Torin doesn’t move. The news of his brother again, the finality of it. Judah isn’t coming home.
I knew that.
I just don’t know if Pretty Boy was still holding on to hope that maybe something went wrong and his brother was still floating around somewhere.
“That’s why you’re so pissed off,” Torin replies in a detached tone. “I almost helped finish what Judah couldn’t. The tearing in the lining, the way she was molding and changing us. We weren’t picking each other anymore. We chose her. I dropped her in the middle of the ocean. She can’t swim—but you know that, right? I was going to fuckingkillher. I was going to make the only piece of blood you have left in this world?—”
“You won’t make it past theweekif you don’t shut the hell up.”
“I just thought you should hear the dirty details from me, Dad. Because we both know you were never going to give Bay the seat. Not for long anyway. We both know you werenevergoing to give up your power trip. You were going to take the fifth seat and give Ramsey The Landings because she would never leave Wallace. Not for us. Not for anybody.”
His voice cracks a bit at the end, as if his heart’s broken, and he’s accepted the fact he’ll never compare to Levi.
Torin holds his chin up like a soldier, facing off to his adversary and mine, admitting to his actions and the consequences they would’ve held.
It does nothing to slow my racing heartbeat. The world only stops turning for a moment because I’m linked up to a man who has done ungodly things to me, but I still stand at his side against his enemy.
Against mine.
“Wildfire,” he mutters ever-so-softly. His voice soothes over my skin and wraps tightly around my veins. “Take my car, and get home.”
I can’t.
Not with this tension in the room. Not when Emilio is so damn pissed.
“Come with me,” I return instinctively. “This argument doesn’t need to happen now.”
“I have Kona and Koda. Take one.”
“Torin—”
“This shit endsnow,” Emilio leers, stealing my attention away from his son. His piercing blue eyes are locked and loaded on me with dejection and the awareness of what’s going on. What he’s already admitted to knowing. “You better think long and hard about this. I’m not going to sit here like a fool while you continue to double down on both sides. Youaremy daughter, my blood. I could give you everything you ever wanted. Your sisters will never want for anything with me. I’m offering you power, money, and security, Haven. Your mother was a smart woman, but it wasn’t the illegal activities I was doing or the fact I was a bad man. It was that she loved Roger and was carrying my child. I was young, hard-headed, and just as fuckin’ petty as the boy standing next to you. No one was going to get what was mine.”
You need to leave.
You need to get out of here.
“So, right here and now, is where your whole life is going to change,” Emilio continues. “It’s either me or mysonwho has done nothing but make your life a living hell. Someone who has already attempted to take you out of this world. I’ve never laid a hand on you but at this point, my patience is wearing thin. It’s either Torin or me. Who are you going to choose to save your family?”
TWENTY-THREE
torin
I’ve never heardEmilio be so fucking dramatic in my life.
The desperation in his hardened tone isn’t lost on me. Since my brothers and I are such alleged “fuckups,” Bay is his only true savior to rescue everything he’s ever worked for.
I mean, in a delusional world, I guess.
He doesn’t know her the way I do. In any other circumstance, I may be nervous she’d choose Emilio over me, but I’m not. It doesn’t matter if she hates me and never wants to be associated with me ever again, this woman will not ride or die for the man who went head-to-head with Roger Astor.
She’s born and bred South Shore, through and through. She murdered her little girlfriend in the middle of a vacant parking lot over her betrayal of Wallace. Another link to her hometown. It would be a cold day in hell if she turned on her community to ride it out with its rival.
I’m not entirely sure why Daddy Dearest over here doesn’t see that.
Or maybe he doesn’t want to see it.
Maybe he was having too much fun confirming the death of my brother.
