“Too fucking late.”
He tugged away from me, his face stern once again. “I know, and I know you feel like you failed her, but you need to buck up.”
His words struck me hard, and I immediately stiffened, but he didn’t let me pull away. His hand clapped the side of my face and he held me in place, forcing me to look at him.
“As shitty as you feel, she’s in hell right now, and she needs you fighting her corner. You can’t fall apart when she needs you. So, get it all out now. Go hit something. Tear a goddamn room apart if you need to. And then you come back here and sit by her side. Hold her hand and tell her you’ll be there every fucking step of the way. Because this isn’t about you.”
His words struck like a dagger to the chest, splitting me wide open. My tears dried almost instantly, and as I looked over my shoulder at the broken woman lying in that bed, the anger slipped away to the background, leaving me able to function once again.
“Come with me, son.”
I wasn’t ready to leave her side, but he was right. I needed to get my head on straight for Ellie, so I could do whatever she needed when she woke up. I followed my old man down the hall to an empty room, and once inside, I waited for him to speak.
“You look just like him,” he started, his eyes full of anger.
“Now is not the time?—”
“It’s why I’ve always been such a shitty father.” Sighing, he shoved his fingers through his hair and paced away from me.“Your grandfather used to be beat the shit out of me whenever he got the chance, and I swore when I had kids of my own, I would treat them better than he ever did me. Little did I know you would be his exact replica.”
When his eyes met mine, they were filled with tears and regret. I had never understood my old man’s hatred. He’d never bothered to say a word, and my mother just defended him without explaining.
“When I looked at you, all I could see was him. I know that I should have gotten over it a long time ago, but…the things he did to me—Ryder, there are some things in life you never get past. He was it for me. My own personal demon that destroyed something inside me that I never got back. It was only because of your mother that I didn’t take my own goddamn life.”
“You never said anything,” I croaked out, devastated by what he was telling me.
“I was so angry for so long,” he murmured. “Even now…I look at you, and I see someone who wanted me dead, who hated me so much that if it weren’t for your mother…”
I stepped forward, slowly raising my hand to his shoulder, gripping it tightly.
“She was my lifeline, Ryder. And I never could manage to get past your similarities—until now. What happened to Ellie will haunt her forever, and she’s gonna be scared for a long time. She’s gonna need someone strong like you by her side. Don’t let her fall into the same trap I did. It’ll eat you alive.”
And with that, he walked out of the room, leaving me along with a revelation I never saw coming. It didn’t make the way he treated me any better, but knowing what he suffered helped me to understand why our relationship had always been so strained.
Heading back to her room, I swiped the tears from my face and steeled myself for when she woke up. I didn’t have the firstfucking clue how to handle this, what to say, or if I should even touch her.
“Just let her guide you,” Caroline said softly, as if she could read my mind.
Nodding, I sat back down beside the bed, taking her hand in mine once again. Dad followed me into the room, hanging back.
“Do you want me to leave?”
I didn’t know. I didn’t want her waking up with an audience, but I couldn’t stand the thought of sitting here alone with the demons swirling in my head, telling me I had fucked up.
Dad didn’t wait for an answer. He took the seat across from me, leaning back in his seat. “Just tell me when you need me to leave.”
Swallowing hard, I nodded, my eyes never leaving the woman I loved.
I sat there for hours, just watching her, cataloguing every bruise on her body, thinking about how terrified she must have been. I didn’t have the full picture yet. When we found her, she’d been too traumatized to talk about it. But I knew it had been horrible.
How did I help her through that? When I closed my eyes, all I saw was her broken body. I could only imagine the horrors waiting in her dreams, threatening to pull her under every time her eyes closed.
When the early morning light started to peek through the shades, Dad stood and headed for the door.
“I’ll get you coffee.”
“Thanks,” I murmured, though I doubted I could handle keeping anything in my stomach right now.
My eyes drifted to her wrist, to the bandages that covered the damaged skin from where she tried to free herself from the ropes binding her in that basement. I didn’t need to hear the wordsfrom her lips. It was written all over her body, every fucking thing he did to her was painted on her in bruises.
