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But he was sure she would ask too many fucking questions later.
That was her nature. To be curious, to constantly be chattering, to be involved in whatever was happening around her, whether it was welcomed or not.
It was both cute and fucking annoying. Normally, more of the second than the first.
He hadn’t wanted her to come along, but at this very second, as he stared down at the man who used to be his father, he sure was fucking glad she had elbowed her way along on this trip. Her presence helped keep him from doing what he suddenly wanted to do.
Rev’s fingers twitched with the urge to wrap them around the man’s thin, fragile-looking neck and squeeze until the rattling breath that filled the room went silent.
He wondered how much time his old man had left and whether it would be worth shortening that time or not.
No. Not with Reilly here. Or Matthew and his young wife. Even his mother.
They would be witnesses and strangling always left bruises behind.
Even though his father had cancer rotting away at his insides, to Rev, the man could never suffer enough. Taking his life would only shorten that suffering.
And that wasn’t why he was here.
He was here to witness karma to the very end.
More importantly, while the good pastor didn’t want to hear deathbed confessions, Rev did. Rev wanted to know why the man had violated his sister’s trust. Violated his sister, period.
While he hated every punishment his father doled out to him, he hated every time he heard his sister’s door close and lock even more.
The man’s breath caught and Rev moved even closer, until his body was pressed against the metal side rails, until he was staring straight down into his father’s face.
“Wake up, old man,” Rev ordered. “Wake up and face me.”
His father’s thin, pale lips parted and a weak hiss escaped. His eyelids fluttered a few times before they opened.
Father and son were nothing alike. Rev was blond with blue eyes. John Schmidt’s hair, when he had it, had been a very dark brown that matched eyes neither Saylor or Rev inherited.
His sister also had their mother’s blue eyes, even though Saylor was born with brown hair. Not as dark as their father’s, but certainly not dark blonde like their mother’s or Rev’s.
Their eyes tied mother, son and daughter together. While neither looked like their father. Thank fuck. Because if he had to look in the mirror every day and see his father looking back at him, he wouldn’t have made it to his twenty-eighth year.
“Who are you?” The man’s voice was weak and not as booming or intimidating as Rev remembered.
“Don’t know your own son?”
A flicker of recognition filled his bloodshot and watery brown eyes. “I don’t have a son.” The man tried to pull himself up to his elbows but failed and his head flopped back onto the pillow. He managed to turn his head enough to narrow his eyes on Rev. “Get out of my house, Michael.” His effort to sound commanding, even menacing, failed.
How the mighty have fallen.
“Make me,” Rev said. “And the name’s Rev, not Michael. Michael is dead and so is Sarah Schmidt.” He leaned over and put his ear to his old man’s ear. “Soon you will be, too. Ain’t leavin’ ’til that happens.”
“Why would you… come back here… somewhere you’re not… welcome?” When he started hacking uncontrollably, Reilly grabbed the cup of water with a straw on the nearby table and offered it to him.
His father weakly slapped her hand away. “Sarah?”
Reilly was blonde with green eyes and looked nothing like Saylor.
“Just like you don’t have a son, you don’t have a daughter, either. You lost her a long time ago.”
“Your loss… was not a hardship,” he croaked, “but Sarah… belonged to me.” It sounded like it hurt his throat to talk.
“A young girl can’t belong to a man. A daughter can’t be owned by her father.”
John Schmidt forced out a weak huff. “You have always… been argumentative, child. Always. No matter how many times… I tried to teach you,” he took a rattled breath, “you refused to learn the ways… You know a man’s daughter belongs to him… until the moment he gives her… to her husband.” He wheezed as he struggled to take his next breath. “A worthy man… of the father’s choosing. Just like your mother belonged to your grandfather… until she was given to me.” His skeletal hand, transparent skin over bones, flopped onto his chest. “A daughter faithfully serves her father… until the moment she exchanges hands… from father to husband.”
That was what their church taught. But there was either an unspoken meaning behind that lesson or his father had heard what he wanted to hear and interpreted it to fit his own personal agenda.
“What does your precious bible say about a father lyin’ with his own daughter? What does your preacher say?”
