Chapter Twenty

  Kaitlyn

  “Hey, over here!” Waving my hand, I freeze as the minivan carrying my parents had many more shadows than two through the tinted windows. “Oh, no, no you did not.”

  Dread seeps into my gut when the first person out of the car isn’t my mom, but Jessie, and she opens her arms wide at me. Forcing a smile when she hugs me tightly, I can’t keep it on my face when her three kids come piling out of the van. And then my brother. And then my parents. Pulling back from my sister, I cast her a wild, questioning look while my brother and nephew round the van to grab the luggage.

  “N-not that I’m not happy to see you guys, but . . . what’re you doin’ here? I thought it was just Mom and Dad since it was so short notice?” I question quietly, and Jessie twists to glance over her shoulder with surprise elongating her features. “Did they invite you?”

  “Well, yeah. Everyone knew about your gig, and Mom asked if we wanted to come. And then the boys asked where we were going, and they got invited in the excitement of it.” Concern and guilt dribble from her tone, and I wince when she turns back to touch my bicep. “You weren’t told? I’m so sorry, I thought you knew, Kaitlyn. But, for what it’s worth, Henry gave the kids money, and Mom’s going to be at the event tomorrow almost all day. I’ll reign in Mathew, and you can spend the evening just you with Mom and Dad.”

  “Uh, okay. I mean, I know they didn’t come up here just to see me, and I really am glad you came, but . . .” My sister nods and smiles sympathetically in understanding, and I run my hand through my hair roughly. “I guess I should’ve booked a bigger table for lunch.”

  “We’ll talk a little later, okay?” She offers, and I look back at the huge hotel they’d be staying in and breathe a sigh of relief through my nose. I’m glad I didn’t offer for them to stay at my place. Shaking off my disappointment, I fix my smile back on my face when my mom steps up to hug me and hold me at arm’s length.

  “Lemme look at you, you’re paler than last year!” I blush uncontrollably at my mom’s assessment, her brown eyes sparkling merrily as she fingers the ends of my hair. “You haven’t cut your hair since the barbeque, either. It looks really nice, Kaitlyn. You look really just amazing, honey!”

  “You look good, too, Mom. Hi, Dad. How was the flight?” Hugging my dad, my throat and chest tighten intensely as his familiar weight and smell envelop me, and I pull back quickly. Inhaling deeply, I turn to point at the hotel and ignore my sister’s piercing look. “The restaurant’s just in here. Um, they’ll put your bags in the rooms for you as long as one person goes up.”

  “I’ll do it.” Mathew offers, and I crane my neck and roll my jaw at the ice that lodges high up in my chest. Why . . . why am I getting emotional? Blinking back the stinging in my eyes, I tense when my dad puts his hands on my shoulders to squeeze hard. I jump with a loud gasp and flail my arms, and a dense bubble of silence hangs down around my family and I.

  “Ah, why don’t you all go do that. Come on, Kaitlyn.” Grabbing my wrist, Jessie drags me off towards a bench shaded by a large tree, and I rub my numb fingertips together. “Take your shirt off.”

  “What?” But Jessie is already pulling down the shoulders of my t-shirt with worry and determination ruffling her brows. I grimace as she pulls up the fabric to inspect my belly and back. “I’m, I’m not being abused or something. I just . . . I dunno. I don’t know why I did that.”

  “I believe you.” She says after a long, hard pause, and I clear my throat roughly before Jessie holds my shoulders firmly. “Did someone hurt you, Kitty?”

  “I, n-not like that. I was actually . . . I wanted to talk to Dad about it, but it wasn’t . . . like that.” My knees weaken as I cover my mouth with the back of my hand, remembering vividly when Owen had given me a grand tour of his scars. Staring at my dad across the plaza, I blink as realization strikes me square in the chest. Reaching my other hand to touch my shoulder blades, my stomach flips dangerously. “Oh, Owen.”

  “Okay, you stay here. Sit. I’ll be right back.” Jessie forcefully sits me down, and I stare at a distant crack on the ground as tears cling precariously to my eyelashes. Why didn’t I ever connect the dots? Owen had told me all about how much he hated his brother, but with his father, his hatred’s almost repellent. Because Rowlan had to learn that violence from somewhere. When I close my eyes, I can smell the muskiness of him, feeling his heat against my cheek.

