“I-I don’t k-know what y-you’re talking about.” The tremble in my voice is impossible to hide.
“Why are you so scared then?” His voice is a challenge in my ear as he reaches for the knob on the basement door.
I dig my feet in hard, but my cheap flip-flops are no match to his strength. I lose them in the struggle to avoid being pushed through the door. “I-I’ve h-heard about w-what happens down there. Please don’t.”
He shakes me again, so hard it stuns me enough he’s able to push me through the doorway. Darkness wraps around us like a living, breathing thing. Stale air hits my nose, and it’s almost enough to make me puke again. My stomach twists and turns, knotting and clenching relentlessly.
I slip more than once as TJ forces me to descend the stairs with rough shoves to my back. They creak under our weight, the rough wood painful against the bare soles of my feet. How I’m concerned about splinters when there are more treacherous things at play right now is beyond me.
“Those stories?” TJ snips in my ear. “Did you happen to tell that information to your d—”
“Dad?” I hiss when my eyes adjust to the single light at the bottom of the stairs. It casts very little around the room, giving it a sinister glow so ominous the stains and shadows seem to come alive.
I gasp at the sight of my father, beaten and bloody, standing on a wobbly chair with a thick rope wrapped around his throat. He’s surrounded by a semi-circle of leather-wearing men. Each one of them is staring in my direction with such hatred in their eyes, I feel as if my skin is covered in spiders. Ronan, standing against the far back wall, is the only one who looks like he might be mildly uncomfortable.
“W-what’s going on?” I ask when my eyes find Lynch’s.
Lynch.
The rope.
What an inopportune time to put two and fucking two together.
He hangs people. The rope around my father’s neck is purposeful. He won’t walk out of here alive, and neither will I.
“You tell me,” he insists, his words emotionless.
Just like the transformation upstairs with TJ, I realize I don’t know this man either. This isn’t the man who held me against his chest last night and promised he wasn’t going anywhere. This isn’t the man who let the shutters slip away from his guarded heart when he looked me in the eye as he claimed my body for the first time.
I don’t want to know this man. I want nothing to do with him.
“I didn’t do anything,” I vow.
It’s not the whole damn truth, because I should’ve told him what happened with my father, but to my credit, he was gone when we got back.
TJ shakes me, forcing my head to snap back and forth on my shoulders so hard my teeth clack together. Lynch flexes his hands at his side. I focus on that. On second look, he’s not indifferent. He’s broken…but resigned. He’s already made his mind up. Just like TJ confessed in the kitchen, hurting me will kill him, but it won’t stop it from happening.
“You’re as useless as your fucking mother,” my dad spits, but I keep my focus on Lynch. He’s not saying anything I haven’t heard before. His words barely register anymore. The father I wanted to love, the father I thought I’d had the early years of my childhood, never actually existed.
Lynch is the only one who can make a difference here. His word is law. He’s the only one who can change the direction of today’s events. Pleading with anyone else won’t make a bit of difference.
“This isn’t you then?” Lynch tosses down a stack of pictures Briar just handed him.
I didn’t notice Briar until now, but that fucking coward won’t even look my way. As if he’s the only one with morals while every other Ravens Ruin member glares at me with repulsion. He may not agree with what’s going on, but he won’t try to stop it either. His loyalty is with his club.
My eyes dart down, taking in the black and white photos of me walking out of the mall bathroom, and my father taking the same route a few minutes later.
I see the sadness in my eyes in one, only to see my resilience lock into place in the next. I didn’t want to upset Molly, and honestly, at that moment, I didn’t want Smalls to hurt my dad.
“You want me to believe it was pure coincidence that you ended up at Andover with Molly?” The calm, lack of emotion in his voice terrifies me. “Your dad has been after my club for the last twenty-five years, and I’m just supposed to accept that you’re here by chance?”
“He killed my fucking mother!” TJ roars in my ear loud enough to make me shrink away from him as much as I’m able.