Page 118 of Road to Redemption

ISAAC: August could be good. Bring Leona if you can. Jared loves breaking dykes.

I didn’t realize Kiera had crossed over to me until her hand was pressed into my back. “Leo, don’t read that. You don’t need to see anymore.”

I shook my head, unable to speak. Unable to tear my eyes from the screen as those words burned into my mind.

I knew that my father was an animal — I’d given up hope on him being anything other than an abusive, homophobic, hypocritical, exacting piece of shit a long time ago. But seeing his cruelty in writing… seeing how close I was to being one of Isaac’s victims….

I’d been expecting to find him in these files, but not like that.

“Are you okay?” Spencer’s fingers dug into the back of Dom’s chair as she leaned forward to look at me. “Is there anything we can do…?”

“We can bury those fuckers,” I spat, pacing away from the laptop.

“I’m sorry,” Dom shook her head.

“Don’t apologize to me.” I met each of their worried gazes. “This is exactly the ammo we need. This’ll get the public on our side and then some.”

“You shouldn’t have had to see that,” Dom cut in.

“And their victims shouldn’t have had to live it.” I locked eyes with her, “But now that we have proof of all the horrible shit these monsters did, it’s time to air their shame. Let the world know exactly what they did to earn the Justice about to bang down their doors.”

62

KIERA

Leo wasted no time picking up her laptop and getting back to work sifting through the files. She and Dom were like a well-oiled machine: while Dom queued up the download, Leo grabbed two external drives from under the TV stand, passing one over to Dom.

Adrenaline was high, but all Spencer and I could do was look on as they downloaded and made back-up copies of thousands of the relevant records Isaac had been hoarding.

There was still tons of organizing to be done; we needed to know exactly what it was we were releasing before loosing this chaos on the public.

But at least now they’ve found the right place to look.

As I watched Dom drag a couple dozen photos into a folder she’d labelled “BACKUP_ONE,” Spencer’s phone began to ring. I flicked my eyes over to her, barely catching the name ‘Caleb’ across her screen before the phone was pressed to her ear.

“Hello?”

I could tell that the late night call unnerved her. The kids rarely called this late unless something was wrong. And the muffled distress in Caleb’s voice on the other side of the line told me that something was very wrong.

“Why would you — No, I’m sorry, I’m not mad.” She scrubbed a palm over her face as she paced away from the computers. “Is Abi there?”

Dom and Leo were both looking up now, all of us clocking the moment Spencer’s shoulders dropped with relief.

“Okay, okay,” she nodded. “Just stay where you are. I’ll be right there. I love you.”

“Where is he?” Dom asked, her question overlapping with Leo’s concerned face, “What happened?”

Spencer shook her head, the frustration that she’d managed to swallow down during the phone call now oozing from her tone. “He couldn’t control his temper. When we talked about Jess, I made him promise not to tell Bill what I’d said. Not until Abi was old enough to leave. And he just couldn’t do it. The two of them got into it tonight, and he threw Jess’ spiral in Bill’s face, and now Bill is freaking the fuck out.”

I could tell from the fear flickering in her eyes that this was worse than his usual abuse. And considering that Caleb had ended up in the hospital the last time they had a big fight, I was terrified what ‘worse than usual’ might mean.

“I have to go get them. I’ll be right—” but the words died on her tongue as she locked eyes with me. “Fuck.”

“What?” I asked, reaching for her hand.

“I can’t. If I go, I put you at risk.” The color completely drained from her face.

Before she could say something stupid, I shook my head. “No, you’re going. The risk doesn’t matter. We’re not leaving those kids with him.”