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“Not yet, okay? Not yet.” Seb nods, his shoulders relaxing a little. “Plus, the day that happens, I’ll be the one at the other end of the bullet.”
A ripple of tension goes through the room, forcing us all to fall silent.
My head spins and my heart aches for a woman I’ve never met but feel connected to nonetheless.
Seb remains standing in the middle of the room, looking utterly useless now he can’t go and kill someone, and Toby just looks wrecked as he slumps back in the chair. His hair’s a mess where he’s been running his fingers through it, and his usually light blue eyes are dark and tormented.
“She’s why we came back,” I state. “My dad came back for her.”
“You landed two days before her surgery.”
“Fucking hell,” I breathe, dropping my head into my hands. “Why didn’t he tell me?”
“So you didn’t have to go through losing her all over again if the worst happened.” I look up just in time to catch the end of Toby’s shrug.
“Fuck, I—” Climbing from the bed, I start pacing, unable to sit still with all this anxiety shooting around my body. “Fuck.”
Both of their eyes burn into me as I march back and forth, trying to get my thoughts together.
Suddenly, I stop and turn to Toby.
“Is she…” I bite on my bottom lip, feeling so out of my depth with all this it’s not even funny. “Is she going to survive this?”
“She’s still got to have more radiation, but the surgery was a success. Doctors are hopeful.”
“Okay. That’s good. That’s good. And your dad… does he… know?” Toby’s brows pinch. “About me?”
“Stella,” he sighs. “There are eleven months between us. I’m pretty sure he’d have noticed.”
“Jesus. What the fuck were they playing at? Your mom had a fucking newborn, and a husband, I assume.”
Toby nods, confirming my thoughts.
“I don’t know what happened. Mum’s not in any place to dig up the past right now, and well, I try to speak to my dad as little as possible.”
“You said that your dad…”
“He’s a controlling cunt. Always has been. Nothing either of us does is good enough. It’s—”
“You need to get out of there,” I say at the same time Seb says, “He needs to die.”
“I know,” he snaps. “But it’s not that easy. Trust me, if it were, I’d have blown his brains out a long time ago.”
The vicious look on Toby’s face makes me do a double take. I’ve always wondered why he was friends with Seb and the others when he seems so different. But right now, with that fierce determination to kill his own father etched into every one of his features, I realize he’s not all that different. He just keeps that side of him hidden better than the others.
I’m sure it should probably terrify me, knowing that I’m surrounded by guys who are capable of things like killing their own parents. But with my reality right now, I’ve never felt safer.
“I can’t believe we didn’t know all of this. Fuck, man,” Seb says, horrified that his friend has been going through all of this and none of them were aware.
“It’s okay. None of this is your fault.”
Walking over to Toby, I drop down on his lap and pull him into my arms.
“I’m so fucking sorry you’ve had to go through this alone.”
He trembles in my hold and lets out a shaky breath in my ear, but he doesn’t utter a word more.
“Can you give us a minute?” I say to Seb without releasing Toby.
