Dante’s entire demeanor changed, his face dark and scary, and there was the guy who managed to be part of one of the largest gangs in our area. Who managed to live in the world of Delta and not get completely annihilated. He was tough. Not Beck or Dylan level, but still up there. I’d always thought he could have fit in with the heirs, only now they would probably never trust him.
“Who do I need to kill?” he said, the words barely audible but the fury clear as fuck. Only someone that had lived our life, especially recently, would take my statement as truth and not laugh. Somehow, Dante knew I wasn’t joking around.
“It’s a long story,” I said as I moved toward the couch. Dante followed, his eyes assessing me closer this time, no doubt noticing the way I was moving quite gingerly.
“Tell me everything, Riles,” he said when we were seated, a few inches between us.
I turned to him. “I will, as long as you tell me absolutely everything that Catherine has done and manipulated in my life.”
He paled, skin resembling the white curtains behind me. “You got the files and the phone?”
I nodded. “Yes. But I want to hear it all from you. I want to know how you fought her.”
I had faith in him.
Dante nodded, and then he started his story. Beck and Dylan returned a few minutes after Dante started talking, and the three of us were silent, giving him his chance to explain. His chance for confession and redemption.
It was fucking painful for me at times, when he spoke about her manipulation, which was much further spread than I’d expected. One example was Dante destroying all of my college applications—except those in this state—to ensure I would never be able to go far from Catherine.
Beck’s chest was rumbling as he pulled me back into him, but I couldn’t look away from Dante.
“I did what I could though, Riles,” he said, his eyes pleading with me to understand. “Wherever I could lie to her and get away with it, I did, and I tried to stop your parents’ accident. I warned your father. But he did the fucking opposite of what I asked.”
He palmed the top of his head, rubbing a hand across the short strands when he closed his eyes. “It was a fucking mess, and I was saving money to try and get us all out, but…” he paused, and I almost held my breath waiting for him to finish. “There was a kid before me,” he said in a quiet, pained voice, “and I will never forget how she took her out.”
What?
“Who?” I said, body trembling.
He squeezed his eyes closed again. “Fuck. Riles. I hate being the one who has to tell you this.”
“Dante,” I snapped, fear making me mad. “I need to know. I need to know everything. You didn’t protect me from keeping me in the dark, you made me weak. I’m not fucking weak any longer.”
Beck stroked his hand down my side, and I felt a tiny bit better.
That seemed to strike a chord with Dante, because he stopped hesitating. “Your friend from elementary school, Scarlett … she didn’t just move away in the fourth grade.”
I paused. “What happened to her?”
He snorted but there was nothing remotely amused about it. “Her entire family was killed in an explosion. Final ruling was a faulty electrical board that caught fire and blew the car up. But I knew it was Catherine.”
My head spun as I tried to reconcile what he was saying with what I remembered. Scarlett and I were inseparable for years, but then she was just gone, and she’d never kept in touch.
“Her parents worked for Catherine,” Dante whispered, “and they used their daughter to keep track of you. But when they got scared and ran, Catherine had them killed.”
A choked cry escaped from my throat. My entire fucking life was a lie.
Dante reached out for me. “She never knew, though.” He was rushing to say this, trying to pull me from the dizzying spin I was in. “I didn’t have much time to know her before she ran—Catherine was bringing me in because they had expressed interest in getting out—but it was clear she never had a clue. She loved you, Riles.”
I held a hand up, unable to speak. Standing, I rushed into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me. Stepping farther into the brightly lit room, I let my gaze linger on my reflection. I looked pale, and small, with a mess of dark hair floating around me.
Catherine had reduced me to this. To a shell of the former person I was. A shell of the fucking person I could have been.
A scream ripped from me before I could stop it. An angry, pissed off, rage filled scream. Reaching forward, I smashed my hands through all the shit around the sink, sending it flying before I turned and moved for the cupboard nearby.
Strong hands caught me before I sent the rest of my makeup and toiletries flying.
I struggled for a beat, but common sense kicked in quickly. I was never going to shake Beck. He didn’t say anything, he just held me, tight enough that it … actually helped. After a minute, I no longer felt like I was going to shake into a million pieces, my fury and pain so strong that my cells could no longer contain it.