  God, how could someone do that? How can a kid, just a little boy, go through that? The breeze swirls around me, but no voice booms down from the Heavens to give me a straight answer. Cracking open my eyes, I stare at my own dad blearily as the blood drains from my face. I couldn’t imagine him raising his voice.

  “They’re gonna go settle in, and we’ll meet them at the restaurant. So, what’s up, Kitty?” Seating herself next to me, my sister grabs my hands to hold firmly, and I lick my dry lips heavily. Concern makes her eyes gooey, and the lines around her eyes and mouth deepen with the stuff. “What about Owen? That’s the guy you’ve been seeing, right? The one that’s so perfect?”

  Before I can open my mouth, my phone rings shrilly from deep in my purse, and my breath hitches. Digging through stuff, I pull out my cell and blink hard as Owen’s name flashes on the screen. Hastily answering the call, I put it on speaker before sniffling harshly. “Hey, Owen. Y-you’re okay? You’re on speaker, my sister’s here.”

  “Hello,” he says gruffly, a distinct and pointed discomfort thickening his tone. Goosebumps blanket my arms and I hug myself tightly with one arm to hold my phone up with the other. “Did something happen? Do you need me to come pick you up? I sensed a disturbance in the Force.”

  “W-well, no, I don’t think so . . .” I trail off uncertainly, and Owen grunts lowly on the line before it crackles hard. Jessie listens to the exchange intently and I hold my breath as apprehension roils in my veins.

  “Was it because you saw your dad?” I tense, the air rushing from my lungs as my heart thrashes in my chest, and Owen’s low chuckle crawls down my sternum. “It’s okay to tell her. My dad used to beat me. It’s not a secret, but I’d appreciate if you didn’t make it the talk of the visit. You guys are here for your mom’s event and Kaitlyn’s big leap at her job, not to pity me for things that happened two decades ago.”

  “Ah, I see. I’m sure we’ll run into each other at some point,” my sister says, glancing back at my family huddled in the same place they were left.

  “I’m sure we will. Don’t worry about me, Kaitlyn. This is your weekend to celebrate you. Enjoy it. I’ll be hangin’ around the bar, but tomorrow, I have to run to Edmonds for some business. My brother’s gonna be emerging from his celebratory alcoholic poison coma any time now, and he’s gonna be on the warpath when he finds out what I did. We’ll see each other on Tuesday, remember?” Rolling my lips between my teeth to stop their trembling, I nod mutely. Owen and my sister say their goodbyes before she reaches to hang up my phone. Holding my hot cheeks in her cool palms, she smiles comfortingly and wipes under my eyes.

  “Come on, honey. Lunch is on Mom and Dad. You can eat all the French fries you want.” Choking a half sob, half laugh at Jessie’s declaration, I place my phone back in my purse and stand up to rub my arms free of chills. Inhaling deeply, I hold my breath and close my eyes to rub them with my fists. “It sounds like he’s had a long time to confront everything.”

  “H-he has these h-huge scars . . . on his back. He didn’t tell me, but I saw them.” Arching uncomfortably from just mentioning them, I bluster a sigh and shake my head wildly as my sister hums softly. “I don’t know, it just hit me. Seeing Dad, I realized . . . Owen and his brother aren’t okay at all, but those scars . . . they were made by someone much, much bigger and stronger than him. And he hasn’t mentioned his mom, not even in passing.”

  “Sometimes, secrets are necessary, Kaitlyn. Everything comes out eventually, whether to us or God. Someone, somehow, sees the plight of the suffering and suffers too.” Wrapping her arm around me, my sister smiles warmly at me as I nod hastily. Together we head back to my parents. My mom opens her mouth, but I ignore her to walk into my dad’s arms and sling my own around his waist. He is warm, familiar, comfortable, and I inhale deeply as he rubs the back of my head with no questions or comments. “So, who’s ready for some food? I know I didn’t eat breakfast this morning!”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Owen

  Groaning softly, I stare down at my phone through bleary eyes as I shuffle heavily down the stairs. Tuesday couldn’t come fast enough, and I shoulder my way into the bar to stretch my arms taut over my head. The unbearable heat that had rolled up from the south makes me sticky, and I sweep back my hair before yawning into the back of my hand.

  “Rowlan called,” Michael says from his seat at the bar, and I grunt lowly in acknowledgment as I round the back to grab a water bottle from the cooler. “I think he thought he sounded threatening, but he just sounded drunk and mad. For a minute there, I almost thought it was your father. Sent chills down my spine.”

