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“Father, it’s the only way to keep you safe from Gideon. Do you remember Gideon? Stephen Black’s son?”
As he always does when I mention the name, he shakes his head uncontrollably. “He’s dead and I don’t want this anymore. Let me go, Arran. I beg you.”
“Stephen is dead. But Gideon is very much alive and he’ll kill you. He wants revenge for what you did. Do you remember what you did?”
“We did what had to be done!”
“I know you did. But he still wants revenge.”
“I don’t care! I want to die.” Sobs begin to wrack his body. It’s the same conversation. Same damn words he always uses.
I stand, frustration roiling through my veins. “Have you any idea of the shit I’ve been through to protect you, Father? The things I’ve done?”
“Let him kill me! I deserve to die. Kate. Kate!”
“Why do you keep saying that? If you did what you had to, why do you deserve to die?” I yell, tired of this. Tired of everything. “Kate’s gone. She’s been gone for two years. But I’m still here, taking care of you. Taking care of everything you made.”
Tears roll down his wrinkled cheeks as he looks right through me. “Kate.”
I try to swallow the anger that forms in the base of my throat. Nothing will ever bring Kate back for him. Not the drugs. Not the crying and begging for her to return.
The only thing he doesn’t have is closure. Revenge.
“Thomas Cameron is dead,” I finally tell him.
“Judge Cameron?” he whispers.
“I killed him.”
“He’s dead?” His thin lips part and his eyes widen in horror. Now, he does see me, and I almost wish he didn’t. “You killed him?”
“I had to, Father. He was behind Kate’s death.”
“You killed him after I begged you not to?” The question is laced with disbelief.
“Yes. Kate had to be avenged.”
“You swore to me you wouldn’t touch him!” He tries to stand, but his knees are too weak and he falls back onto the couch. Staring at his palms, he cries, “There’s so much blood on my hands!”
“I don’t understand, Father. Why would you want the man who murdered your daughter alive?!”
“Don’t you see, boy? I don’t. I want Kate’s murderer dead. Butyou”—he jams a finger in my direction—“won’t let me die!”
I rear back as if he punched me. “What?”
“It was me, Arran! I did it. I killed Kate.” Again, he attempts to stand, and this time, he manages it, powered by a mix of rage and pain. “You refuse to let me die when it’s all I’ve wanted for two damned years!”
“What are you saying, Father?”
He falls to his knees at my feet and sobs like a child. Wiping the tears from his eyes on the back of his arm, he peers up at me imploringly. As if he’s begging me to understand. Begging me for forgiveness. “Yegor came to the house that day because I hired him. Kelly wanted a divorce and was holding the affair I had with Barb over my head. She would have taken everything! So I hired him. But when I sent him the photo, I…” A wail of sheer sorrow emerges from him like the sound of a tortured soul. “I accidentally sent him Kate’s picture.”
The horror at what he says has me staring at him in shock, my mouth parted on a scream that won’t come out.
“Oh shit,” Rowan and Ruslan both say at the same time.
I stumble back until I hit the wall behind me. And even then, all I can do is look at him. But I’m not seeing him at all. The only thing I see is Kate’s broken body on the steps where Yegor dumped her. And Thomas Cameron, the innocent man I condemned to a humiliating death.
And Skye.
