AllFreeNovel
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He’s the youngest out of the three of us, but the motherfucker pulls his weight.
“She was murdered. So that means Shiloh isn’t safe. We know that her mother wasn’t the target, she was the warning.”
“So, we drag her back onto the island.”
I chuckle. “Nope. She won’t be doing that shit. We leave someone here with her.” They both go silent, and I take that as my cue that it isn’t a bad idea. “Someone who is unsuspecting, who will distract her enough so she doesn’t ask questions, but nurturing enough so that she feels safe. Someone Cooper knows but is a lot fucking harder to get through.”
“Fucking hell, D.” Sparrow’s voice drops low. “Are you talking about your mother?”
“Yes and no.” I shake my finger, sliding off the desk and making my way to one of the large bay windows behind it. I move the privacy curtain out of the way slightly, finding Shiloh and Cooper on the beach. She’s laughing, so I guess that’s something. “I’m talking about your mother and your ex, Sparrow.”
“Fuck,” Sparrow curses through the phone.
“God, I love having a fucked-up family and no psycho exes.”
We both ignore Malyk’s dig, because he knows I’m right.
He knows that this time tomorrow, Shiloh is going to either sink or swim.
I couldn’t move. I was sure I was going to die. My body curled around itself as if waiting. Just waiting for death to take me.
Please. Please take me.
Sparrow
Iknew what I wanted to be the second I was old enough to know what I didn’t want to be.
And that was my father.
There was a kind of horror that hung over young boys’ heads once they figured out who their father was. Like seeing a mask slip from an old friend, and all the time you thought you could trust him, he just reminded you of why you couldn’t. Why you shouldn’t trust anyone. For me, my father was the first snake I met.
I could hear his footsteps down the hall. I knew he would be home early, and I wondered why I never just asked my mother where he really was. I had basketball tonight—fucking tryouts—and do you think he could fit his only child into his bullshit schedule? Nah. That would ask too much of him.
My Air Jordans tapped against the wooden step as I counted how many times the clock ticked on the old grandfather my mother got as a Christmas gift. My family had never needed money. I was sure the Dixon family shat hundred-dollar bills.
The footsteps stopped, and I raised my eyes up to where my father stood. He loosened his tie from around his neck, taking a long sip of his whiskey while keeping his eyes on mine.
“It’s time.”
“Time for what?” I asked, glaring up at him. I’d had about enough of his constant bullshit, and if I knew him, which I did, I knew he was sick of me too. Truth was, I had seen stepfathers treat their children better than mine did me.
His finger circled the rim of the glass. “You get in?”
“Yeah,” I answered, annoyed at how it felt when he showed an inkling of an interest in my life. I didn’t want his attention. I didn’t want to feel good when I got it either.
“Well, that’s too bad.” He placed the tumbler on the side table, right near the family portrait of this fake ass family. “Because there are many things in your future, Sparrow, and basketball isn’t one of them.”
I shot up from the stairs, clenched teeth and fire hot in my veins. This was it. He had taken everything from me collectively over the years. Then he would rub it right into my face that he had it. But this? Basketball? Nah, I drew the fucking line. “I don’t want to be you.”
He chuckled, but it wasn’t the one I was used to hearing from him. This was the kind that I knew would haunt me for years to come. “By the end of this, you’re going to think I’m weak, Sparrow.” He took another step up. “You’re going to wish you could rewind back to this point, where your only problem was that your fucked-up dad never made it to watch your tryouts.” Another step. “Or how every night, you wonder why your mother stays with me if I bring a different woman into the same house I raised my child in, built with her.” He took the final step, standing tall right beside me. I felt the way his eyes drifted over my skin as he looked down on me from my step. “But more importantly, you’re going to wish that you could go back to this point, because this, right here, is the last time you will have any taste of mundane innocence left inside of you.”
Darkness cloaked my vision as something was shoved over my head. My throat tensed as if someone was choking me. “What the fuck!” Arms were around my back and my throat. “Dad!” I screamed so loud I was sure I tore my vocal cords. “Dad!” A heavy thud hit the back of my head, and everything went black.
“What time am I coming?” my mother asks through the phone, and I tap the counter with the edge of my pen to distract myself from doing what I always do when I’m on the phone with her.
Ask one hundred questions.
“We have to be gone by ten. So, any time before then.”