  “Congratulations, you win the prize of making a day terrible before I even properly wake up,” I grumble, twisting open the cap to take a few refreshing gulps, and Michael chuckles lightly with a shake of his head. “I’m not worrying about him. I made myself clear last time that I wasn’t playin’ around anymore.”

  “Ryan wants to meet with you, too. He called yesterday while you were in Edmonds, but you came right home and passed out, so I didn’t get a chance to tell you,” Michael reveals gravely, and I navigate to my missed calls to sigh irritably. “You’re becoming quite popular, Owen.”

  “I don’t wanna be. So, while I was doing inventory yesterday at the warehouse . . .” My attempt to change the subject stalls when the bell on the door rings. Glancing over at Ryan slinking through the door, I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “What’re you doin’ here so early?”

  “You know, Owen, I’ve been thinking about what you said . . . and you’re right.” The hairs on the back of my neck bristle as Ryan stalks towards me like a predator. Taking a quick sip of my drink, I suck my teeth lightly as I make my way around the bar. “You don’t need me, you don’t want anything from me, and I have nothing to offer you that you don’t already got. But you and me . . . we’re gonna have a lengthy conversation about why that shit don’t matter.”

  My ears ring, and adrenaline spikes my system as Ryan lunges at me to jab a punch at my face. Ducking, the air swirls where my head just was, and I sweep my foot out to kick his legs out from under him. He jumps back, and blood drums loudly in my ears when he immediately rebounds to throw a kick at my midsection. I jump back, but he’s on me instantly, crowding me against a table.

  The punch he delivers to my gut knocks the wind from me, and I tumble over the table to push it onto its side. Ryan simply shoves it out of the way, and I duck low to slam my knuckles into his outer thigh. His shocked cry rattles my teeth before he jams his knee up and pushes my head down, and I barely manage a glancing blow to his cheek.

  Wrapping my arms around him, adrenaline surges through me as I shove him to the floor to pin his arms with my knees. He bucks hard, nearly dislodging me, and I land a blow to his nose before he kicks up his legs. Gasping as his shin connects with the back of my head, I can’t stop myself jerking forward, and he headbutts me. Disorientated, stars blink around me as I roll off him, and Ryan jumps up to pull out a switchblade from his pocket. Blinking hard, I swipe the blood from my nose and scowl as I do the same. Panting furiously, my heart threatens to squeeze through my ribs and I tremble from the fire that races through my veins.

  I make the first move, thrusting my knife at Ryan in a feint to twirl on my heel and jam the flat, meaty part of my palm into his elbow. The crack of his bone breaking is muffled by his skin, but it’s clearly discernible to my ears. Not his dominant arm, though. The thought throws me off balance, and I growl low in my throat as pain bursts in my left calf. His knife doesn’t dig deep, just an inch, maybe, as it carves less than six inches. Time seems to stop, and I look down at the painful, but ultimately harmless slash to blink hard. Sweat stings my eyes, and Ryan clutches his broken arm as we stand, motionless, a few feet from each other.

  I lost. Sniffling harshly, I grunt lowly as I hack a glob of snot and blood onto the floor carelessly. Sweeping my hair back, I turn my gaze to Ryan to close my blade and toss it at him easily. He catches it just as smoothly, hugging his arm to his chest, and I drop heavily into a chair that’d been knocked out of the way during our scuffle.

  “You’re lucky,” I rasp harshly, and Ryan grunts in question as he throws himself into a chair of his own. Gripping my bleeding leg, I pinch the skin together and wince before glancing up to catch his eyes. Those same eyes that I share with him. “Your mom, she’s a good woman. I don’t gotta meet her to know that. Your dad, too. It sucks what happened to her.”

  “She wants to meet you.” A cold sweat breaks out on my body and I take a heaving breath into my quivering lungs. Michael emerges out of the corner of my eye with a first-aid kit, and I stretch out my leg gingerly.

  “I killed my mom, strangled her in the kitchen during a party my dad was having for his friends,” I reveal, and Michael pauses mid-step as Ryan sits up attentively. Numbness spreads through me, broken only by intense, needle-like stabs of ice in my chest when I breathe shallowly or my heart beats. “She knew he was going down . . . wanted to use me to entertain this one guy that liked little boys. I heard her arguing with my dad. For such a piece of shit, he wouldn’t allow it. So, he smacked her around and stormed out, and I stood over her . . . and she had this, this look . . . like she was gonna make it happen just to get back at him. I grabbed a metal spoon, and . . . it was a lot harder than I thought, to strangle someone. My dad took credit, buried her outside the house under a bird bath, and that was that. I was nine or ten, I think?”

