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There are some things lingering between us, though. Questions that need answering.
I need to know her association with my father. If I’m going to protect her, I have to make sure there’s no way for him to get into our lives. Because if I leave the door open and he slithers on through the way he always does, I won’t survive if she gets hurt. We know beyond the shadow of a doubt now that he’s the kind of bastard who won’t give a fuck about using her to get to me.
“How do you know that guy?”
Pain flickers across her face. “I-I-I… I met him. Met him at the hockey game.”
“That’s it?”
I don’t mean for her to think I don’t believe her, but I have to make sure. When I finally kill that son of a bitch, I want him to know why. Every reason he’s ever given me counts, sure, and there’ve been plenty.
Butthisis the one that will do it.
She nods and swallows hard. “That’s it.”
I’m not satisfied, but she looks too fragile to push any harder. “Stay away from him, okay? He’s bad news.”
She looks up at me, the fear gone, replaced now by curiosity. “How doyouknow him?”
“We have… history.”
I thought it was ancient history, to be fair. It should’ve already had a happily-never-after.
I could’ve ended my father a thousand times. When he passed out drunk. When I was driving the car for whatever criminal shit he was trying to drag me into. Just now, when he kidnapped Sloan, I could’ve put a bullet between his eyes with no qualms.
But I don’t want to be like him. I’ve worked my entire life to be better than that bastard.
Before she has the chance to ask more, my phone vibrates in my pocket. I look at the screen and my guts roil. My old man doesn’t know who he’s fucking with. If I get the chance, I won’t hesitate again.
I let your girlfriend go as a favor. I’ll be by to collect what I’m owed soon.
I ignore my old man’s message, turn back to the wheel, and pull the car onto the road.
Let him come,I think to myself.It’ll be the last fucking thing he ever does.
4
BECK
The rest of the way to the house, Sloan holds herself rigid and stays quiet. When we arrive, I park in the garage and kill the engine, but I don’t say anything.
For a minute—which is about fifty nine and a half seconds longer than he deserves—I think about my old man’s text.
He wants something, and he used Sloan to show me he can get to me.
She said she just met him at a game. But the more I think about it, the more I call bullshit. Arrogant, criminal bastard that he is, he doesn’t even belong in the same world she’s in. There’s more here. More she’s not telling me.
We’ll get to that soon enough, though. There is other stuff to discuss first.
“Sloan, I found some things.”
I’m picturing them in my head—the handwritten envelopes, the stack of threatening notes that went along with them, andthe most important piece, the pregnancy test. Thepositivepregnancy test.
“Oh.”
“You have a stalker?”
The obvious culprit would be the son of a bitch we just left behind, but something tells me that’s not right. Creepy notes aren't my dad’s game. This is someone else.
