Chapter 28
Iwas going to be sick.
Thorin strode in, his footsteps echoing through the room. His dark hair was slicked back, his noxious presence taking over the entire place. His grin chilled me to the bone, a triumph there that terrified me. The man had the same imposing presence as when I’d first met him, a malevolence in his stare, a deadness there birthed from pure evil.
He was flanked by three guys outfitted in black, with guns strapped at their sides. They moved with the fluidity of experience, with not only competence in their job but the understanding of coordination.
This had all been planned.
I’d walked straight into danger, and my father had been complicit. Had he been threatened? Had…
When I looked at him, the bowed posture, the tremors rocking through him, the way he refused to meet my eyes told me everything I needed to know.
No, he’d sold me out.
My stomach rolled. Oh fuck.
My throat squeezed tight, and I backed up a step, farther away from him.
“I’m sorry, Beau,” he begged, staring into his mug as if it might absolve him somehow. “I was out of options.”
Fuck. Disgust roiled through me. How could he? Howcouldhe? Rage thrummed through me, and sheer despair tugged on its heels. This was my father. I’d sacrificedeverythingfor him—twice. The conversations we’d had since I’d entered the Spires, the check-ins, all the concern he’d levied my way with message after message—had it been fabricated? My mind spun at a dizzying force as the weight of this descended.
My own father.
The person who’d raised me, who’d taken care of me as a kid, wholovedme.
Yet he’d sold me out.
To Thorin fucking Glass.
“I’m surprised Cillian let you go,” Thorin said, his cruel voice slicing through the air. “He’s really shown his weakness.”
“Fuck you,” I snarled.
Thorin simply smirked. This apartment seemed to shrink in size, and yet the door and my escape lay interminably far away. A dizzying distance, even though it had felt like nothing when I’d walked in. I glanced at the only avenue out, then back to him, and he shook his head. “We’re all armed, and you won’t get far.”
He lifted the pistol from the holster at his side, making his threat clear. The sight of it caused the breath to snag in my throat. The barrel was exposed, its lethality making the deadliness of the situation crystal clear. Thorin wasn’t fucking around.
Except, then he aimed the gun in the direction of my father.
“You’re no longer of use.”
One moment, my father sat at the kitchen table clutching his mug tight.
The next, the porcelain shattered on the floor, dark liquid flying everywhere. Time slowed as my father tumbled from his chair with a heavy thud, one that resounded through the room. Red liquid and chunks splattered across every available surface. Several flecks hit my cheeks, hot and wet.
I froze in silent horror.
I only looked at where my father landed once, but the sight of him would be emblazoned in my mind forever.
The man I’d known, the one who’d raised me, was splayed out on the floor, his head…fuck, there was so much blood. Rivers of blood. Pools. Pieces of pinkish-gray brain matter strewn across the floor. Splinters of his skull like a scattered jigsaw puzzle. His arms and legs splayed out, unnatural, unmoving.
His head wasn’t intact anymore. My father was no longer recognizable. And his body had stopped moving. The body that had wrapped me in so many soul-squeezing hugs over the years. The one that had held me when I cried over bullies and breakups. The one that had lifted me onto his shoulders as a child so I could pretend to be taller than the trees.
Completely still.
Bile rose in my throat, and I lowered to my knees as I vomited on the floor. Oh god.
