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His wife has recovered enough to stop looking scandalized. Now she just looks angry. She straightens on the couch, her back so rigid it’s like someone shoved a pole up her ass. “There is no need for—”
“Yes. There is.”
My voice is shaking a little. I’m shaking a little, my body so full of wild fury that I don’t know how to contain it. I feel the same way I did right before I beat Natalie’s face to a pulp, and I have a fleeting thought that maybe I’m about to punch Marcus’s mother.
I don’t look at him as I step forward, keeping my gaze focused on his parents. I might be overstepping horribly right now, but I can’t even bring myself to care if he’s mad at me.
There are things I’ve wanted to say to these two assholes ever since the day I attended Marcus’s wake with grief eating a hole in my heart.
And I may never get another chance, so I’m fucking taking this one.
“I never had a family.” My voice is harsh and strained, and my fingers curl into a fist. “I never knew my parents. I had some shitty foster parents over the years, but even the worst of them was a thousand times better than either of you. Because none of them ever sold my life away to get ahead in the world. None of them used me as a fucking pawn to further their own ends.”
Gideon’s face darkens, his brows lowering. He looks a lot like his son, and it’s strange to see features that are so dear to me on a face I hate so much. “Excuse me, but who the hell are you?”
“I’m the reason your son is still alive.” I take another step forward, tilting my head to look down at them both. “And I’m the reason he’ll stay alive. You can call this thing you signed him up for a ‘game’ as much as you want. Try to pretty it up by making it sound sportsmanlike or some shit. But that doesn’t change what it really is. A fucked up trap. A sentence. Kill or be killed.”
“We wouldn’t have signed him up if we didn’t believe in him. If we didn’t think he could win.”
Marcus’s mother—Norah, I think her name is—has the decency to look a little abashed as she glances from me to Marcus, but I don’t let that weaken the fire burning hot in my chest.
Just from hearing her speak before I entered the room, I have a pretty good idea of how this woman operates. She looks and sounds soft, but it’s all a fucking act. She’s nothing but sharp edges and harsh pragmatism, weighing her son’s life against her own possible gain.
And I hate her for it. I hate her even more than his father.
Because she should’ve protected her goddamn son.
“He will win,” I shoot back, my lips curling into a shape that feels a lot like a snarl. “No fucking t
hanks to you. He’ll live through this—again, no thanks to you. He’s a better person than either of you could ever hope to be, and that is absolutely no fucking thanks to you.”
“That’s enough.” Gideon’s face is red, his cheeks mottled with color. “I don’t know who you think you are, but—”
“She’s right.”
Marcus’s voice is quiet, but it cuts across his father’s like a whip anyway. Gideon and Norah both turn to look at him, and I finally do too.
His jaw is clenched, his face a little pale and carefully devoid of expression. I don’t know what’s going on in his head or his heart, but I can still hear the pain in his voice.
“She’s right,” he repeats. “About all of it.” He shakes his head, huffing a breath. “I tried for so damn long to be the son you wanted me to be. I think I did it for Alexis, to honor her memory in some fucked up way. Like by making you proud, I could somehow make her proud. But she’s gone. And if she were here now? If she could see me now? She’d be fucking ashamed. Not because of the things I’ve done—but because I did them trying to please you.”
Silence falls as Marcus’s words die out. His parents both look slightly stunned. After another long beat, Gideon opens his mouth to speak, but Marcus cuts him off again.
“I don’t want to hear it. Whatever it is, I don’t care.” His gaze flicks to Ryland and then to Theo, his shoulders squaring. “I’ll finish this thing. We’ll finish it. There’s no other way now that we’re in this deep.” He looks back down at his parents. “But when I do, and when we win, don’t expect any of that power to trickle down to you. Don’t expect anything.”
“Marcus—” His mother softens her voice, obviously about to play ‘good cop’ to his father’s ‘bad cop.’
But she never gets a chance.
“Get out.”
There’s such heavy finality in Marcus’s voice that it seems to suck all the oxygen out of the room. The two words fall like anvils, and I know he’s not just talking about this house.
He’s talking about his life.
There’s another drawn out moment of silence as his parents process his words, clearly trying to figure out how to respond. When I glance at Marcus again, his face is set in a mask. He might as well be made of stone.
His dad sputters for a second, looking like he’s about to speak. But in the end, he just grabs Norah by the elbow and pulls her to her feet as he stands beside her. She shoots me a piercing glare, and for the first time, I see behind the mask of cultured civility she wears to the predator beneath.
