“I didn’t say it was.”
“You’re hurting,” Mateo said.
“Fuck you.” I wanted them to hit me. The pain my dad had inflicted had been a welcome relief. I stared at each of my friends. “None of you felt her. The tightness of her pussy, how it popped under my stiff cock.”
Dante sighed. “And here comes the prick. It’s always about you, isn’t it, Gideon?”
“In case you didn’t see, I’m the leader of the pack.”
I saw their hands clench into fists, but none of them attacked me.
Fucking bastards.
They knew me well and were refusing to give me what I wanted.
“None of you will know how good it felt for her to come for me,” I said.
Dante ran a hand down his face. “Go on. If this is what you want. Keep on saying the words that are going to guarantee our friendship is over. We’ll still be tightly bound together, but with a little help, maybe you can fuck it up completely.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to say more, but I just couldn’t. I had to hold back. Did I want to lose them as friends? They were my brothers. I loved them and would die for them.
Silence rang out loud and clear.
After falling to the ground, I drew my knees up against my chest with a sigh.
“I miss her,” I said. “There’s nothing I can do to bring her back, and that’s all I want to do.”
“You’re not alone,” William said, sliding down to the ground. He crossed his legs, hands resting on his thighs. Mateo was next and then Dante.
I stared at my friends. They hadn’t left, and I was so happy about that.
“We all miss her,” Mateo said.
“None of us wanted her to feel any kind of pain,” William said.
“We’re all here.”
“I promised her.” I looked at each of them in turn. “I told her that we’d take care of Heather and we … how did this happen?”
“Fred is willing to look into it,” Mateo said.
Fred had gotten out of the hospital but had continued to do his classes at home. His father refused to send him back to school. Since graduation, I hadn’t been back either.
The school had been impenetrable. It was why I knew I could help Heather. I needed to find out who was responsible for all this shit and make them pay.
I hated the not knowing.
I didn’t know how my dad or his friends were coping. Joan was gone. No sign of her. At least Sian was close by.
“I don’t think we should bring anyone else into this,” William said. “He already got beat up pretty bad.”
“Yeah, but we need to do this. If we knew who set the fire and cut our woman’s hair, then we can allow everything else to fall into place,” Mateo said. “Fred came to me after he heard what happened. He wanted to do something to help.”
I shook my head. The temptation was strong, but I wasn’t willing to let anyone else get involved.
“Not happening,” I said. “We have to learn to figure this out on our own.”
The door opened and out stepped my father. “Give me some time alone with my son,” he said.
Dante, William, and Mateo each got up.
They were still my friends, but the warning in their gazes was clear: Don’t be an asshole to your dad.
It was easier for them to advise it than for me to follow it.
I stayed on the ground, and much to my surprise, my dad slid down the wall until he landed on his ass, legs drawn up, staring at me.
“I’m going to tell you this now, and it doesn’t leave us, got it?” he asked.
“Do I have a choice?”
“Your sisters are not mine,” Lucas said, taking me completely by surprise.
“What?”
“Yeah, you heard me.” He further surprised me as he pulled out a packet of cigarettes and a lighter. I watched him spark up a cigarette.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” I said.
“I don’t. This just gives me something to do. It makes it easier to keep my hands busy.”
“Joan?” I asked.
“You have no idea what it meant to lose her. To have to watch her get married to Alexander, the piece-of-shit student we’d taken under our wing as our little underdog project. Your grandfather warned me, you know. He told me that Alexander was a bad seed. I figured he was bullshitting. Couldn’t stand me helping someone who wasn’t of the same class as me. It turns out he always had a bigger plan for all of us. Joan was just the tool to get it.”
I watched his jaw clench. I thought about Sian. Would I be able to stand her being with someone else?
No, I couldn’t imagine it, nor did I want to.
Running a hand down my face, I tried to clear my thoughts, but it wasn’t happening.
“Drinking your way through this is not going to help,” Lucas said.
“It helps to numb the pain.”
“But it doesn’t go away. None of it does.” Lucas took a long inhale. “This isn’t something you need to be doing either. It’s bad for you.”
“Then you stop.”
“I’m an old man.”
We went silent. My dad and I had never been the kind to have long conversations. To be honest, Sian had helped us to talk more in the last ten months than the last eighteen years.
“Do you like me?” I asked, looking at my dad.
He laughed. “Son, I love you.”
“But you don’t love my mom?”
“She doesn’t love me. She gave me you, which is why her life is as peaceful as it is.”
“You’re being honest,” I said.
“Honesty is the best course of action.”
“Is it worth it?” I asked, not talking about family or work, or anything.
“The Society?” he asked.
I nodded.
He didn’t answer right away, which surprised me.
“I wish I could give you a proper answer. The truth is, yes and no.” His lips pursed. “When Joan was picked as our girl, I thought they were having a fucking laugh. I mean, Joan, really? She was this sweet, innocent girl. She followed the rules, and to be honest, I thought she was boring, but rules were rules. I was an asshole to her in the beginning. She was terrified, but her family believed it was a great honor to be chosen, and if you are, then it is. Money, power, privilege, it all comes to you. Her family got that for the price of her flesh. I don’t know how she did it, but little by little, she got beneath my skin and I couldn’t imagine my life without her, you know? She was everything. It started out with the little things. Her smile. The way she laughed. No matter how shitty her day was, she had something to smile about, and that became addictive to me. I loved that no matter what she always seemed so happy. She accepted everything. In her world, there was no time to just dwell on what she couldn’t change.”
“She sounds amazing,” I said.
“She was. She is. Joan’s still out there. I’d know if she was dead. When I get my hands on Alexander…”
He didn’t finish what he was saying.
“You can’t do anything to him,” I said. “He will have to answer to The Society.”
“Yeah, well, even they like to see a little payback.”