Chapter 46 #2
I told him about Artemis and her cabin in the bayou, about the land her family had held for almost two hundred years.
I told him about Crescent Holdings and their surveys and their legal threats, about the men in suits who'd shown up with a sheriff and tried to intimidate her into selling.
I told him about her parents—Alpha parents who'd abandoned their Omega daughter and then had the nerve to show up as investors in the company trying to steal her home.
I told him everything except the parts that were too private to share, the parts that belonged only to us.
When I finished, there was another long silence.
I could hear birds calling in the trees behind me, could feel the dock swaying gently beneath me as Gumbo surfaced nearby, his ancient eyes watching me with something that looked almost like concern.
"This Omega," my father said slowly, each word measured and careful. "She matters to you."
"More than anything," I said, and my voice cracked on the words, emotion spilling through despite my best efforts to hold it back.
"She saved me, Papa. She saw through all my bullshit and loved me anyway.
She gave me a home when I didn't think I deserved one.
" I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, not caring anymore if he could hear the tears in my voice.
"I'm going to bond with her. With all of them.
And I'll be damned if I let some corporation take everything she has. "
More silence. I gripped the phone tighter, my knuckles aching from the tension.
"You sound different," my father said finally, his voice quiet and wondering, like he was hearing a stranger speak with his son's voice.
"I am different," I admitted, staring out at the water, watching the light dance on the surface.
"I came back when you were sick, and I thought maybe I could stay.
But once you were better, all that guilt came flooding back, and I didn't know how to handle it.
So I ran again—just not as far this time.
" I took a shuddering breath. "But I can't run anymore.
I don't want to run anymore. I found something worth staying for. Worth fighting for."
"Remy." My father's voice had changed again, gone thick and rough with something I couldn't identify. "There's something I need to tell you. Something I should have said years ago, but I was too much of a coward."
My heart stopped. I gripped the phone tighter, bracing myself.
"Your mother and I... we never blamed you. For Luc." The words came out slow, deliberate, like he was placing each one carefully. "Not once. Not ever. We were grieving, and we handled it badly—God, we handled it so badly—but we never, ever blamed you."
The words hit me like a physical blow, stealing the breath from my lungs. My free hand gripped the edge of the dock so hard the weathered wood bit into my palm.
"What?" I managed, my voice barely a whisper, my heart slamming against my ribs so hard I could hear it in my ears. "But you—when I came back for the cancer—you never said—"
"I tried." His voice broke on the word. "That night you sat with me in the hospital, when I thought I was dying—I tried to tell you.
I said your name, and you looked at me with those eyes, and I opened my mouth to say it, and you just..
." He took a shuddering breath. "You smiled and changed the subject.
Started talking about the Saints game. And I was so tired, so sick, I told myself I'd try again tomorrow.
But tomorrow you were closed off again, and then I was in surgery, and then recovery, and then—"
"Then I left," I finished, my voice hollow and distant, like it belonged to someone else. The words tasted like ash in my mouth.
"Then you left." The words hung between us like a wound, and I could hear him swallow hard through the phone, could picture him sitting in his leather chair with tears streaming down his weathered face. "And I never got to tell you the truth."
"What truth?" I could barely get the words out, my throat raw and tight, my whole body trembling like a leaf in a storm.
"That what happened to Luc was an accident.
" Papa's voice was fierce now, intense in a way I'd never heard.
"A terrible, tragic accident. You were seventeen, Remy.
Seventeen. You made the same choice a thousand other boys your age would have made—left your little brother alone for a few hours to go see a pretty girl.
It was normal. It was human. You couldn't have known he'd go down to the water.
You couldn't have known the current would be so strong that day. "
"But I should have—" The protest died in my throat, weak and automatic, the same excuse I'd been telling myself for twelve years.
"No." The word cracked through the phone like a whip, sharp and fierce.
I could picture Papa sitting forward in his chair, his free hand balled into a fist on his knee.
"No. Don't you dare. I am so tired of you carrying this guilt, mon fils.
So tired of watching you destroy yourself over something that was never your fault.
" His voice dropped, trembling with emotion.
"Do you want to know who I blame? Do you want to know who I've blamed every single day for the past twelve years? "
I couldn't speak. Could barely breathe.
"Myself." The word came out broken, shattered.
"I blame myself, Remy. I was the one who bought that property on the river.
I was the one who never taught Luc to swim properly because I was always too busy with work.
I was the one who left two boys alone that weekend while I took your mother out of town for our anniversary.
" His voice cracked into a sob. "If anyone killed Luc, it was me. Not you. Never you."
"Papa, no—" The words tore out of me, raw and desperate, my voice breaking on a sob. I was shaking my head even though he couldn't see me, tears blurring my vision until the bayou was nothing but golden smears. "It wasn't your fault either. It wasn't—"
"Then why can it be yours?" he demanded, and the question hit me like a hammer to the chest, stealing my breath, making my heart stutter.
"Why do you get to carry that guilt and I don't? Why do you get to punish yourself for over a decade while I sit here, missing my son, knowing that the real tragedy isn't just that we lost Luc—it's that we lost you too? "
I was crying so hard I couldn't see, couldn't think, couldn't do anything but clutch the phone and shake.
"We tried," he continued, and now I could hear the tears in his voice too, the grief he'd been carrying for over a decade finally spilling over.
"When you came back for the cancer, we thought—we hoped—but you were so closed off.
Every time we tried to bring up Luc, you'd change the subject.
Leave the room. And then once I was better, you just..
. vanished again." He broke off, cleared his throat roughly.
"We didn't chase you. We thought maybe you needed more time.
That forcing it would only push you further away.
But God, Remy—" His voice shattered completely.
"Not a day has gone by that I haven't regretted that choice. Not a single day."
"Papa—" I couldn't finish, the word catching in my throat like a fishhook.
Couldn't speak around the lump that had formed there, the years of guilt and pain and loneliness crashing over me like a wave, threatening to drag me under.
They'd tried to reach me, and I'd shut them out. Again and again and again.
"You were seventeen years old," my father said, his voice fierce now, almost angry, but I could hear the love underneath—fierce and desperate and unshakeable.
"You were a child, Remy. A child. You made a mistake—a terrible mistake, yes, but you were a child.
And you have spent the last twelve years punishing yourself for something that was never your fault.
Do you have any idea what that does to a parent?
To watch your son destroy himself with guilt and be powerless to stop it? "
I was crying openly now, tears streaming down my face, my whole body shaking with sobs I'd been holding back for over a decade.
All those years of running, of hating myself, of believing I was unforgivable—and my parents had never blamed me at all.
The realization shattered something inside me, something hard and cold that had been lodged in my chest since I was seventeen years old.
"Luc loved you," Papa said, and his voice broke on my brother's name.
"He worshipped you, Remy. You were his hero.
His big brother who could play guitar and make everyone laugh and charm the birds out of the trees.
" A wet, broken laugh. "Do you think he'd want this?
Do you think he'd want you spending your whole life drowning in guilt?
He'd be so angry with you, mon fils. He'd tell you to stop being an idiot and go live your life. "
The laugh that came out of me was half-sob, half-something else—recognition, maybe. Because Papa was right. Luc would have been furious. He'd always hated when I got too serious, when I disappeared into my own head. He used to throw things at me until I smiled again.
"I miss him," I whispered, the words barely audible, scraping past the lump in my throat.
It was the first time I'd said those words out loud since the funeral, and they felt like glass shards coming up.
"Every single day. I miss him so much it feels like there's a hole in my chest where he used to be. "