‘We need to talk about that.’ Something in his tone makes every hair on my body prickle like an electric current.
‘What is it?’ Even as I demand answers, instinctively I know I’m not going to want to hear them.
Ryan guides me across the room, tiptoeing beside me like the world below his feet might shatter under his weight. Anxiety rips through my core. He nudges me into a seating position in the leather recliner, which only serves to fuel my alarm.
‘Ryan, you’re scaring me now. What is it?’
Crazy thoughts dance through my brain on a desolate cycle.
Is he sick?
Did somebody die?
Did he accidentally knock up one of those actresses and has a secret baby he wants me to adopt?
He takes a deep breath and kneels beside me.
‘You know how you wanted justice for your parents’ death? How you wanted to find the culprit responsible for running them off the road?’ He takes my hand in his.
‘Yes.’ I can barely breathe. If they have that monster behind bars, it would be the best Christmas present ever. I know it’s supposed to be the season of love and forgiveness but I’ll never forgive what was taken from me. All the memories we were supposed to have made together.
Ryan’s Adam’s apple bobs and dips as his eyes brim with unshed tears. ‘They have him. He’s behind bars. He flew into the country and was detained by security and he confessed everything.’
Ten years’ worth of hurt and injustice surges through every fibre of my body. My shoulders slacken with my relieved out breath and huge salty tears fall from my face to my lap below.
Finally, I can let it go.
Finally, justice will be served.
Just as I’m about to pull Ryan into a celebratory hug, my intuition screams at me. ‘How do you know all of this? What does it have to do with you?’
Black pools of intensity bore straight through me, as if he’s speaking to my soul. ‘Because the man responsible is my father.’
Shock knocks the words right out of my mouth as the reality of the situation kicks me in the gut.
His father.
His dad killed my mam and dad. And ran.
He ran with him.
Shoving him away from me, repulsion crawls over my skin, cold enough to burn.
‘You knew… this whole time…’
He jumps to his feet, following me across the room. ‘I didn’t know, I swear, Sasha. I knew he was involved in something so terrible he dragged us out of the country on the first available flight. It ate him alive every day since, that’s why he turned to drink. I swear to you, I had no idea he was responsible for your parents’ death. Not until about eight hours ago, anyway.’
‘Convenient,’ I spit.
A heartfelt sigh surges from his throat. ‘Actually, Sasha, it’s not convenient. None of it is. You lost your parents and I lost mine.’
‘How dare you? It’s wildly different and you know it.’ A tempestuous rage burns inside my chest. Of all the people in the world, why did it have to be him? Images of my parents flash through my mind. Then the baby we lost. Everything he touches he seems to tarnish. Including me.
‘How could you come back here? Touch me? Hold me, knowing he did that to them? To all of us?’
‘I had to tell you myself, before someone else did. The press will get wind of the story at some point. I swear to you, Sasha, I didn’t know. The second we landed in the States the man abandoned us with no explanation.’
Hurt, loss, frustration, disappointment and anger radiate between us in rippling unpredictable waves.
