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“Who the hell is your old man anyway?” Isaac asked. “What’s his name?”
“Nicholas Campbell,” I replied. “He left when I was five. Mom told me he was dead, that he owed money to some gang he couldn’t pay back and that his problems had finally caught up to him. I’d learned awfully fast in my life that my mother was a compulsive liar, so I never fully trusted her word on anything. I just want to know what happened to him. I can’t help but think that maybe none of this shit would’ve happened if he hadn’t abandoned me.”
“None of that shit even matters anymore,” Isaac spat, a low growl thundering through his chest. “Your dad was a fucking deadbeat who cared more about himself than he did his wife and daughter. You’re better off not knowing.”
I gaped wide-eyed at him, his words summoning not only tears to my eyes, but me to my feet, my bottom lip shaking. Rhett and Phantom both punched Isaac’s arm and shot him hostile,what the fucklooks.
“How… How can you say something like that? You don’t even know him.”
“And based on what you just told us,” he said with a dark, serious demeanor. “Neither did you.”
Beyond my restraint, I slapped him. Rhett immediately jumped to his feet and guided me away just as Phantom launched himself forward to stop Isaac’s retaliation.
“He didn’t mean it,” Rhett whispered as I took in Isaac’s heaving chest, his green eyes wild as he glared me down. “He has his own parental issues he’s still struggling with, too. Please, Samara, don’t take it personally.Please.”
“Go to fucking Hell,” my choked voice shook. I broke away from his hold and stepped back, shaking my head as my ire-filled pupils skated between them.
“All of you.”
And then I ran away despite how much it hurt and never looked back, with tears snaking down my cheeks.
Thirty-Four
Rhett
Iwatchedasshedashed through the trees, knowing that calling out to her or commanding her to stop would be a waste of breath.
Spinning on my heel, I faced Isaac and angrily shoved at his chest.
“What the fuck is your problem? I’d understand Phantom lashing out, butyou, Isaac? What the actual FUCK!?”
“I was just stating the facts,” he sneered, pinning me with a dark glower. “What she said is a bunch of horse shit anyway. The Ravagers didn’t have anything to do with whatever the fuck happened to her father.”
“And how could you possibly know that?” I asked with a dubious cock of my head.
“I don’t,” he jeered again, giving me a fiery onceover. “All I’m saying is that it’s bullshit and you know it.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” said Phantom. “But I do think it’s worth looking into.”
Isaac scoffed at him. “You can’t be serious.”
“I agree with Phantom,” I said amidst Isaac’s protest, as I pondered a little harder on the topic. “Do the math. Her father disappeared thirteen years ago. Father was in power back then, and not only were you two not around yet, but none of us were old enough to know or have any comprehensive idea on how shit was back then. Assuming her father did get himself caught up in gang activity, then it is possible he could’ve crossed paths with ours.”
I paused for a moment, my lips parting as another inventive hypothesis popped into my head.
If I’m right, then it would better explain Father’s erratic behavior. Maybe he did know her father. It would also explain why he didn’t kill her nor detest paying her off when my brothers and I first mentioned it to him.
I expressed my theory to them, taking in Phantom’s raised brows and Isaac’s fury-flushed cheeks.
“It doesn’t fucking matter if he did or didn’t,” was Isaac’s asshole reply. “We have far more important shit to worry about.”
“It matters toher, though,” I retorted as calmly as I could. “That’s what she was told. And it’s what she’ll continue to believe unless she’s proven otherwise. If we want to sway her to our side and keep her there, then we have to earn her trust. Helping her get closure sounds like a damn good start to me. Treating her like a decent human being probably wouldn’t hurt either.”
“Rhett’s right,” Phantom agreed, which I had to admit shocked the anger out of me. Isaac continued to scowl at us. “But what bugs me is Damien. He’s the one who relayed the message to her. It sounds to me like he has the answer she seeks, so why didn’t she just get the full story from him?”
“Thank you!” Isaac shouted, throwing up his hands in an over dramatic praise. “Finally someone addresses the fucking elephant in her story. It’s all bullshit, just like I’ve been saying from the start.”
I smirked at him. “Do you really think a girl that smart would overlook something that crucial?”
