He coughs and struggles against his restraints. “Tucker, please—”
“You know, this is why I want nothing to do with this fucking life. If the commission had come to me, told me the full story, and asked what I wanted, you wouldn’t fucking be here right now. Either of you. But they decide what they see as justice. Fuck them, and fuck you, too. All of you.”
Reaching out, I yank his oxygen from his nose, tearing the tube to prevent it from being used again. The coughing and wheezing worsens, and he stares with wide eyes.
“You don’t deserve any kind of luxury. If I had my way, you’d sit here until you suffocated. But I’m not in charge. Why I’m trusting a man who got his own daughter killed because he wanted to use me as a pawn, I have no idea, but I’m fucking done.”
John steps forward. “I apologize, Tucker. Sincerely.”
“Youapologize?” I snort. “That all you got to say to me?”
“I took the love of your life away. I’m the reason I lost my daughter. It’s been eating away at me that you saw me as an ally after everything that happened and knowing the truth of what I did.”
“Yeah, you did.”
Everything I believed and mourned was nothing. Joanna may have loved me, but everything we had started out as a way to lure me into a trap. To end my life. All because her father wanted to kill mine.
I was just a means to an end.
Like Phoebe.
“Joanna did love you,” Jacob says.
Joanna’s younger brother, and her closest confidant, steps forward. If she told anyone the truth about anything, it would be him. But how much can I trust this family?
“She came to me in tears when she realized she’d screwed up and fallen in love. It wasn’t the plan, but you weren’t what she thought. What any of us thought.”
“Gee, thanks.”
He tries to reach out to me, but I slap his hand away. They’re all fucking lucky I don’t knock them out and set this place on fire with everyone in it. Commission approval be damned.
“When Dad told her he wasn’t going to stop the hit on your life, she needed money to help her run away with you. She was never happier than she was with you, and she saw you as her future.”
“That doesn’t mean as much as it used to,” I say. “You know, considering she was only with me to help me get dead and all.”
Sighing, he nods. “I understand. But don’t hold it against her. She vowed she’d die for you, and she did.”
“That was your fucking fault!” I scream. “I’ve hated my father every minute of every day since she died. I killed my own brother. And I’ve handed my father over to you. And all of this happened because of you fucking idiots!”
“Let me go,” Father wheezes. “We’ll get revenge our own way—”
“Ryan stole twelve grand from Phoebe. He and his men broke into her bakery and tried to take her. Then he kidnapped her at gunpoint after hiring junkies to occupy me by attacking my business. You get nothing from me.”
He sniffles. “Tucker, please. I… can’t… breathe.”
“Good,” I growl. “You all deserve each other. I’m fucking done. Every one of you is dead to me.”
“Tuck—”
“Don’t. I get where you were coming from, Tanner, but I’m tired of being lied to. By everyone. Better mind your business because I’m not helping if you fuck up and end up with a bounty on your head. I saved your life once by convincing them to give you the family. That’s all you get.”
Tanner just gives a curt nod before stepping back into the corner. There’s some sympathy for John and his sons, but at the end of the day, Joanna died because he wanted me dead.
They’re all equally responsible.
Father continues to struggle, and his lips turn blue. I lean down and smile in his face. “I want you to think about how Joanna struggled to breathe as I held her after you and Ryan slashed her to pieces. How he didn’t stop when I stepped in the way. She couldn’t breathe, either.”
“Tucker…”
