AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I knew,” Ash said, bringing the room to a full stop.
“You did?” Garrick straightened, fisting his hands at his sides.
“When I worked for my father, it was one of the places he would meet girls. In the basement.” He pinched his lips together. “But your father wouldn’t allow it once he found out. He tried to put a stop to it. That’s why my father wouldn’t let him stay in the business, why he forced the sale of the club and drove your father from town.”
Bastian’s eyes darted to Garrick. He’d spent years trying to figure out why his uncle would turn on them so quickly, why he only sent one brother away.
“Our father wouldn’t let Samuel run his girls through my mother’s club,” Jackson said slowly, as though he needed to let them sink in a little at the time.
Garrick ran his tongue over his teeth, looking away from everyone. Emotions were probably piling up in him, but he wouldn’t let them out until he was good and ready.
“Garrick?” Ariella’s soft voice carried across the room. When Garrick’s eyes rose to meet hers, Bastian’s chest constricted. Betrayal screamed in his eyes.
CHAPTER25
Garrick
* * *
“Ariella, you should go upstairs,”Garrick flexed his hands. Bastian may have been joking about Garrick keeping his temper in check, but it was becoming a real struggle. And Ariella didn’t need to see this part of him.
“Why? What’s wrong?” She looked ready to go to him, but Bastian held her back with a simple touch to her arm.
“She’ll be fine,” Bastian said.
Garrick dragged his attention to Ash. The anger of the past few years came to a simmer just below his skin. His body heated with it.
“You knew this, and you didn’t tell us?” Garrick moved around the desk, shoving off Jackson’s hand when he tried to hold him back.
“Garrick, you knew my father. There was no talking to him.” Ash kept his usual stone demeanor. “I made the changes when he was gone. None of the evil shit he did to those girls is taking place within the Titon family.”
“And after he was gone, you didn’t offer Notes to us. You sold it.” Garrick’s back ached, the tension built so tight.
“I didn’t think you’d want it.” Ash rolled his shoulders back. “I was wrong.”
“Yeah.” Garrick huffed a laugh. “You were. And when my brother came crawling back to town, did you tell him why your father sent us away?”
Ash turned his eyes to Jackson. “No. My father was dead. Yours too. There was no reason to drag it up. We all knew what a prick my father was.”
“When you sold the club, did the next owner use it for the same purpose?” Jackson asked, his voice as tense as Garrick’s. Maybe it wasn’t too late for his brother. Maybe he was finally seeing Ash was not that different from their uncle.
“No.” Ash’s answer came out hard. “The Cedarville family had nothing to do with anything illegal. They ran another club on the north side. Everything above board.” He assured them.
“Why didn’t you tell me about my father, about what happened?”
“Because it was over. Our fathers are gone.” Ash gestured to the room. “It’s just us now. Peter, you, Jackson, and me. We are the Titon family now, and we decide how it goes forward. I’ve destroyed everything disgusting my father built. We’ve gotten away from the old ties of the families that used to own this town. What would telling you about one more of my father’s sins do?”
Jackson stood shoulder to shoulder with Garrick.
“It would have at least explained why we were sent away.” Jackson’s body tensed beside Garrick.
“Why didn’t your father tell you?” Peter asked, moving away from the desk and standing between them and Ashland. “Did you ask?”
“He wouldn’t tell us,” Jackson admitted. “He said he didn’t understand it himself. According to him, he went to ask for a bigger part of the family business, and Samuel refused. Next thing he knew, he was being pushed out of town.”
“Samuel was never going to give anyone a bigger piece of what he had,” Peter stated. “Samuel was a prick; we all know that. And he didn’t give a fuck about his own brothers. Uncle Stephan might not have understood why his brother would rather kick him out of town than move his underground trades elsewhere.”
Garrick pinched his lips together, tilted his head back, and took a slow breath in.
