I trust you with this and I trust you will do the right thing, I’m just sorry I can’t be there to stand at your side.
They are very powerful people; they have a lot of money and they’ve kept you locked down for too long. It’s time for you to burn as bright as the sun, my Marly, they have stifled you.
Now you have this letter, I have left details for my attorney for you to contact. He will explain everything to you about your inheritance. I know your father believes I did not leave you one and I did that on purpose, I gave him enough to keep him satisfied but he barely has fifteen percent of everything I had. The rest is yours. Please get in touch with the attorney Marly and use what I have left to do the work I should have done.
I am sorry you are dealing with this alone, but I see your strength every day. Break out of their cage and be the woman the world deserves to see.
With all my love,
Grams.
I drop the letter onto the bed, my mind whirring through everything. It’s so much worse than I thought. So, so much worse.
Liam murdered River’s brother, the scars on River are from that fire, I don’t need it confirmed to know that to be the truth. Wetting my lips, I take a deep breath before I pick up the envelope and pull out several printed photographs, stills by the looks of things, taken from a video, and in each one, Liam is clearly visible. There’s no mistaking who it is. That is my brother, that’s him setting each fire, that’s him watching a barn burn. The drive sits beside the letter, and I know I have to look at what’s on it but fear makes my hands shake.
But I don’t let it stop me. I grab the laptop, plug it in and then sit and watch as everything I thought I knew turns to rubble around me.
Chapter Forty-one
Ithrow the bottle of beer over the edge, watching it fall several hundred feet and disappear into the trees below. It’s pitch black, the town is barely lit up ahead of me and only the stars accompany me. I reach for the sixth and last beer in the crate, popping the cap as I take a long, deep drink of it. The alcohol has done nothing to numb the raging war inside of me.
I contemplated going to the pits to fight but ultimately decided I didn’t want to be around anyone, even if beating the shit out of something would have likely quietened the emotion for a little while.
The image of Marly’s face haunts me, her tears and pain so vivid inside my head I wonder if I’ll ever be able to scrub them from memory. I know what I did is unforgivable, I know I humiliated her, but I snapped. I saw him, standing there, nonchalant, free,breathingand it all came back. And I hurt her thinking it would hurt him and it didn’t.
And it’s too late now.
I watched her fall in the mirror of my car as she chased me, begged me to stay and I still left. I left her.
My teeth grind so hard together my jaw aches.
There’s no fixing the pain I just inflicted; I may as well have slapped her across the face. Sadie called but when I didn’t pick up, she sent me a text just stating that she took Marly home and that I was a prick for what I had just done.
The kicker?
Your brother would be ashamed of you, River Sinclair.
He really fucking would be.
Sadie sliced me open with those words; they were just a text, but they may as well have been screamed at the top of her lungs for the whole town to hear.
I thought hurting her would heal something inside of my chest but all it’s done is split it right open. I hadn’t realized she had started to mend the fissures in my soul, had started to patch them together with every second we spent together.
I was so lost to my hatred and revenge I didn’t even notice I’d fallen in love with her.
Marly is not her father or her brother, she is nothing like them and I knew that from day one. But instead of allowing myself to feel, I focused on what she could give me.
And in the end, I didn’t get anything other than a feeling of utter emptiness and a bitter taste in my mouth. I’d resigned myself to believing that Liam and the Mayor would go on and get away with the destruction they caused and the only way I could get closure was if I lessened myself to be on their level. And I hurt the one person who had the power to put all those broken pieces back together.
I could go to her, try to explain, but I wouldn’t want to see me. Not after what I just did. I left her in the dirt, my come still in her panties and ran away.
Tipping the bottle back, I down the rest of the beer and drop it over the edge to join the last one, watching it fall until darkness swallows it. If only that same dark could swallow me too.
A branch snaps behind me, and I spin, finding Liam walking out of the trees. Despite the late hour he’s in a suit and looks pristine, reeking of money and privilege.
“You’re as pathetic as your brother,” He spits.
“The fuck are you doing here?” I step toward him, but I freeze when he points a gun in my direction.
