Page 165 of Deacon

I turned on Richard. “Yeah, I already know you’re the reason Jade’s gone. That doesn’t explain the text Lila got or where the hell she is now.” I crossed the room until he had to look up at me. “You behind that too?”

His head snapped up. “What? No. No, I don’t know anything about that. I don’t know where Lila is.”

I grabbed his shirt and hauled him out of the chair. “Then how,” I roared in his face, “did whoever texted her know Jade was missing? How’d they know enough to lure her out?”

His eyes widened. “I don’t know!”

I dragged him closer. “Bullshit.”

“I don’t know!” Fear finally broke through the arrogance. “I just wanted to prove to her how bad you are for her. How corrupt you are!”

I shoved him back into the chair and stared down at him. “That’s rich coming from you.”

The room went silent. Matty stopped breathing hard enough to hear. Evan stood frozen near the kitchen, and Cage had lifted his head from the corner. Richard’s face changed because he knew exactly what I meant.

There was no reason left to protect him.

“Me overhearing that the deputy chief of police of Wicker Falls was on the Kings of the Fall’s payroll is the reason I left town.” My voice stayed low because yelling wouldn’t make the truth any uglier. “Destroying evidence. Creating blind spots. Falsifying response times. Making case files disappear. Using confidential police databases to check motels, commercial properties, apartment complexes, making sure the places the club wanted weren’t under federal surveillance or local vice investigation so they could set up safe houses and brothels with your all clear.” I leaned closer. “Planning to gut vice, trafficking, and juvenile exploitation units over time so nobody’d be around to look too hard at what they were moving.”

Richard shook his head, color draining from his face. “No.”

“Yes.” Seventeen years of silence sat behind the word. “I heard it. Then I got caught overhearing it. They either owned me for life after that or they were going to put me in the ground.” My jaw ached from clenching it. “So I ran. I left behind the only friend who ever meant a damn thing to me and the woman I loved more than air because I couldn’t stand there and tell them their hero was the villain in town.”

Richard looked past me toward Matty, suddenly desperate for his son. “Matty,” he said, voice cracking. “It’s not what he says.”

Matty didn’t move.

Evan’s hand flew to his mouth before the words escaped anyway. “What the everloving fuck. Lila is going to lose her mind when she finds out this.”

That broke whatever shock had held Matty still. He stepped toward his father, face going cold in a way I’d seen on cops who had just realized the person across from them had been lying for years. “Is this true?” His voice stayed quiet. “Did you work with the club? Were you dirty? Did you talk shit about Jackson all these years while you were taking money from the people you said were trash?”

Richard pushed himself to his feet, hands trembling. “It’s not what you think. I wasn’t dirty.” Desperation climbed into every word. “It was for your mother. We needed the money for her treatments, for the trials, for keeping her alive. Insurance didn’t cover all of it. I was trying to save her. It was only supposed to be for a little while.”

Matty recoiled like the confession had landed physically. “That’s not the defense you think it is,” he shouted.

“It was for your mom!”

“She didn’t want all of that!” Matty’s voice cracked loud enough that Cage flinched. “She wanted to stop long before you let her. She hated the trials. Hated the meds. She was exhausted and miserable and you forced her through more because you couldn’t let go.” Grief twisted his face, old and fresh at the same time. “You did all that for nothing. She would be disgusted with you if she knew where that money came from.”

Richard folded in on himself. “I couldn’t lose her, son.” His voice dropped with the rest of him. “She was my everything. I... I couldn’t let her go.”

He sat heavily, and for a moment nobody moved. I remembered Rose sick. Remembered how Matty had carried losing his mother while still trying to hold Lila together, all of it happening after I’d already disappeared.

Then Matty turned to me, and the anger in his face had changed shape. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “You held this all this time?” Hurt broke through next. “You should’ve told me.”

A short, ugly laugh escaped me. “Fuck you. Told you what? That your dad was dirty? That the man you and Lila looked up to was taking money from the same club you wanted me to claw away from?” I stepped toward him because I couldn’t hold still with seventeen years sitting between us. “It would have destroyed your family. It would have broken her heart. And in the end I’d have been the bad guy anyway.”

Matty’s mouth tightened, but he let me finish.

“So yeah,” I said. “I made the coward’s choice. I ran. Fuck man, I was twenty. I had no time to think. No good options. Stay and get owned forever or killed. Tell you and destroy your whole goddamn life. Leave and maybe keep all of you safe while you hated me.” My voice roughened around the truth I had lived with ever since. “I chose hate.”

Matty looked away. When he came back to me, he looked exhausted more than angry. “Yeah,” he said after a long second. “I can see it from your side.” He scrubbed both hands over his face. “I would’ve hated you for being the one to bring him down. And I did hate you for leaving.” His voice cracked. “My baby sister was pregnant and alone. My best friend was gone. My mom was dying. I had no one to lean on, man.”

That hit exactly where it should have. I had spent years carrying what leaving cost me. Standing there, I finally had to look straight at what it had cost him.

“And I think...” Matty breathed out roughly. “I think deep down I always suspected Jade was yours. I saw the way you looked at Lila. The way she looked at you. The way you always found each other in a room.” He shook his head. “I didn’t want to see it. But I knew.”

My throat burned. There was too much to say and none of it belonged in this moment.