.
“Do not say a fucking word more to me,” I breathe. “Because I will do worse than hurt you. I will go out there and tell every single fucking person in Widow’s Peak about the spineless bastard who let an omega suffer for his son’s crimes. Who covered them up and let her take the fall. I will not stop until every investor pulls out, until your businesses fail and until you have nothing and nobody left. I will fuckingruinyou.”
Because that’s what will hurt him most. His wallet.
My hands tighten. He struggles under my grip, his already ruddy face purpling.
And then I release them, stepping back. Turning my back on him, I scoop the reports up and head for the door. Stopping, I voice a question. “Did she know? Mom?”
All I can hear is his stuttered, heavy breathing. “I told her the same as you. She… she didn’t know about his genes. I buried it. She didn’t need that stress.”
My lips tighten. “So you’re a shit mate, as well as a shit father.”
I leave him with that, leave him massaging his bruised throat as I walk out of that house and close the door behind me. The sky's still blue above my head, the sun heading toward setting, and our neighbor from across the street lifts his hand in greeting as he jogs past.
As if everything is normal, and my world hasn’t just ended.
They’re there as I pull up to the house. Oscar is already halfway down the path, Max yanking on a shirt as he follows and Jake pulling the door closed behind them.
They turn to face me, surprise across their faces as I turn off the engine.
Oscar reaches me first. I stare down at the wheel in my hands. “You know what I’m going to say.”
“Some of it. She told you.” There’s no question in his words. Only a deep undercurrent of emotion, his voice tight and controlled.
“Some. Not… not all, I don’t think.” Slowly, I reach for the paperwork and pass it through the window. “Here. This should have the rest.”
A hand grips my shoulder. Oscar. “Get out of the car, Theo.”
“I hurt her.” My eyes start to burn.
“He hurt her,” Max snaps behind him. “That piece of shit.”
“Yes. But we hurt her too,” Oscar says quietly. He’s studying me. As he always does to everyone around him, learning them. “We all bear a part of the responsibility here. It’s not all on your shoulders.”
