There’s a pause. I hear him breathing. Always the same trick: see if I’ll break first. And I hate how my heart stammers in my chest, how my hands are turning clammy.
“Don’t talk to me like that,” Dad says. His voice is smoke and gravel, and every syllable is a hook. “You know why I’m calling.”
“No clue,” I say.
He clicks his tongue, annoyed. “You been following the news?”
“Obviously.” I swallow, then, “You think it was me.”
Another silence, longer this time.
“I don’t think anything. I know.” His voice is so cold, so distant.
I want to tell him to fuck off so badly, to hang up and turn my back on the whole mess. But if he’s calling, he’s desperate. And desperate men are dangerous. I force my voice steady. “What do you want?”
Dad’s voice drops to a whisper. “If they find him, it’s over for all of us.”
I scoff. “There’s nous.”
“They won’t let this go so easily,” he says. “She knows too much, we all do.”
I grit my teeth. “No one’s finding anything. You know it.”
He lets out a shaky laugh. “I can’t protect you.”
“Like you ever did,” I spit back. “This isn’t about protecting me; it’s about covering your own ass. You knew about Coach, probably before anyone else.” Maybe he didn’t know everything, but he always knew enough.
“I’m not going down for this. Give them a name, Dimitri,” he says, his voice sharp.
“You want me to give you Hope.” I keep my voice low, so no one in the living room can hear. Dad sighs, and somehow it’s even worse than his anger.
“The world needs a villain. Don’t choose to be the hero.”
I want to say something sharp, something final, but my tongue is dead in my mouth. I know what’s really being said: it’s not about right or wrong, not anymore. It’s about survival, about legacy, about who’ll still be standing when they finish combing the bones from the ground.
“And if I don’t?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer and the line goes dead.
When I go back to the living room, the others look up like they were just waiting for my return. Knox’s face is stone, but I catch how he flicks a glance at Hope and then away, like maybe if he looks too long she’ll break again. Jax juggles the TV remote in his hand, but he’s not watching anything; he’s biting the inside of his cheek so hard I can see the blood on his gums.
Hope’s eyes are on me, like she knew all along that the call was coming, and she’s waiting for the verdict.
“Bad news?” Jax finally says.
“Nothing we didn’t expect,” I say, and try to make it sound like a joke, but it lands flat.
Hope tugs her knees closer to her chest, curling in until she’s barely a shape on the couch. I want to tell her it’s fine, that I’ll handle my dad, but she’s not an idiot and I’m a shitty liar. I sit next to her, give her some space, but she leans sideways until our arms touch. It’s nothing, but I feel it right to the bone.
“You okay?” I whisper.
She shrugs. “No,” she says, so softly I almost miss it. “Do you think they’re going to find the body?”
“Honestly, no clue. But it won’t be an easy find,” I say.
“Dogs,” Jax chips in. “Fucking dogs.”
“We’ll be okay,” I whisper to Hope as I glare at Jaxon for his dog comment.
