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“Baby, let’s get this straight.” Mom breathed out the words, her hand to her mouth. She glanced my way. “Are you saying you tried to kill your grandfather?”
“He isn’t just saying it, Em.” Dad panned my way, Mom moving to his side. She let go of my hand. She let go of me. He stood tall. “He tried to do it. Our son tried to kill my father.”
“It didn’t work—”
“Obviously, it didn’t, Dorian, but you tried to do it.” Dad angled away, his hand covering his mouth, his face. “My son tried to kill my father.”
It was like he was trying to tell it to himself, sink into it, believe it. I stepped forward. “Dad—”
“And now he’s out there with the daughter of your mom’s best friend with no doubt some sick vendetta against you.” He raised and dropped his hand. “He could be holding her because of you.”
I swallowed. “I know.”
“And you just kept this to yourself. You keep keeping things to yourself. Things like Charlie that have serious consequences for not just you but other people in your life. People who care about you, love you.”
“I know, Dad.”
“I just don’t understand. I don’t get it, Dorian. What has your mother done, what have I done to ever warrant such behavior? To warrant you continuing to shut us out.”
“You haven’t done anything.” I started to move, but Dad still had his hand up. He wasn’t looking at me, Mom’s hand to his chest. I cringed. “I didn’t tell you because I was…” Weak. Foolish. “I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I had it handled.”
“Well, you didn’t.” His head angled my way. “And now a girl’s life hangs in the balance.”
But it wouldn’t. It couldn’t. I was going to make this right. I had to make this right. “Dad, if you just let me—”
“Let you what,” he started, but Mom said his name. Dad didn’t get angry. In fact, he wasn’t even raising his voice. There were cops and suits moving past us, and none of them looked our way at all because, to most people, my father didn’t give any obvious tell he was angry.
But I knew my dad’s anger. He didn’t have to raise his voice. The heat rolled off him, thick, weighted.
And it made me sick I was the reason.
I kept doing this to my parents, hurting them. “Let me talk to Grandpa.” They’d taken my phone, and if they’d let me, I already would have tried to contact him. My parents had been quick to shut me out, though, said their people would handle contact with my grandfather.
I hadn’t even gotten to voice that contact should be me.
I could end this all if they’d just let me.
“He wants a relationship with me, Dad,” I said, both my parents turning away at this point. “That’s all he wants, and if he is holding Sloane,” I paused, knowing they knew her more so by another name. The guys, Bow, and I told them her name, of course. The parents just didn’t know her by it. She’d always been Pilar to them. “He’ll let her go. I know he will, and he didn’t even want to hurt Mom. He just threatened that, bluffing.”
“Manipulating, which is what my father does to get what he wants.”
“Royal.” Mom’s word was hushed and nearly like medicine. I watched my father’s body visibly relax at the sound of his name, his wife’s hand on his shoulder. “Perhaps we all need a moment.”
He glanced my way, starting to say something, but the door of the war room opened. Jax came out of it, easing through the traffic in the hall.
“Royal, we need you back in there now,” he said, completely overlooking the tension in the hallway. He ignored my mother and me when he normally wouldn’t. “It’s your dad. He made contact.”
What?
“Says he needs to talk to you. Says it’s urgent,” Jax continued, and with that, he was gone, my parents behind him. I think the only reason no one stopped me was because the rush to get into that room was priority.
It was dead silent.
The room, which normally held the hustle and bustle of attorneys, the authorities, and other representatives of the family, stopped, and in the center was one suit, a guy holding up a phone. I recognized the phone as my dad’s, and as soon as the guy gave it to him, the man sat down at a station. This same guy put a headset on, easing in front of a laptop. He then waved to my dad to move on with the call.
I suppose the guy might be trying to track the call, but we all knew my grandpa was most likely at the hospital.
Wasn’t he?
