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“Daddy—” No, that wasn’t getting us anywhere; honestly, he’d already answered my questions. Did I want to make him say it aloud? “Mr. Sharpe.”
His wild-eyed gaze bounced up to mine. Once upon a time, the evident anger reflecting in there would have made me flinch. “I’m Daddy…”
“Not anymore,” I informed him. “You're fast on your way to being a total stranger, Mr. Sharpe.”
“What the hell happened to you?” Was he that delusional? Or was he really that good of an actor? “What happened to my sweet girl?”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
There.
The moment I asked the question, his gaze slid away.
“Yeah, you knew.”
Milo was already moving. I expected it and I didn’t look away. He knocked my father over and right out of the chair. The man hit the ground with a grunt and a crack of something. A rib, maybe? His wrist?
I could perform with cracked ribs.
He’d survive.
The air around Milo seemed to vibrate with the same rage circling everyone else. At my sigh, Freddie let go of my hand and slid an arm around me before catching my hand in his free one.
“Time to go?” The question was so soft I doubted anyone else heard it.
I shook my head once. Not quite yet. Beyond Milo, Liam watched my father with cold eyes. The emptiness there was not something I enjoyed seeing, particularly when he was as far from cold as you could get.
At the same time, I recognized the rage. How could I not? It practically peppered the air around us. With the weight of Freddie’s arm grounding me, I watched the man who’d adopted me struggle to try and sit up. He couldn’t quite get his feet under him or his arms.
Realization seemed to hit him, and he considered crawling, but Vaughn moved to block him. Everywhere he twisted, the Vandals were right there. We weren’t letting him go.
Finally, he wrenched himself around to stare up at Milo then past him to me. “What do you want to get me out of here?”
Behind me, Mickey let out a low snort. “Pathetic piece of shit.”
I couldn’t have said it better. Honestly, why had I ever idolized him? Too stupid to know better? Or maybe I had. It was why I had tried to stay away more. It wasn’t just my uncle I avoided, but all of them.
The mother who left me with her abuser.
The father who didn’t care…
“What did you get when you gave me to him?”
The temperature in the fridge dipped. I felt more than saw Freddie slip the knife out of my pocket. When I put my hand over his, he stopped, but the stillness around us was powerful.
“It—wasn’t like that.”
Rome shifted to move up next to me while Mickey took a position on the other side of Freddie. Kellan hadn’t moved from where he, Liam, Milo, Jasper, and Vaughn formed a circle around my father.
My father.
Guess they both ended up being terrible.
“No?” The faintest of quavers in my voice steadied as Rome settled his hand at the base of my spine. Freddie kept an arm around my shoulder while I held his hand with the knife and Rome was right there with us. “What was it like then?”
My father shot a look at the circle around him, hesitation written all over his face. Or maybe he realized that he wasn’t going to leave this room. I searched inside me for some sense of sadness or grief. But it wasn’t there…
“Answer her question,” Jasper said in a bored tone. “She’s been exceptionally polite, and you’re annoying me.”
