Page 35 of Honest Neglect

Lily

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I PACED BACK AND FORTH in the kitchen as I listened to the whistle of the kettle on the stove. I felt like I was going to jump out of my skin right now—we were so, so close to getting what we wanted, but at the same time so far. I wasn’t going to be able to relax until I knew that those men were locked up once and for all, and while I wanted to believe this was the start of the end for them, how could I be sure? There had been so many other times when I had felt like we were finally getting somewhere, only for everything to fall apart. What was to say this wasn’t just another one of those times?

“Honey, you need to sit down,” Mom told me as she came bustling into the kitchen, Silver at her heels. I sighed and shook my head.

“I...I just can’t right now,” I replied. “I don’t know how you can be so calm.”

In a matter of hours, Warren would be meeting with Marcy. Leroy was bringing her back to Oakville as we spoke, and Frank was taking her to a secret location to make sure that she wouldn’t be spotted by the McCarthys or any of their men. Warren had kissed me before he took the call from Leroy, catching my face in his hands as he looked at me.

“This is it, Lily,” he murmured. “This is the end of it. I promise.”

I managed a smile. I wanted to believe him, I really did. And maybe he was right. Maybe this really would be the end of it, and I could just move on with my life and forget all of this had ever happened.

But Marcy being here, it made me...worried. What if something happened to her because of us? There was a reason she had gone out of her way to put so much distance between herself and Tony, going as far as to leave behind her family, and pulling her back into it didn’t feel right. I hoped it had truly been her decision and that Leroy and his men hadn’t been too harsh in trying to get her to give them what they wanted.

“Here, why don’t you take Silver out?” Mom suggested. “She could use a little fresh air.”

I shot a look toward the door. Going outside right now felt a little dangerous, and I wasn’t sure it was a good idea. But if it was just the back yard, what was the worst that could happen? At least it would stop me sitting around here, trying to overthink my way into some kind of solution.

“Yeah, I will,” I replied, and I patted my leg to get Silver to come over to me as Mom took over making the tea. It was a cold, crisp day, the kind that I normally loved—when the air was this chilly, it seemed to wipe away all the cobwebs from my brain. But I had been so on edge as it was, I was hyper-alert to every little sound, every little detail around me. I didn’t need any more waking up.

Silver bounded out into the yard, rolling in a pile of dirt not far from the door. I shook my head at her fondly, already knowing I was going to have to give her a bath when this was all done.

She was healing up well from the injuries she had sustained on the night of the fire, much to my relief. Warren had been taking great care of her, making sure to tend to all of her injuries and pamper her in any way he could. I was sure he wouldn’t have minded if she got a little filthy out in the yard—he was just inside now, meeting with Frank in the living room to discuss where they were going to take Marcy when she got there. He had invited me to join the conversation, but I had turned him down. I felt like it was better for me to keep my distance in case my emotions got in the way of making the right choice. I felt so much responsibility toward Marcy, toward all of the women Tony had pulled into this sick game, and I didn’t want to do anything that might harm her in the long-term.

I watched as Silver bounced around the yard happily—but then, something in her demeanor shifted. She froze, and her head turned toward the front of the house, which was separated from the back yard by a small fence. She bounded toward it, growling, her ears pulled back and her body close to the ground. What the hell...?

I rounded the house to see what was going on, and the moment I realized just who Silver was telling off, I felt my stomach lurch.

“Tony?” I breathed, sheer panic coursing through my system.

“Get that fucking dog away from me,” he slurred, gesturing toward Silver as he tried to push open the gate to the back yard. It was clear he was drunk—he was swaying on the spot, his eyes bleary and distant.

“I’ll have him locked up again,” he threatened me. I could hardly hear what he was saying, a loud whine in my ears cutting off any noise from entering my brain. I wanted to cry out, but the words seemed to catch at the back of my throat. I knew I had to tell someone he was here, to get Warren and Frank, but I didn’t want to make a scene. I had already found out how these men would respond when I didn’t play by the rules they had laid out for me, and Tony was clearly off the rails right now. I didn’t know what he might do.

“Tony, please, just leave,” I begged him, but it was clear it wasn’t going to work. He had come here for revenge. And not the kind of carefully planned revenge he and his father had spent so much time plotting to bring against Warren and me. No, this was something else, something wilder and more dangerous, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to deal with the reality of it.

He swung a leg over the fence, giving up on the gate, and Silver started barking and snarling at him, putting herself between me and this monster. Would that be enough to alert someone inside as to what was going on? I couldn’t open my mouth right now, my feet rooted helplessly to the ground.

I heard a commotion behind me and glanced around to see Barry, my mom, Warren, Frank, and Leroy coming out of the back door. Leroy must have just arrived. Did that mean Marcy was around, too? I prayed she hadn’t seen Tony, hadn’t been faced with her abuser after all this time...

Silver jumped on Tony and knocked him to the ground just as Warren sprinted over to me.

“Are you okay?” he asked urgently. I nodded.

“I’m fine,” I replied, still a little shaken but feeling safer now that Warren and the rest of them were here. “He...he’s drunk, I think. I don’t know what he’s doing here.”

Tony scrambled to his feet, shoving Silver away from him roughly. The dog whined and ran back to my mom, and I realized that Barry had his phone out right now—pointing it directly at Tony as he started to rant once more.

“You people really think you can bring my father down,” he announced, stumbling dangerously and grabbing on to the fence for support. “You know how many people have tried? And how many of them have fucking failed? You’re all just going to be another entry into a list of failures. You can’t take away the kind of strength my father has...”

He kept going, dropping into near-incoherence as Warren held me close. I could feel the coiled tension in his body, like it was taking everything he had not to go for Tony right now, but he knew better than to make that mistake. One wrong move, and Warren would be locked up in jail again with assault charges, no matter what kind of state Tony had been in when he got there.

“I’ll have you all buried,” he snarled as he stabbed his finger into the air. “Every single one of you. Nobody in this town will know that you ever existed. You hear me? I’ll bury you just like I buried her...”

My heart stopped. Was that...was that him admitting it? Admitting that he had had that girl taken out, used as a piece in this twisted puzzle? I shot a look back around at Barry, making sure he was still filming, and he was—he was standing just in front of my mother, blocking her from Tony’s tirade, but his hand was steady as he kept the lens pointed at the crazy man in our back yard.