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Chills run down my spine.
“Almost as if it was planned for you to be able to intervene.”
“They had no intention of stopping,” Kade curses.
“Of course they didn’t,” Charles screams back. “They were all too eager to get their hands on her. She had been unattainable for years, and now they had the very thing they all craved being served to them on a fucking platter. They were encouraged to devour her, to leave nothing behind. Who do you think put that into motion?” He doesn’t wait for a response. “The men who attacked her. None other than my very own father. You were fighting shadows, but I was fighting from the enemy’s camp. I couldn’t stop it from happening, but I did set it up so you had a chance to get to her. Delayed her at school so you would realize quicker that something was wrong. Then told those bastards where they could cut her off. Close to where you’d be waiting for her.”
“Why set her up at all?” Noah asks calmly, his head tilted to the side as he studies Charles. He’s much calmer than the rest of us. Not that it surprises me. Him and Declan both are much better at putting their emotions to the side in order to analyze a situation logically.
Declan looks strained as Charles drags his gaze from Kade to Noah.
“And have them take her straight from school? Move her somewhere they would have had no chance of ever finding her?”
D cringes as if he’s figuring out more behind his words. “You took control of her downfall to mitigate how low she fell.”
Charles nods slowly. “Broken is better than dead. They wanted her dead.”
I fall back into a chair. It’s almost too much to process all at once. Everything I thought I knew about what happened back then is slowly crumbling to pieces. If I’m this staggered by the revelation, what is it going to do to Scar?
Fuck.
Does she already have her suspicions? Is that why she’s been struggling with how to deal with Charles? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Declan’s voice draws my attention back up. “When did you find out about your father? That he was behind the attack?”
Charles’ face shuts down. He steps away from Noah, dropping into the seat closest to him. He sighs, the anger diffusing from his body. “Guess I might as well lay all my cards out on the table since we’ve come this far.”
“Fuck you,” Kade snarls. “You can’t possibly be behind this shit. I refuse to believe it.”
I can’t fault Kade for his reaction. Shit, I’m right there with him.
“Oh, fuck off,” Charles fires back, once again showing a backbone I didn’t know he possessed. The anger real quick to make another reappearance. I guess I’m not the only one on edge. A snort almost escapes at the thought. I think I’m losing it.
“You’re mad I broke her, you made your damn point,” he argues. “But there would have been no pieces for you to pick up if I hadn’t saved her first.”
“Don’t you dare fucking say that,” Kade bellows. “You didn’t save her. No matter what you fucking tell yourself, you were too weak, too powerless, too fucking useless to save her.”
Charles jumps to his feet, moving too fast for any of the guys to stop him after letting their guards down. He’s in Kade’s face as he yells right back. “You think I don’t know that? That I didn’t hate myself for failing her? That I haven’t gone over that night a million times, analyzed what I could have done differently? When I said you didn’t know shit, I meant it. You have no idea what it’s like to live in our world. To live with the monster who took the very best thing in your life and destroyed it. Then relished in your pain as he watched it slip out of your fingers.”
Defying my expectations, Kade doesn’t lay him out right then and there. He waits with bated breath to hear what else Charles has to say.
Charles cocks his head to the side to look at D. “When did I find out what my father did to my fiancée? The night he raped her. I’ve always known. Knew I had to get her as far away from him as I could, even if it meant losing her myself.”
“He told you?” Declan asks disbelievingly.
He once again shakes his head, easing off Kade as he does. Declan grabs Kade to pull him back and put more distance between the two of them.
“Remind me who saved her from the fire?” His use of sarcasm is really getting old.
“A firefighter,” Kade spits.
He arches his brow in response. “She would have been dead before they ever arrived on scene, let alone inside the house.”
“It wasn’t them,” I answer, still remembering the story with perfect clarity. “It was a neighbor. He saw the smoke and came to investigate. Found her first, and didn’t realize more people were in the house.”
Declan snaps his head in my direction, causing Charles to chuckle. A dark, almost familiar sound. “How many rich people do you know that would involve themselves in someone else’s business and then risk themselves by running into a fire?” He directs the question right to D.
“None,” he answers simply. Honestly.
