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CHAPTER35
BECCA
“He’s gone?”Tears welled in my eyes as I tried to digest Dad’s words. “He’s really gone?”
Evan slid his hand over my mine, squeezing gently, a reminder he was right here.Even after everything, Evan was here.
When he and Dad had entered my bedroom to wake me, I knew something was wrong. Dad had aged ten years, the lines around his eyes deeper than ever. The sight of them standing there made the hairs on the back of my neck electrify, and I’d started shaking involuntarily.
“He’s gone, sweetheart,” Dad said again. “Darryl O’Hare shot him after he tried to take Kendall.”
“W-what? I don’t understand.” My thoughts were forming a hundred a millisecond, the pieces of the puzzle too many to put back together.
Dad moved to the foot of the bed but remained standing. “When he left you at the plant, we think he went over to the O’Hare’s. He has a fixation with his sister; always had. From what Mac managed to get out of his source down at the station, there was a fight. Kane had tried to coerce Kendall into leaving with him, and Darryl lost it and shot him. He died on the scene. Mr. O’ Hare has been arrested.”
My mind was still reeling from the past twenty-four hours. Kane Larson was Kendall’s brother. Her secret, mentally unstable, older brother. Evan had tried to explain it to me, but my head still hurt from the fall and battered face.
“He’s gone? He’s really gone?” I sobbed.
“He can’t hurt you anymore.” Evan said, shuffling closer to me.
Kane was gone.
I should have felt relief—Iwasrelieved—but I couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit sad for him. He was sick. Confused and broken. Even after everything, I hoped he’d finally found peace.
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart.” Dad’s voice cracked, his eyes filled with so much regret I felt it in my soul. He didn’t speak again, but I heard all the things he wanted to say.
He was sorry for bringing Kane into our lives.
Sorry for not protecting me.
Sorry for bringing me to Credence.
Sorry for the webs of lies and secrets that had been my life for the past eight months.
“It’s okay, Dad. It’s over now.”
He gave me a weak smile and left the room. I snuggled closer to Evan as I tried to make sense of everything.
“Are you okay?” he whispered into my hair.
“Honestly, I don’t know.”
Things like this didn’t happen in real life. They belonged in the far-fetched plots of movies and television shows.
Robbie Larson, Kane’s father, was Elaina O’Hare’s first love, and together, they had a son. But, by all accounts, he was a challenging child, and Elaina couldn’t cope. It wasn’t long before she looked elsewhere for the life she desperately craved.
By the time he started elementary school, Elaina had started an affair with Darryl O’Hare. He wanted Elaina, but he didn’t want her troubled child and her estranged husband hanging around. So much so that, when she fell pregnant with their baby, he forced Robbie and Kane out of Credence.But Elaina wasn’t pregnant with Darryl’s child; she was pregnant with Robbie’s child. This time a daughter. The girl who would grow up bitter because she knew things no child should ever know.
Kendall had told Evan that when she was six, Kane contacted her. She learned that she had a brother and that the man she called dad wasn’t really her father. But it would be another two years before she started sneaking away to the water plant to meet him.
Over time, Kane became fixated with her. When Elaina found out that Kendall was going behind her back and seeing the son she sent away, she begged Robbie to leave for good because she knew if Darryl found out, things would be very bad, for all of them. To protect his son—and his daughter—he agreed, turning to his old friend Mac for a fresh start.
Over the next few years, with the help of Mac, Robbie and Kane moved from town to town, trying to make a better life for themselves. But they never settled long. Trouble followed Kane wherever they went, and eventually, he ended up hospitalized.
When he was finally released, Mac had secured them a fresh start with the help of my father. It was the perfect chance to start over in a wealthy neighborhood under the watchful eye of the law.
Only, Mac had underestimated just how sick Kane was.And my father had underestimated my interest in pool boys from the wrong side of the tracks.
