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“Jesus, Zay. You shouldn’t have the weight of all this on your shoulders,” I mutter.
“But it’s okay for them?” he asks innocently.
“They’re older, they—”
“Are doing all of it for me. I hate it.”
“Shit, bud. I don’t know what to say.”
He holds my eyes, words right on the tip of his tongue, but he holds them back for some reason.
“Go on,” I encourage.
“Can you tell me what’s happened? What’s really happened? I know it’s to do with Dad. That’s why Blake and I had to leave the flat. I didn’t believe the gas leak story for a second, but I was willing to go along with it for them. Then Atlas said all this stuff, and honestly, I had no idea if he was lying or what. But this… it all fits his words and—”
My need to protect him wars with my need to treat him like the mature young man that he is.
Clearly, he’s far from naïve with the life they all live. But will telling him everything do more harm than good?
Can there be any more harm than this?
“Yeah, bud. It was your father. He put Evie up for sale on the dark web.”
His brows pinch together as he tries to process those words.
“He… what a fucking arsehole.”
My eyes widen at his outburst, but I also can’t stop my smile from spreading.
“Zayden,” I half warn, half laugh.
“What? He’s a prick. I have no good memory of the man. He’s a drunk, and a crook, and clearly the worst father in the entire world. How could he do that to Evie?” His eyes fill with tears as he thinks about her.
“I’m sorry, Zay.”
“It’s okay. It’s always been okay because I have Blake and Evie. They make up for all his flaws.”
“They’re pretty incredible,” I agree.
“So what happened? How did we end up here?”
Shifting on the hard concrete floor, I turn to look at him properly before I give him the CliffsNotes of the events that lead to us sitting here together.
“So they have us here because they don’t have her?” he asks hopefully.
“Her bracelet,” I blurt, startling him.
In that video, she wasn’t wearing the bracelet I bought her, or the necklace from her mother that Blake gave her on her birthday.
That video was old.
They don’t have her. If they did, they’d be torturing me with live feeds and proof. Right?
“Alex?” Zay asks while my head spins with a million thoughts.
“You’re right. I don’t think they have her,” I whisper. “That video, it was old. She’s not here. They don’t have her.”
He nods, lost in his own thoughts.
