He laughed the ugliest sound. “Ah, what, you’re not excited to hear from your dear old dad? Have some respect, boy.”
I scoffed. He’d lost that a long time ago.
“I think you know the answer to that, so get it over with and let me go back to my life.”
“Your life?” he mocked, brutal sarcasm bleeding from his tone. “Glad you have a life to continue on with.”
My insides squeezed and bile rose in my throat. “What do you want?” I asked through clenched teeth, refusing to take his bait. “I’m not gonna ask again.”
“What do I want? What you owe me.”
Fucking money. Always more money.
Taking. Stripping me bare.
Everyone wants a piece of Sebastian Stone.
“Don’t owe you anything.”
“Yet you take care of that worthless brother of yours.” The words sliced through me, a bitter blade. “You might protect him, but I sure as hell won’t.”
“You mean your son?”
“He stopped being my son the day he killed Julian.”
A knot formed in the base of my throat, all sharp, crude edges. Heavy. Too heavy. “It wasn’t his fault,” I grated around it.
“Then why did you lie? Why are we all still lying?”
It was always what he held over my head. The threat to expose Austin and what he had done. To proliferate the lie of what he had not. Wouldn’t allow him to hurt my little brother any more than he already had.
“How much?”
“Ten.”
Bastard.
“Fine. I’ll wire the money to you this afternoon.”
Satisfied laughter spread maliciously through the phone.
And I hated.
Hated.
Hated.
Hated.
It hadn’t always been that way. Once I’d loved my father. Looked up to him and he’d trusted in me. But grief could do ugly things to people, especially ones who already had a propensity toward violence running through their veins. Pair that with bitterness and unrelenting pain? That was the kind of fuel with the power to create a monster.
And a monster he’d become.
Hesitating, I raked a hand through my hair, my head slouched between my shoulders, despising the fact this man held all the cards.
“How’s Mom?” I finally asked, wishing I didn’t still give a fuck, because she’d stopped caring a long time ago. She’d become just another of his pawns, a hopeless, tormented woman who’d lost herself the day she lost Julian—the day Austin and I had lost everything.
The only thing we had left was each other.
“Don’t you worry about her. Just send the money. I expect to see it by the end of the day.”
Rage coiled through me, and I threw my phone across the room, every part of me hungering for the satisfaction of him feeling its impact as it smashed against the wall.
Because that same kind of violence ran through me.
Pieces flew, and for the moment, his voice was silenced.
But in my head, his voice was never silent.
Bastard.
My pulse raced, and I pushed to my feet, hands in my hair as I paced, trying to calm the breaths that wheezed in and out of my lungs. I crossed the floor and jerked open the top drawer on the chest against the wall, rummaged around to the bottom until my fingers brushed against the plush fabric.
I wrapped my hand around it, the dingy, stuffed green monkey. I pressed it to my nose, closed my eyes, and saw his smile.
God, I missed him.
That image flickered, the face of the vibrant boy flashing with the silent blips of gray. Lips purple. His lifeless body in my arms as I dragged him to shore.
Austin huddled behind the large rock, shivering and hiding.
Hiding.
Hiding.
Hiding.
I tucked it back inside, underneath all the shit that didn’t matter, remembering why it was just Austin and me. The way it always had to be.
Four hours later, I swung my car into one of the parallel parking spots running alongside the quaint streets in the Historic District. Trees lined the sidewalks, branches covered in thick leaves strewing shade over everything, people ambling along the quiet sidewalks in front of the businesses set in old restored buildings.
It was beautiful. Peaceful. And it made me think of Shea.
After my call with my dad this morning, I was left feeling unsettled and itchy, and a part of me knew being with her would take it away. It sucked that Charlie’s was closed on Sundays and Mondays. I mean, I guess I knew where she lived now, but I wasn’t entirely sure of what my reception would be if I just showed up at her door.
Had to admit, I was tempted.
Clicking the lock to my Challenger, I jogged across the street and onto the sidewalk, anger twisting me just a little tighter when I flew into the tiny bank where I transferred ten grand into my father’s checking account. I made sure to send about twenty different mental curses with it.