Heresy, p.32
Heresy, page 32
I want to argue more, tell him Shane and his group only need the servers. But to do so would be giving up information I’ve been entrusted with. I need to play this smart so I can gather information instead of giving it away.
“Why are you involved in this, Dad? You’re supposed to be retired. When you lost the business, you had enough to comfortably live out the rest of your life without lifting another finger. I don’t understand what you’re doing.”
“I was retired,” he snaps, his body turning to face me fully as he stands up to his full height.
It’s an attempt to intimidate me, but I won’t fall for it.
In the past week alone, the shit I’ve been through has done wonders at strengthening my mind. You can’t endure that kind of trauma without coming out a little stronger for having survived.
Even if you feel exhausted.
Even if you want to ball up and cry.
It’s okay, because it only means you’re still suffering the aftereffects, but you are still stronger for being alive.
When I straighten my posture in response, my dad flinches back like I’ve slapped him.
Pointing a finger at me, he’s practically yelling. “I only came out of retirement because your new friends are attempting to steal John’s servers.”
Steal isn’t the right word. Luca’s father left her those servers. Dad is the one who stole them.
I keep it to myself. Keep pressing for him to tell me more than I’ll ever reveal.
“Why would they want your old business servers? That makes no sense.”
“Because of what’s on them. John had years of information and surveillance that condemned their fathers for all sorts of crimes. It’s proof. He kept silent for years, but then something happened, and as soon as he realized what he’d recorded, he encrypted everything so that even I couldn’t access it.”
“Is that why you sent me to the governor? What was on the flash drive you asked me to have my friends decrypt?”
Dad shuts his mouth, Scott standing from his chair at the same time to approach me.
“The point is you need to stay out of this, Brinley. You have no part in this.”
The look I give him is a thousand knives being stabbed into his skull.
“I was brought into this when Dad involved me with the flash drive. And to top that off, I was given no warning or explanation.”
Scott doesn’t so much as blink his eyes at the vehemence in my tone.
“You were warned when I rescued you from the auto shop and took you to see the governor.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I’m fuming. “Bit late, don’t you think?”
I spin to face my father.
He’s sunk down into a chair, exhaustion weighing heavily on him.
“What’s happened to you? For my entire life, you watched out for me. Kept me far away from your business. And now not only did you involve me in this shit, but you let that asshole…”
I point at Scott.
“…hold a gun to my head. He could have killed me.”
“I would never hurt you,” Scott argues. “I’ve known you since you were born. We all grew up together.”
I spin back to face him.
“Is that so? Then why did you mess with Shane’s car, knowing I might be in it? We almost died in that wreck.”
That gets my dad’s attention, his gaze sliding from me to Scott. “What is she talking about?”
Scott shakes his head. “I didn’t do anything to his car.”
“Brinley, what are you talking about?” Dad asks.
Eyeing Scott, I can’t tell if he’s lying to cover his tracks or being honest.
I hate that I can’t trust anybody around me.
Anybody but Shane, a voice whispers in my head.
I ignore it.
At this point, I’m not even sure I can trust myself.
Looking between them, I search for anything that will give away if they’re lying.
“Is that why you tried to make it look like a car accident? Your attempt to kill Shane and me? Because you believe he killed John Bailey in a car accident and…”
Choking up on the next part, I’m barely able to hold back tears.
“…and because you think their fathers killed Mom?”
That part hurts. Fucking devastates me.
My mother was a wonderful woman. An optimist. A child at heart. She would never hurt a fly. All she wanted in this life was to love her family and be happy. She didn’t deserve to die so young and so horribly.
Scott is still being insistent. “I didn’t do anything to Shane’s car. I would never risk you in that way.”
I don’t believe him, but I still have more questions I need to ask, so I move on.
Locking my stare on Scott, I ask, “And what about Everly? Why is she running? Did you involve her in this too? You claim you wouldn’t risk me, but did you risk her? Maybe you’re just lying about all of it to cover your ass.”
With a booming voice that rattles the windows of the room we’re in, Scott answers, “I didn’t involve Everly in anything! I’m looking for my sister so I can protect her!”
“From what?” I yell.
They both shut down and shut up.
Their refusal to answer is telling.
My father breaks the apprehensive silence.
“Okay, maybe we should all calm down. The good news is we got you away from those men. You’re safe finally. Now if we can just end this once and for all, you’ll remain that way.”
Unshed tears continue to sting the rims of my eyes. I need to play this smart. Somehow getting either Scott or Dad to admit exactly what is going on.
Forcing myself to breathe deeply, I will my heart to slow down. As long as I’m upset, both of these men will remain on the defensive. They can just look at me and tell how I’m feeling. They’ve known me too long for me to hide it.
It’s another game. Just like all the other ones I’d been playing against Shane over the past few days.
Just another game.
