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I suppose the suspicion is valid, although still wrong. Ben’s thought process is as clear to me as my own.
“He was protecting me.” My fingers brush against the page. Ben’s probably did the same. “He saw our father named, and instead of keeping his head down and staying on the straight and narrow so he could chase his aspirations and rule the country, he risked his life for our family.”
And lost it.
“Ben’s mindset was always several moves ahead,” I explain. “If he’d have given this information to my father, my dad may have destroyed it to save himself, but no one would have trusted that it was destroyed, so the search for it wouldn’t have ceased and my family would’ve still been in danger. Frank Carver is known as ruthless in the seedy underworld—that much I became aware of in my snooping last summer. I guess I understand why now.”
I press my hand into my pounding head, thumb and index hooking on to my temples, like I’m trying to squeeze all these revelations away. “Anyway, no one would have believed he had the book and didn’t dangle it as blackmail over every deviant cited, wielding it for his own advantage. So, if he didn’t have it to use, he would be safe. And I was so young, Ben surely assumed that no one would suspect me—other than Easton, whom he trusted. Although Ben obviously didn’t trust him with this, so me having it is simply speculation on Easton’s part.”
“That motherfucker—”
“And in case someone did suspect me,” I break through the rant Liam’s beginning, not wanting to talk about that lowlife, especially with him, “Ben preserved the information, so I could protect myself. He could have ripped out this entry about my father, but I’m guessing he thought it was important that I knew what my dad was involved with. It’s completely my brother—well planned but edgy. Maybe it’s not perfect. But he accomplished a lot with little time.”
My defensiveness quiets them, or maybe it’s the gravity of my loss bleeding through those words because I am all too aware of the sacrifice my brother made and the evil bastards who stole him from me. Either way, the halt in conversation illuminates the fact that no one has mentioned the tidbit about Eleanor Healy. It makes my insides recoil. And I was already so nauseated. Maybe it was motion sickness. I’ve been queasy since I woke up in Colorado.
Did my dad put two and two together last year when he discovered who Ivy was? Is that one of the reasons he’s been so weird about me being with them? Is it the danger that surrounds them or his secret?
Maybe both.
“Ivy?” It’s all I manage to utter, but all that’s needed. Liam knows exactly what I’m asking.
“There’s no way to keep it from her.” He rubs my arm, soothing, but I don’t feel soothed. I feel hot. And trapped. And cornered.
“We could … not give her the book,” I suggest. I’m not sure that’s even what I want to do. I’ve never kept anything from Ivy. That’s not who we are. But everything is moving so fast, and I need to slow it down.
“Not an option, Ace.”
One sentence. Four words.
And that heated cage I was in quakes and bursts, bathing me in a venomous fury. How dare he.
“Actually, it is,” I bite out. “That’s my book. From my brother. I get to decide how to handle it.”
“Wrong again,” Gage snipes.
These motherfuckers. This is my family—my father’s life. I need to figure this out. I need time to process. What I do not need is their my-way-or-the-highway domineering bullshit.
My head whips toward them both, eyes glaring every bit of pent-up rage for the fucked-up fate I seem to be twisted inside.
Before I can respond to Gage, Liam clasps my hand, lacing our fingers together. “Don’t go getting riled up, Carver. I see you. That fierce loyalty I love so much is ready to erupt all over us. But we’re in this together, remember? You’re one of us, so the book belongs to our family. We’ll all decide together what that means. A family meeting—that’s how we do things. You know that. You’ve been there.”
His thumb sweeps back and forth over my skin while his face has an earnestness that tells me he is every bit aware of how cornered, explosive, and wounded I feel. He’s handling me. “The information will be used for the business you want to be a part of. We’ll sort out the issues regarding Ivy’s birth mom. She won’t freak out or blame your father—that’s not her. She loves you too much to blow this open. And she knows what goes on, knows what your father does. This isn’t a big deal.”
Maybe it’s not a big deal, but it feels like it is. And even if it isn’t to Ivy, it is to her birth father and the family she runs. What if O’Reilly wants vengeance?
Gage’s gruff tenor booms around us, lacking the same suave handling Liam proffered. “People are trying to fucking kill you for this book, Celeste. Do you get that?” He huffs, crossing his beefy arms over his chest. “I swear to Christ, you girls think you’re invincible. We have to announce that we have it—to KORT, to everyone who’s after it—so you aren’t the target. Liam’s right about the family meeting. We’ll discuss what that looks like. But the logistics are the only goddamn discussion.”
While I know that comes from a place of love and his reasoning makes sense, it still isn’t cut and dry for me. Letting that book out of my sight is a precarious choice—a choice I make against my father. When I’ve already felt like I’ve failed my parents over and over the past few months. And now, it’s worse. It’s Ben. I can’t let him down. He died to cover up my father’s transgressions.
How the hell did that even become my father’s career? I know none of the positions are what one would consider honorable, but this? Tom was The Order’s ticket to medicine. To extending lives. Maybe they were the lives of people who had done despicable things, but he was saving someone all the same.
My father is the mortician.
He might not be the Grim Reaper himself, but he’s his right-hand man.
Does my mother know? Really know?
Whether she does or doesn’t is irrelevant. No matter how I feel about my father’s profession, I won’t let anything happen to my parents. Maybe I could simply destroy that part of the book. We can tell Ivy. I’ll deal with whatever repercussions come with that. But I can’t allow that evidence to get out.
