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“No. I fell asleep before I could get that far.”
Isaac swore deeply. Rhett’s face fell in disappointment.
“It’s all we got for now, so we have to work with it as best we can.”
“Well,” Rhett spoke through a miserable sigh. “Now is the perfect time to approach her. It’s best you go ahead and get it over with while you still have the opening.”
“Wait, what?” My heart jolted, damn near stripping my breath away. “You wantmeto approach her?”
“It has to be you,” demanded Isaac. “You’re the one who put in the work, and it’s common knowledge she’ll have questions that only you can explain. Besides, she seems to fancy using Rhett as a punching bag, and we all know after yesterday’s fiasco that I’m at the top of her stab list. I’d rather not get shanked in the dick today, so, it looks like you’re gonna have to break out of your anti-social bubble for once and be, well… not anti-social.”
It wasn’t that I was anti-social. Except for Cindy, conversing or establishing any sort of relationship with anyone outside of my brothers and father was something I never held any particular interest in. I preferred it that way. It was just easier.
When it came to Samara though… Fuck. I wasn’t sure how to explain it. She made me nervous. Shaking off her involvement with Damien was a battle I was still struggling to conquer. Drugging her was fucked up, but I wanted her to hate me. I needed her to hate me just as much as I hated myself so the line would be permanently drawn between us.
But then I just had to fuck shit up. Again. Give in to my abnormal desires and the urge to take advantage of her hot throat in spite of the promise I’d made myself. The lines were twisted now, with all of us. Rhett wanted her. Isaac wanted her. And me?Fuck. The truth was, I hadn’t the slightest clue how I really felt what or the hell I wanted anymore.
And it was that fact alone that utterly terrified me.
“Fine.”
I got to my feet and walked away, catching the worried looks my brothers had exchanged but quickly righted no sooner than I whipped around to retrieve the envelope I’d almost forgotten. Instead of addressing it, I played it off like they’d gotten away with it and temporarily tucked it away in the back of my mind. I’d get to the bottom of whatever the hell they were secretly fretting about later.
Thirty-Eight
Samara
Anotherweekhadcomeand gone, and I yet again had to force myself out of my tortoise shell and back into the wild. Isaac’s words hurt me. I’d broken down and opened the floodgates harboring all the emotions I’d kept crammed away under lock and key and didn’t close them until I was curled in a numb ball on my bed. What had pained me the most was the truth in his words. Isaac was right. I didn’t know my father, what kind of man he was, nothing. All I had were small, memorial fragments of a man who used to dress up and have princess tea parties with me and read me stories every night before bed.
I hated this shit. I was truly more angry with myself than anything. I wasn’t this girl. The girl who ran away and hid when shit got rough. I was strong, god damnit, a fucking warrior, a survivor. I refused to let them, or any of their words tear me down like that again.
Way too much was at stake and if I wanted my freedom, I had to get my head back in the game. I had to pass the next two trials and find some way to finally end Damien and take my life back.
Last week, somebody—three guesses who—had taken it upon themselves to gather all of my missed assignments and had slid them under the front door every day in one of those filing envelopes. I was sitting in the courtyard with my English book in front of me trying to finish the last of my worksheets.
I’d just made it to the bottom of the page, when suddenly a large shadow hovered over me, casting away the sun’s warm rays and naturally perfect lighting. I looked up, hiding my whimper as I breathed in deeply.
“I’m not in the mood to put up with any Ravager shit today,” I hissed as Phantom nervously blinked down at me. “Go away and leave me alone.”
He started to speak, his words silenced as I swiped a hand under my skirt and fisted a blade. I slammed it down on top of the table, the threat of what I’d do to him if he didn’t fuck off written in every crease of my tight, venomous glare.
The asshat smirked a smile and then tossed a large manilla envelope on top of my schoolwork before stepping back with his hands shoved in his pockets.
“It took me all night,” he said casually, like he wasn’t long overdue to have his shit rocked sideways. “But there you have it. Everything I was able to find on your father is right there inside that envelope.”
My breath caught, my fingers loosening around the blade. “Wh-what?”
“You could say ‘thank you,’ you know.”
I peered down at the envelope, my heart pounding. “I don’t understand. Why did you—”
“Because you need closure. That, and because there was something you said yesterday that the guys and I didn’t want to overlook.”
“I still don’t understand.”
He sighed like he was getting annoyed and then sat in the seat in front of me, smirking down at the blade as my grip enclosed over the steel again.
“It’s like Rhett was saying after you ran off. Your father disappeared thirteen years ago. Our father was still in power back then, so if yours really did get himself caught up in gang life, then we all agreed it’s possible your father could’ve crossed paths with ours. So, I looked into it for you. Look at it as a sort of peace offering. It was the least I could do after—”
