Leaving her mom was always hard, but Carys could tell she was exhausted and needed to rest.
Besides, she had to get to her father’s house. She needed to make some excuse for why she couldn’t get close to anyone in the club. Then she’d ask him to show her the cure. He’d always claimed it was in the safe and he’d give it to her as soon as he got revenge on Kansas.
Of course, he modified their agreement as it suited him. Each time she got close to the goal, he moved the goalposts.
At first, she just had to spy on them and feed him information. Which she did from afar. Never the clubhouse, just the bar, she monitored who was there and when. Then he said she just needed to get inside and kiss Kansas. That was it. After he saw her with Monster, he changed everything again.
Now that her mom knew about her dad, and swore he couldn’t help, Carys was done with the man. This was the last time she’d see her father. She just needed to extract herself in such a way that Monster and the Kings didn’t pay.
She cried for her mom all the way across town. Even though her mom had been sick for a while, Carys hadn’t really accepted it. Instead, she clung to hope. At first, in the doctors, then her father. Now that it was an impossibility, she was grieving.
With a steadying breath, she entered her dad’s house for what would be the last time.
“Oh, my darling daughter. I’m in the office, come, come.” His disembodied voice floated toward her the second she crossed the threshold. Of course he was waiting for her. He was hoping her night had been fruitful.
She entered his ridiculously appointed office to find him sitting behind his desk, sipping whiskey with a smug expression on his face.
Before he could question her or brag about whatever had caused that smug expression, she forged ahead, hoping to catch him off guard.
“I want you to show it to me. Now. If it exists, I want to see it.” Carys placed her hands on the desk and did her best to stare him down. While he may not have a wolf anymore, and was a touch overweight, the man was still very intimidating.
After an uncomfortably long time, he dropped his eyes and shrugged his shoulders.
Carys knew for certain in that moment that everything was a lie. She was a fool to think he would or could help. It wasn’t even him she was mad at; he was, after all, just being himself. It was all her fault. She knew better. Her mother had warned her for years, but she willingly suspended her disbelief to grasp at illusions of straws.
Carys had done this to herself … and her mother. Oh god. She’d tortured her mother with meds and trials, and why? For her inner child, who was abandoned by her father and would do anything to save the one person who loved her? She had wanted him to love her too and say he was wrong.
“You let me believe you could—hell, would—help Mom. Do you know what I put her through, just hoping you’d swoop in and save the day? When you finally reached out to me, I thought …” Carys trailed off. She wouldn’t beg to be loved, never again. “Was it all a setup? Did you sever the mate bond or whatever to get to me?”
Her father didn’t say a word in his defense. Just looked at her with a raised eyebrow that said, what do you think?
“Mother is right, you’re using me. So, what was the plan? It can’t be experiments since the pack is gone.” Then it hit her. He’d never lied about using her. Hell, he’d given her the assignment. “Kansas?”
His expression changed then, not to one of anger but one of sinister glee, for lack of a better description.
“I’ll not help you take down that man or his club. I’m done with all of this, and I’m done with you. You’ll never love me, no matter what I do. I see that now.” She eyed the letter opener. She could grab it, bury it in his neck and end it. Monster and his club would be safe.
Her hand twitched, and she was reaching for it when her father grabbed it. He was holding the letter opener but still looking at her the same way. Fuck it, she was going to tell Monster everything and let his club handle it.
She turned to walk out before turning back.
“I do want to thank you, though. You finally opened my eyes to who you really are. Now I can forget about you for good. I’m free. I’ll never spend another minute wondering why you didn’t want me. No more tears missing a dad who isn’t capable of loving anyone but himself.”
He laughed. “Is that all you’ve got? You’re just giving up on your lifelong dream of having a loving father? No histrionics? No wailing and pleading? I seem to remember you doing just that when you begged me to help your poor, sick mother. You told me how much you always missed me and was so happy to have your daddy back. You’re just going to throw it all away, when the cure could be just there in the safe? Tucked away and waiting for you to finish your mission.”
“It’s not.” She said with confidence.
“No, it’s not, my wayward child. You’ve got me there. Oh, but you believed, didn’t you? You believed so much that you were willing to do anything to save your whore of a mother and, of course, to earn my love.”
Just when she thought the man couldn’t sink any lower, he found new depths to descend to. Of all the things he’d said, one stung more than anything else.
“My mother is not a whore.”
“She was.” He slammed the letter opener into the desk. “She was in the breeding program, and she would get fucked ten times a day. She cried and begged us to stop, but she enjoyed every minute of it. I could tell.”
Carys was horrified at his words. Her knees threatened to give out, so she locked them in place and clenched her jaw.
Her poor mother. Oh God. What she must’ve endured. She’d told Carys a bit about the pack, as a warning to steer clear. She’d never told Carys that she had been systematically raped by them, by … him. Carys was the result of that. How could her mother even look at her and not throw up?