Unfortunately, I’m not sure who all the players are, which side is the one to help, and what will happen if I go with my gut and continue helping Shane.
Can I trust him?
My heart wants to.
My mind is quickly agreeing.
But for what reason?
I’ve known him only a handful of days while I’ve known Scott and my dad my entire life.
It can’t be because I’ve slept with him once.
That’s not love.
Yet I have to admit that every time I’m around him, it feels like my soul is reaching out to grab on. Like I’ve found my other half. A man who is opposite of me in every way that matters and just alike at the same time.
Where I’m weak, Shane is strong. And conversely, where he is weak, I take up the battle.
Maybe that’s why opposites attract. They’re perfect complements of each other. Weak and struggling when they’re apart but so damn powerful when they’re together.
It makes sense that we drive each other crazy. He’s the part of myself that isn’t always worried and hiding, and I’m the part of him that is a whispering reminder to care about his life and slow down.
Of course, we’re going to fight against that.
We don’t want to acknowledge the weakest part of ourselves.
It occurs to me that Shane never finished admitting what he was trying to tell me at the hotel, but if I have to guess, it’s the fact that what I feel for him is also alive and well in his heart.
So how do I play this game between two opposing forces and manage to protect the players on both sides that I love?
If ever there was an impossibility in my life, this is definitely one of them.
I’ll play the game and hopefully figure out the rest of it as I go.
“Okay, so how do we end this?”
“You get your damn friends moving faster on that flash drive. That’ll be a big help. Where the hell are they anyway?”
Spittle flies from Dad’s mouth on the response, his face red and eyes bloodshot. Every answer he gives me is done in a tone of voice that is aggressive and threatening.
I don’t know who this man is.
He’s not my dad.
I keep my mouth shut because that’s the one thing I have that he doesn’t: information about who is decrypting that drive and how to contact them.
Even the governor doesn’t know.
Sure, the governor saw Ames, and I even told him her first name, but that’s it. And good luck to him if he’s trying to find her. Shane and his friends have her guarded, and there’s no doubt in my mind that they’ll keep everybody away from her.
However, if the flash drive is the key to all this, then it might be the key to me escaping my father.
He won’t hurt me. I know that. But he’s not exactly sane anymore either. This war or battle or whatever it is that’s going on has driven my once gracious and gentle father mad.
“They’re still working on it,” I answer. “I’ve been a little too busy to check in for a status update given everything that’s going on.”
“Well, whose fault is that? I’ll tell you who. That man you ran off to. Don’t think I don’t know what happened. Governor Callahan told me about them stealing your car. And then after that, nobody could find you. I assume that’s when you decided to run back and believe the lies he must have told you.”
“I was…”
I stop before telling him I was abducted.
Something is off in what he just said.
“What do you mean nobody could find me?”
There was a crash report. A missing person’s report. You would think if they were looking for me, they would have run across that.
And then it hits me…
They would have discovered Ames’s full name as well because she’s the person who reported me missing in the first place.
I toss up a silent prayer to the universe that Damon got to her first. For all I know, the governor is still searching for her.
“What do you think I mean? Governor Callahan sent people to your dorm on Tuesday morning. They searched around your school at the classes you apparently decided to skip. I thought, in that at least, you would have enough sense to show up. It’s not like you to risk failing.”
Remaining silent, I fight to put the pieces together. Is it possible Governor Callahan somehow missed the police report?
Rather than carrying on over this issue, I change the topic.
“Why do you think Shane killed Luca’s dad?”
My father huffs out a breath. “I know he did. Because I have video of him doing it.”
Video? I shake my head because despite how I try to wrap my mind around it, I still can’t believe it.
Or maybe I can.
Shane warned me he wasn’t a good guy.
Is this what he meant?
It seems like every answer I get only leads to more questions.
I change the topic again because I can’t stop digging for more information. “Where are we? Is this the safe house you told me about years ago?”
Crossing the room to look out a window, I pull a curtain aside. There’s nothing out there but fields as far as the eye can see. That and an old, lonesome tire swing hanging on a tree branch. I follow the rope all the way up to see it’s frayed where it scrapes across the rough bark. Maybe three threads are left holding it on there.
“Your mother loved that swing,” Dad says from behind me, his voice tender and calm like I remember it.
Maybe I was right about him keeping her old house. It gives me hope that Taylor was able to track that information down.
“This is Mom’s place from when she first moved here, right?”
“It is,” he admits, a long, tired breath leaking out of him.
Silence falls like a heavy blanket between us. But then my father speaks again, as if his mind is chasing a memory.
“She had two houses before I met her. One she rented for a while and the other she bought after working for a year. The one she bought was eventually sold when we got married. From what I know, it’s been torn down since. But it was this house she loved the most. I should have demanded they sell it to me before she died so I could give it to her. But life didn’t work out that way.”
