“Is Tara alive?”
He nods quickly. “Definitely alive. Your man isn’t, I’m sorry to say, but she’s alive. A little worse for wear, but hey, you know how it goes. Come on in and let’s talk.”
I shove inside and Hugh staggers back. Several guns are instantly trained on me as Hugh slams the door and waves his men down. Cormac’s sitting at the table, looking tense—at least he’s smart enough to know how bad their position is right now—and next to him, tied to a chair, is Tara.
Her face is bruised. She’s been hit, at least a few times. She stares at me with tears in her eyes and I glance at the hall where Rory’s body is lying face down in a puddle of black blood.
“I’m sorry,” Tara says and starts to sob. “I’m so sorry.”
“Quiet,” Cormac says and looks at me. “Glad you could join us.”
Hugh walks around me and goes to stand beside Tara. He puts a hand on her shoulder and squeezes hard enough to make her groan, and I step forward, prepared to beat him to death with my bare hands but a gun points at my face.
“Stay where you are,” Hugh says. “All I need to do is say the word and you’re dead. The only reason I haven’t done it yet is because I know all the men you have outside this adorable little cabin are waiting and eager to fill us all with very nasty bullet holes. Let’s have a chat and settle this.”
“Let her go,” I say through clenched teeth. “That’s the only way I’ll talk.”
“The girl’s our fucking leverage,” Cormac says with a sigh. “You know that won’t happen, so be reasonable.”
“What do you think is going to happen here?” I look from Cormac to his son and back again. “I can’t let you leave with her. If you give her to me, I’ll kill you all for hurting her. You can kill me, but then my men will come in here and kill you. What’s the end game? How’s this go?”
“The deal we offered you,” Cormac says, sitting up straight. “You take on the dark parts of the family. We take on the light. This ends with all of us alive because right here and now we decide to work together for once. Listen to me, Kellen, I know you’re angry. I know all you want to do is murder me and my son and all our men and be done with this. But be reasonable. We can all prosper and we can do it together. Look at how we got in behind your back. You’re not perfect.”
I take a deep breath and look at Tara. She’s trembling and crying and her face is swollen and ugly. And right then, looking at my girl, I know what I have to do.
“If you hadn’t hurt her, this might all be different,” I say, staring at Hugh, because I know he was the one stupid enough to touch my wife. Cormac would know better. “But you hit her. You scared her. And now I have to kill you all.”
Hugh sighs and tuts and shakes his head. “Kellen, you still don’t get it, but I know how to change your mind. Tara, tell our friend here what you did to his father.”
She sobs once and shakes her head. “Please,” she says.
Hugh squeezes her shoulder hard. “Tell him.”
“Stop it,” I say, growling as I step forward, but I’m grabbed and held back by two of Hugh’s goons. “Don’t touch her.”
“Tell him,” Hugh says and pulls her hair back. She yelps in pain and he shoves her face forward, angling it to look into my eyes. “Tell him the truth. Tell him what you did to Orin, to his father. Tell him, Tara.”
Tears stream down her face and she opens her mouth and for one moment, none of this is real. For one moment, in my head, we’re back in our room in bed together kissing, laughing, touching each other, enjoying the simple pleasure of being alone and young and yes, in love, I’ll admit it, deeply fucking in love. I pretend like we’re happy, because I’ve never been happy a single fucking day in my life until she came along and changed everything.
“I drugged him,” she says as tears roll down her face. “Slowly, for about a year, I drugged him. I found sleeping pills in your mother’s bathroom and I’d sneak into the main house to steal them. I’d crush them up and put them in your dad’s food whenever I could, as much as I could. I did it all the time, at first just to fuck with him, just to get some petty, stupid revenge for what he did to me. I hated him so much, Kellen, you know why, you understand better than anyone. I thought it didn’t matter and wouldn’t go anywhere.
“But then he started to get worse and worse, and I just kept giving him more pills. Until one night, I got a little too bold, and poured them into his nighttime whiskey. As I was sneaking out, he caught me and held me down and hit me, screamed in my face and demanded to know why I was slinking around the main house, but he was stupid enough to drink the stuff without realizing I’d poisoned it. I told him that I was in there to steal from him and he believed me because he thought so little of me. He hit me and nearly choked me to death, but then the pills kicked in.
“He was a wreck. Slurring, groaning. I got away and ran out into the hall and he chased me. He slammed into doors and walls and I reached the back staircase right as he lunged for me. I didn’t mean to do it—I never planned on doing it—but he was right there and he was so messed up and I just—”
She sobs once and shakes her head.
“I pushed him. I shoved him down the steps. He fell hard, bounced, grunted, and when he hit the bottom, he was bleeding from his head and not moving. I ran then, went out the front, back into my cottage, and I tried to forget. But I couldn’t forget. I killed your dad, Kellen, I killed him and I’m so sorry.”
She sobs hard and Hugh releases her, looking victorious.
The silence is deafening. I can barely think. Blood rushes through my ears. I want to shout, to scream, but I can’t find my voice. I can’t find my body. I’m floating through the air and my feet are dragging over the floor.
“You poisoned him?” I ask softly.
There’s just that one word ringing in my ears: poison.
“They were sleeping pills. I was just—I wanted to hurt him and I didn’t know how else to do it.” She shakes her head, crying hard. “I’m sorry, so sorry.”