“You have me,” my father says. “You can let her go.”
Stone steps out from the group. “Keeper.” If you didn’t know him, the word might sound casual. But I hear the ice. It’s formed into daggers, that ice. Made for slicing skin apart.
“I’m Keeper.”
A thunderous silence falls over the room. The world takes on hard edges. Fear vibrates in my chest.
Daddy looks over at me. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” I turn a pleading gaze to Stone. “Don’t hurt him. You promised.”
“I said I wouldn’t hurt you,” Stone snarls, eyes on my father. “You bring the cops?”
“No,” Dad says.
“He’s alone,” the man who brought him says. “Perimeter is secure. Scanners are clean.”
“How’d you find us?” Stone barks.
Dad nods at my shoulder bag. “Her bag. Chipped.”
It’s not that surprising that they had a tracker put in my bag. I should have expected that. But I thought it would be Detective Rivera who did that. Not Daddy. Not Daddy coming alone.
“Well. We’ve been waiting a long time to meet you,” Stone says. “Years we were down there. But then that’s not a surprise. You knew that.”
“I didn’t know,” Dad says, pale but determined. “Not while it was happening—I swear. I found out later.”
The blond holds out his hands like he wants to hug my dad. The guy holding Dad shoves him at the blond one, who grabs his shirt front with one hand and smashes his fist into Dad’s jaw with the other.
Dad crashes backward into the wall.
I scream.
Grayson is on him, hitting him. The sound sickens me. Knox piles on. Stone hangs back, expression furious. He feels far away.
I look helplessly over at Stone, at Abby. “Do something!”
“I—” She shakes her head, seeming bewildered. She could stop them from hurting each other, but not from this. Not from hurting my father.
“He said he didn’t know! Stone!” I beg tearfully. “He’s my father!”
He sucks in a breath. “Fuck!” He grabs the gun from Abby. He raises it and shoots the cracked ceiling.
The explosion splits my eardrums just like the last one. Drywall falls like snow, settling on everyone’s shoulders. But through the haze of the chaos, the guys pause.
“Enough,” Stone says.
Knox gets right into Stone’s face. It’s like he doesn’t even care about the gun. “It’s Keeper. He needs to die.”
Dad is half lying on the floor, eyes peering at me through his bloody face. He mouths something to me over and over. Words. I’m sorry.
“Please,” I say. “It’s my dad. Please.”
“He says he didn’t know,” Stone says.
“Since when do you give a shit about that?” the buzz-cut guy who brought Dad in demands. “He looked the other way. He admitted he knew eventually, so why didn’t all these fuckers end up in prison? Oh right, because they’re all fucking in bed together. This guy needs to pay.”
“If he wants us to kill him quick, he’ll tell us what we need to know about the boys,” another one says.
Stone steps in front of Dad. “Try it and I’ll cut your fucking throat.” Certainty vibrates in his every word.
The room goes silent. The guys look shocked. Outraged.
Stone’s outnumbered, but he’s the one with the gun. Who would win that fight? I have a feeling no one would. Every single person in this room would lose as soon as one brother killed another.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Knox asks him.
Stone looks at me, his features arranged like a sculpture. Like they’ve always been this visage of fury and determination. Like he never came apart in my body.
But then I see it. Something new. Something different. “Those scumbags treated us like animals,” he says. “But we’re not animals. Fuck that.”
“Like hell we’re not,” Cruz growls.
Stone gives him a hard look. “We’re gonna hear what he has to say, and then we’re gonna think of how we fucking make some justice happen.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Knox says.
“We’ll hear what he has to say,” Stone says again. “And see what we can do together.”
The guys just stare. Violence rolls off their bodies like they’re heat lamps set to a thousand degrees. Suns that landed on Earth.
I have to pass between Grayson and Knox, and I half expect them to reach for me. To rip me apart with their bare hands. They look capable of it.
I make it to my dad, who’s still slumped against the wall.
I take his hand. It feels cool to the touch. God, did they hurt him? Of course they did. But it could be worse.
“Daddy,” I whisper.
“Princess, I’m sorry. So sorry. I never wanted you to know. You or your mother. Never wanted any of this to touch you.”
“Didn’t mind it touching the rest of us,” Grayson drawls, but I squeeze Daddy’s hand, keeping his attention focused on me. Stone’s giving us this window. We have to do what’s right.
“How did you find out?” I ask, bracing myself.
Even though I’m expecting the answer, it still hurts to hear it. “When it burned down. The fire caught onto the house next door. They told me about the accident—that’s what they called it, an accident.”
Someone snorts from behind me. Probably Grayson.
“Dorman—the late governor—he was involved. Just an executive back then. He said they’d pay me for the loss of the houses, but they’d need some time. I said don’t worry about it, I have insurance. But he said no way, no one goes there.”
There’s a hand on the back of my neck, both exerting pressure and providing comfort. I know exactly who it is, even without looking. Know by the sense of rightness that slides through my body.
“What happened next?” Stone asks.
“I was curious.” Dad looks away, and it takes me a second to recognize his expression. I’ve never seen it on his face before. Embarrassment. “I should have been curious sooner. I know that now. But they were important men. Pillars of the community…I never imagined…” He coughs, wipes his mouth. “I drove down myself one night, expecting some kind of gambling ring. Maybe a full-service massage parlor.”
“You weren’t wrong,” Knox mutters, cutting. That blade, it’s sharp on both ends, and I see my father flinch. I see something dark flicker in Stone’s eyes.
“Keep going,” I murmur, helping Daddy sit up a little.
“I thought, the fire must not be that bad if they wanted to keep things running. But the place was abandoned. And really just ruined. The fire had burned through that old structure. It would be a teardown, if anyone ever bothered, but I knew they wouldn’t. As soon as I went downstairs, I knew.”
“How did you know?” Stone asks in this hard voice that doesn’t imply curiosity. It’s the leading kind of question that says he already knows the answers.
My dad’s silent a moment, and I have the feeling he’s far away, seeing it for the first time again. Experiencing it all over again. “My family owned a farm,” he says finally, looking at me. “You know that, right? It was my grandfather who started it, when he came here from Poland.”