Page 119 of Legacy

“What?” Rune asked, shoving me to the side. “Why the fuck would your dad have her?”

“Because he loves tormenting my family. And he doesn’t like the fact that I keep trying to figure out what the hell he did with our moms.”

“I’m calling now,” Thatcher snapped as he started to give out orders. But I ignored them. Instead, I followed the blood trail, everyone going in different directions, searching for Felicity. All I could do was move towards the back, past the emergency exit door that was propped open, bile coating my tongue.

My father kept popping up around town, haunting me, and annoying the hell out of the rest of our siblings.

He kept talking trash about Felicity, his focus on her, and I had left her alone. Again. It didn’t matter that she should have been safe. My dad had been a fucking locksmith. Of course, he had found a way in.

Yes, it could have been someone else. She could have fallen and been dizzy trying to find her way for help, but no, in the bottom of my gut, I knew it had to be someone else.

Footsteps sounded behind me, and Bodhi was at my side.

“Come on, you don’t know tracking for shit.”

“Where the hell would he take her?”

“This way.”

My brother ducked his head, following the trail, and I let him lead, knowing that Bodhi could find anyone.

After all, he’d done things I wouldn’t even dream of before the world had changed.

I swallowed hard, trying not to imagine exactly what was happening right now. Felicity had to be okay. I would kill the old man. I wouldn’t even flinch at using the hands he had given me to strangle the life out of him.

“There. I think she’s at the creek.”

We ran, not caring about the sound we made, as the first scream echoed through the air.

I kept running, my pace increasing as I ignored each tree and limb slamming into me, the vines catching my shirt, leaving gouges on my arms.

And then I burst through the clearing as my dad stood there at the creek side, knife in hand, and the blade pressing against Felicity’s throat.

“Took you long enough.”

“I’m fine, Callum. Don’t do what he says.” Felicity screamed as he dug the knife ever so deeper, and a thin line of blood welled.

“Get your fucking hands off her. You want to deal with me? You deal with me. You don’t touch her.”

“Why should you get everything you want? You’re just a little know-nothing piece of shit who won’t leave the past alone. Do you know that every time you get pissed off at me in town, the sheriff and all his little buddies question me? They won’t let me just breathe. No, they have to blame every single fucking thing that happens in this town on me. Well, I didn’t do it. I didn’t hurt your precious Felicity, this little cunt, before. No, it was that little rich boy who wanted her. I just told him how to get her. It’s not my fault.”

I took a step forward, hands fisting, but Bodhi held me back. I wanted to swipe out, hating him at that moment, but with every step I moved, the closer to insanity my father became. And Felicity was already bleeding.

“Just let her go. I’ll stop. Just let her go.”

I’d do anything. Anything. But I had no idea what my father wanted. What the hell was he thinking? He wasn’t going to get out of this. All I knew was that I was going to throw up if something didn’t happen soon.

“Oh? You’ll stop now? You always were a little bitch. I just can’t live my life in this town. We used to own this town. My father’s father and all those before him—we owned this fucking town. And every time you harass me, or you treat me like shit, you just bring the Ashford name down again. No, I’m not the fucking murderer in this family. He is.”

Bodhi froze at my side, and at that moment, I wanted to reach out and kill my father all over again for daring to hurt his son. I didn’t care what he did to me. But this man continued to hurt my family. Those I loved. And it was over. It had to be.

“Let her go, Dad. This is between you and me.”

“It’s really not. Do you want to know the truth? Since you’ve already defamed me? I didn’t kill your stepmom. That bitch ran away because she couldn’t handle all of you. She thought she wanted to be a mommy, but Julie Ashford was no one. She couldn’t handle it. And so I roughed her around a few times, but she deserved it. It’s not my fault that she was going around the curve too quickly in her car. She was trying to take you away from me. All of you. She was trying to get custody, and she was nothing but a fucking whore who wasn’t even good in bed. She killed herself by going off the road that day. How dare she try to take away my kids? Mine. Not hers.”

Felicity’s eyes widened as I tried to remember exactly what had happened nearly fourteen years ago.

Our stepmom had been trying to take us? To save us from this asshole?