There it is.
“You were trying to get rid of me.” I put two and two together, directing my gaze to the dashboard for long seconds. A tad worried, Finn reaches for my hand resting on my lap, but I move my arm away. He reads me loud and clear. I’m going to need more details.
And I’m going to need them now.
“But that was before everything. Before I knew you. Before I let you know me. Fuck, Dia, you have to understand I had no idea back then that I’d fall in love with you.”
It hits me.
“Oh my God. Is that why you borrowed money from the guy who killed Lexie? To hire a PI?”
He doesn’t need to answer for me to know that I’m right on. The way he lowers his head, staring at his hands, says plenty. I slouch into the passenger’s seat, staring ahead of me with glassy eyes.
The boy I love hired a PI to ruin my life. He paid someone to find out information to hurt my family. What did he think was going to happen? The PI would uncover my family’s dirty laundry and he could blackmail me into quitting?
“I’m so fucking sorry. I should’ve told you sooner.”
“But you didn’t,” I state the obvious.
“I couldn’t,” he corrects. “I was stuck, Dia. I couldn’t tell you about the PI without also telling you…” He smacks his mouth shut before he can say too much. I get the feeling that he didn’t realize what he was saying until it was too late.
“Without telling me what?” I ask.
He hesitates, fidgeting with his fingers.
“Without telling me what, Finn?” I’m like a dog with a bone.
“I didn’t want it to come out this way, but… she found something. Information about your birth parents.”
“What information?”
He throws his head back against the headrest with a sigh.
It’s about to get worse, isn’t it?
“I know you think your dad was a no-show. That he bailed on your mom when you were a baby, but he didn’t. Truth is, he was in jail. He got twenty years shortly after you were born.”
Jail.
The word echoes in my brain as I try to come to terms with what it means. Jail, jail, jail. Nope, still doesn’t sound real.
“My biological father’s a criminal?”
Finn doesn’t confirm anything, giving me a much-needed moment to take it all in.
“What did he do?” It feels like my airways are thinning by the second.
“He…” Finn struggles to finish his sentence. “He was a child molester.”
That’s all it takes for my hopes and dreams to go up in flames. I spent most of my life wondering what he was like. If he was out there, if he even knew he had a daughter. I dreamed of a man worth knowing, only to find out he was the monster you warn your children about.
“Oh, God.” It’s all I can bring myself to say.
What else is there to say?
There’s no redemption possible here.
No world, no universe in which my father could be a good man.