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“Do you have any idea what you’ve done? The heartache you caused? The pain we’ve all been through?” I sob, once again trying to clear my face of tears with the backs of my hands. “Dad is going to be so disappointed in you!”
“Your father is dead.”
I freeze, blinking at him.
“He was taken and tortured three days after you were taken.” He doesn’t pull his eyes from mine, doesn’t seem to care what he’s just told me, before continuing. “While you were hiding out with your boyfriend, your father was dying. The cops found him floating in Lake Michigan a week ago.”
I know he isn’t lying. He isn’t trying to upset me or scare me. There’s nothing but truth in his words, each one of them a strike at me. It reeks of blame and accusation without somehow having any fire behind it at all.
I always wondered how I would feel with my father’s passing. I knew it could never affect me the way my mother’s death did, but he was more a figurehead to the family rather than someone present in our lives. He was devoted to family, but the wrong one. He lived his life to impress Lucian, and I imagine he died still thinking he had a chance to get in the other man’s good graces.
Pain strikes me, but not in the way I think it would a normal person. I’ve endured so much for the sake of loyalty. I was mentally, physically, and sexually abused for almost the past four years in an effort to postpone my father’s death because dedication to blood is paramount for us, only for it to be futile.
For some reason, my tears begin to dry, a sense of relief washing over me. They no longer have anything to hold against me. I’m not sure that the threat to my father’s life, after spending time with Hollis, would’ve been enough to pull me back in, but now I don’t have to worry about it.
All of my pain is because of my father. My mother has some blame in all of this as well, but I don’t want to think about what her involvement means any longer.
None of it matters. The darkness and pain I endured are over.
I just want to be free. I don’t want the money. Alessio can have all of it. Elio can return as head of the family and take it. Where it ends up, I don’t care.
“You don’t seem upset,” I say, wondering if he’s masking his grief, seriously doesn’t give a shit, or if he’s just had longer to come to terms with our father’s death.
“I’m not,” he says, his voice just as calm and flat as it was when he gave me the news.
His phone buzzes on the bedside table. He frowns after picking it up and reading whatever message is on there.
I glare at him when he stands.
“Are we not going to talk about why you faked your own death?”
“No,” he says, tucking his phone into the front pocket of his jeans. “Elio Lombardi is dead.”
“Please,” I beg, wanting to go back ten years and change the course of everyone’s lives. Hell, if I could roll back time, I’d go back even further and somehow stop Alessio from hurting Ellie because it led Hollis down a path that will only get him killed.
He pulls his wallet from his back pocket, pulling out a wad of cash and throwing it on the bed I’m sitting on. “The room is paid up for the week. If you don’t hear from me in three days, I’m dead.”
Without another word or even gathering up his things from the room, he walks out.
Stunned, all I can do is stare at the door.
Chapter 29
Hollis
Despite the two guns tucked into my waistband, I feel no safer than I did unarmed in Angel’s office as that big motherfucker saunters up.
Of course, Nash is hiding in the fucking shadows like a goddamned coward. The man is down for what we discussed because he’s a thrill seeker, but he’s not willing to put his neck on the line while shit gets ironed out.
“While you’re deciding whether or not you want to rip my fucking head off and shit down my throat, I want to clear some shit up.”
His cheek twitches, but he doesn’t speak.
“I’d never hurt your sister,” I assure him, not bothering to go into detail about giving her exactly what she wants and not being a hundred percent sure that it wouldn’t leave marks on her skin. I didn’t have the fucking chance to find out, and it’s one more reason I still want to punch Nash in his fucking mouth again.
I don’t know if he believes me, but I’m not here to make friends with this motherfucker.
“I want her to be safe.”
He’s less than a fucking caveman because I don’t even get a grunt from him.