  “My mom told me when I was fourteen,” Ryan confesses, sniffling harshly and rubbing his nose as his face burns bright red. My heart throbs painfully, and I sit back to rub the ache out of the back of my head. “Mark and Ethan are twins—fraternal twins—and when they were little, I never felt right. I think the hardest part was knowing that despite how I came into this world, she loved me. She and my dad decided I should grow up knowing I wasn’t his biological kid, but . . . man I really went off the rails. That’s how this all came about—workin’ the hard line. When Ethan and Mark went into the military, and it was just me . . . I remember feeling like I couldn’t be left behind. I couldn’t be less than the man my mom thought I was or could be.”

  “So, you’re slowly eating up all the other families? What’s the plan with that?” I ask as Michael sits at my feet to manhandle my leg, and I glance down at his pale, clammy face. Poor guy is only forty-two, and he glances up at me accidentally, his lip curling in a snarl of warning. The tension in the air spikes briefly before I turn my gaze back to Ryan as Michael adamantly ignores the exchange.

  “That’s why I wanted to hire you. It’s not so slow. I made it a point to start with Rowlan, because of you. You’re not a well-known figure, and you seemed decent by all accounts. I was hopin’ you’d be able to look at things in a way I couldn’t,” Ryan explains, bending down to grab a little towel and blow his bleeding nose harshly. He faintly groans in disgust, and I hiss when Michael pours a little too much disinfectant on my leg. “I’m gonna take control of Seattle within the next year, and I want you there. It’s hard for me to imagine the fucked up lengths the other families will go to, but you’ve got personal experience with it. I’m not nearly as well-embedded in this city, either. I built this all basically by myself.”

  “You really think you can get it done in a year?” I ask incredulously, and he nods with a jerk of his head, confidence filling the cracks between the pain masking his face. Rubbing my jaw thoughtfully, I tap my heel on the floor absently. “We can work something out, yeah.”

  “I was hopin’ you’d agree.” Whipping out his phone, Ryan sends a quick text as a satisfied smirk stretches his busted lip. “Your girlfriend’s parents are in town this weekend, right?”

  “I feel bad for you if that’s how you spend your Saturday night,” I snipe back, and the bell on the door drowns out his chuckle. Twisting as Ethan wanders into the bar, looking around with an impressed expression, I close my eyes briefly and hold back a sigh. “I’m not doing anything, no.”

  “Tomorrow night, we’re having a meeting to discuss our next steps, and I want you to be there, Owen,” Ryan says firmly, and I nod before his little brother hands me a perfectly giftwrapped box. Interest raises my brows, and he nods encouragingly as I examine the long, wide box. “It’s a present. I honestly wasn’t sure how this was gonna go, but I thought you’d appreciate it.”

  “Thanks. How’d you think it was gonna go, exactly? If I didn’t just wake up and had something to eat, I could’a totally kicked your ass. I’m not even dressed.” Ryan throws back his head and laughs, and I pop open the top of the wrapping paper to rip it off. The plain, black box underneath shines with a gloss finish, and I pull off the lid to gasp lightly in shock. Two knives sit on a cushion, and my heart leaps into my throat as I pull out the absolutely gorgeous spiral knife.

  A jagdkommando knife. The gorgeous, spiral blade flows like water, and I bite my bottom lip as admiration heats my cheeks. It’s a magnificent weapon and fits perfectly in my hand. “Wow . . . this is beautiful.”

  “I’m glad you like it. I had it specially made for you before we met. I wanted to come prepared,” Ryan declares sheepishly, and I grin broadly as I work the blade in my hand experimentally. “You didn’t make it easy, but then it wouldn’t be as satisfying.”

  “It’s incredible. If you just gave me this in the beginning, we coulda avoided this all,” I can’t lie, I’m mesmerized by this weapon. I’d only ever seen pictures of this thing. Ryan practically preens at the top of my vision, and I set it down reluctantly to pick up the second knife. The knuckle rings are distinct, the glitter and gold in my eyes die down like a curtain falling. “It’s an original Mark I?”

 

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