His memory jogs my own, and that one thought I couldn’t quite reach about my mom when I spoke to Taylor finally comes to me as a whisper of her voice.
It’s not what you own that makes you happy in life, Brin. Sometimes, it’s found in the places, people and other things that you only get to keep for a season. They were never meant to be yours, but that’s what makes them so special. Because when they’re gone, you understand that true happiness isn’t found in what you get to keep forever. No. It’s in the moments that are so fleeting you can’t believe you were lucky enough to have experienced them at all.
Mom had told me that on a hot summer day, my little eyes tear soaked and red because my dog had passed away.
She’d gone on to tell me about this house, how despite getting married and having me after leaving it, she missed the quiet moments spent on its front porch. About a tire swing she would watch softly swaying in the breeze.
My mother, in turn, was nothing more than a fleeting moment. I certainly didn’t get to keep her for long. And when I think what my life has been until recently, I realize the most happiness I’ve had is in my memories of her.
It worries me that Shane will become another happy memory, one so quick and fleeting that I didn’t realize what I had until it was gone.
Scott’s voice drags me back to the present, and I abandon the swing to look at him.
“You’re lucky we found you. I’m still pissed that you ran back to those guys after I picked you up from the auto shop. I swear, you’re as dumb as my sister. I should have locked both of you up as soon as I had my hands on you so neither of you could go back to them.”
That’s new.
I recall Jase losing his shit over Everly, but the conversation never got around to why.
“How did you find me, and what do you mean both of us?”
Dragging a wooden chair away from where it’s tucked at a small breakfast table, Scott takes a seat, kicks his feet out in front of him then crosses one ankle over the other.
“Your boyfriend drives a rare car. Very rare. It wasn’t hard putting out feelers when I suspected he was driving down to Georgia. I have a lot of friends here, Brinley. I grew up in this state. A lot of them are law enforcement now. As soon as he was spotted crossing the state line, he was trailed straight to the hotel.”
That explains that, but I won’t let go of the other question. “What did you mean by both of us?”
“I was getting to that.”
Okay, I think. Get faster.
My brow cocks with impatience.
“Everly attended Yale with all of those guys. She enrolled while I was still in the military and had no way of knowing what she was up to. She wasn’t there long before I got home and found out. As soon as I learned she was in contact with that group, I drove up to get her and bring her back home. Except, apparently my dumbass for a sister fell in love with one of them. I threatened to kill them all. And she agreed to come back to Georgia with me. Just packed her shit as fast as she could then ran to meet me in my car. I got her back here, she stayed for maybe a week and then she was gone again. I’ve been chasing her ever since.”
Ivy’s story comes back to mind, her recollection of overhearing the governor claim Everly was at Yale for a reason.
“Why was she at Yale to begin with?” I ask, my curiosity getting the better of me.
Scott smirks, the expression pulling at a face that could be carved from stone.
“Not sure about that,” he answers, his arms crossing over his chest. “You’d have to ask John Bailey that question.”
Shane
It’s three in the morning, and I haven’t slept for one second of it. I’m too amped up, too pissed off, and if I don’t get out of this hotel room, I’m likely to start breaking shit.
My quick exit is blocked, though. Apparently, both Ezra and Damon are experiencing the same insomnia.
They’ve been parked on the couches since the family meeting ended, and I suspect it was by Tanner’s demand that they are camping out.
Every so often, I’ll peek out of my bedroom to see two sets of amber eyes sliding my way, a smirk on both of their faces.
I’d fight them.
If I suddenly discovered where Brinley was, I’d take them both out if they tried to prevent me from leaving.
It would hurt, and I’d most likely be limping my way out of the hotel, but I’ll get through any wall—human or otherwise—to get to her.
Pacing the floor, I’ve scuffed the floors to high hell, the soles of my boots slowly drawing a perfect circle in the large space in front of the bed.
I’ve got to get out of here.
Both twins stand to their feet as soon as I step through the doorway.
“I’m a prisoner now?”
With their typical eerie coordination, they smirk.
“Nah, man. We’re just waiting for you to stop playing little bitch in there, all getting in touch with your feelings and shit, so the three of us can finally leave and beat Scott’s ass.”
Irritation runs my tongue over my top teeth.
“Great. I’m game. So where is he?”
Their smirks morph into identical smiles.
“We might know in a few minutes.”
My posture straightens, the irritation I was previously feeling turning into something far more unforgiving.
“I think one of you needs to explain what the fuck you’re talking about. And when you’re done doing that, you’re going to explain how long you’ve known. After that, you’re going to tell me why I’m just now finding out about this and why I shouldn’t beat both your asses for not telling me immediately.”
Ezra chuckles. “As if you could.”
I lock eyes with him, not giving a damn that this man is known as Violence. “Wanna find out?”
