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His voice cracks for a second before he can compose himself. "I'm not a good man, baby girl. I will never be able to redeem myself. You know just the tip of the iceberg of what I've done in my life. I learned my lesson when the person I blindly followed betrayed me. Then, your name flashed across the screen. You asked for help." He chuckles. "I don't delude myself. I'm aware you only reached out because you had no other choice, but it was my…wake-up call. I wasn't near you. Vic took care of the body and erased the footage. I arrived later that night, drove eighteen hours straight. After we spoke, I made Vic lock me up until I was one-hundred-percent detoxed and no longer needed a fix to make it through the day."
I'm stunned by his recollection. I knew he wasn't there, but I also didn't ask who cleaned up after me. Gray had called me back, ordered me to pack a bag and leave town. I had been curled up in my bed. At every sound outside my door, I expected the cops to burst into my apartment and arrest me. So, when he told me torun, I did.
I have so many questions, yet only one will form. "How did Rae know where you were?"
"Your sister found me many years ago."
She did?"How?"
He doesn't answer. Instead, he says, "We're not far from our destination. Let's keep going."
We drive in silence,and I replay everything Gray has said in my head. Every so often, I glance over at him, trying to find evidence that he lied. That he's not gotten clean for me. But he looks good. He is less gaunt. He has a natural tan, and the gray tint he had for as long as I remembered, from the old pictures from my childhood, is gone.
"Why did Rae warn me that you were on your way to Stonebriar?" I hadn't heard from my sister in years. "Were you going to hurt Wes?"
Gray's gaze flickers over to me, and he snorts. Actually snorts. "No, baby girl. The Sheats boy is of no consequence to me. Do I like that my daughter has a boyfriend? No. But that would apply to anyone with a dick."
"Gray!" I exclaim in disgust. Hearing the word dick out of his mouth is…just no.
His expression sobers. "I came back because when you killed E, many people lost a lot of money. Your uncle's business wasn't E's most dangerous customer. You stopped moving, as I told you. I wasn't happy, but you were safe. Vic and I alternated watching you. It was his turn, then I got word that Vic was found with his throat slit."
Holy shit!
Something in my memory triggers. "Wait…was that the murder behind MPU's track?"
Gray nods, and I touch my hand to my throat while my other arm wraps around my belly. I heard two of my regulars at The Grizz talking about it a couple of weeks ago. This was big news for a small college town like Stonebriar. I didn't watch much news, so all I heard about it was from our customers. I never asked about who the victim was. I had lived through too much gruesome shit in my short life. I avoided the reality of the outside world, aka outside of my bubble, at all costs.Avoid and pretend,as Mags called it one night when I explained myself to her.
"I was on a job andwould've beenhere sooner, but I suspecta business rival or one of Ellis's goonsgot wind of who killed E. And you being family of R.J. Turner, they wanted to send a message."
My heartbeat accelerates, and I swallow over the nausea building in my stomach. Someone is after me? Wants to kill me? Kill my baby.
Oh, God.
"Dad?" I don't know what made me call him that, but he is as shocked as I am. His head whips in my direction while trying to keep the highway in his line of sight. I blurt it out before I lose my courage. "I'm pregnant."
CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE
I can't believeI'm doing this.
I cross my ankle over my knee in a failed attempt to stop it from bouncing—I'm making myself nervous. The whole motion is more than awkward because my six-foot frame does not fit comfortably in the last row of coach. I'm starting to question if this damn seat has less legroom than the ones ahead of me? I've never felt this claustrophobic on an airplane. My mind starts to chastise me: That's what you get for waiting until the last minute to book your ticket—like, literally, the last minute.
I went online last night to check if there were still any seats available. I told myself if the flight was full, I was not meant to go. Joke was on me: one seat left.
"First time flying?" the middle-aged man next to me asks.
I peer at him out of the corner of my eye. "No."
I'm a rude asshole, but that seems to be my usual setting these days. Plus, I haven't had a drink since last night, which doesn't help. I've grown used to the dark, numbing void that Kai's BFFs, aka whatever amber-colored liquid we can get at TMH, grant me each night. However, showing up sauced at my parents' house for the first time in two and a half years is not an option—certainly not on Christmas Eve.
Den's visitover Thanksgiving seems like a lifetime ago. To say she was shocked after I dropped the "my ex-girlfriend is the daughter of the guy who almost killed your best friend" bombshell would put it mildly. If King hadn't disappeared weeks ago, D would've chased her out of Stonebriar herself in her four-inch patent-leather winter boots—the solewinterattributebeing knee high vs. ankle. There was nothing winter appropriate about those death traps.
It took several shots of Kai's private stash to calm her ass and prevent her from calling Lilly to sic George on King. If anyone could track her, it was The Ghost—the name George got after disappearing twenty-some years ago. He got injured in the line of duty and vanishedlike a ghostafter that. Why? That's another story no one has been able to get out of him.
I still avoided everyone with a pulse, and the one person who knew King's secret was on my shit list—he had even replaced Rhys at the top. My feelings toward Devon "Kiwi" Kiwinski were… I needed to define them ASAP. The risk of sucker punching his pretty face steadily increased and would most likely end my friendship with Zeke.
During one of my clear(er) state of mind moments, I had concluded that Zeke was not to blame. He had no idea what kind of person Kiwi was when he first stuck his dick in. Kiwi's loyalty was to King—and just King—which Zeke probably had no idea about.
All in all, it was good to get out of Stonebriar. A few days ago, Kai threw a bitch tantrum about my avoidance tactics, and school and practice were on break for two weeks. Despite the extremely tempting option of drinking my way through the holidays, I chose to make my mom happy. I'd been a selfish prick for too long, and my parents deserved better. Den was the only one aware of me coming. She would pick me up from the airport and take me home to surprise my parents.
