Chapter 16 #2
“I can’t listen to this.” Blaze shakes his head, avoiding my gaze on his way out. He calls over his shoulder, “Rafe can fill me in later.”
The door slams so hard that the walls shake.
And now Isobel is shaking. I feel a pull towards her I don’t want to feel. And I know Blaze is right. This should be an interrogation.
I want Erin beside me. I don’t want Erin anywhere near this.
Everything feels wrong.
Rafe pours a glass of ice water from a waiting pitcher. “Here. Drink.”
“Thank you.” She takes the glass with a trembling hand. Rafe sits beside her. His presence seems to calm her.
She takes a sip, and when she pulls the cup away, her lips are flushed a deeper pink from the cold water. She gives Rafe a weak smile, and the small gesture makes something hot shoot through me.
I’m really glad Erin is not in this room right now.
Rafe leans in close enough to touch her. “Go on.”
“Stash was a Bachman-friendly contact, a trusted paid employee of the family over financing. He was actually the one who brought Marina in as a bookkeeper.
“He was paid well, but it wasn’t enough for him. He ran money through Bachman businesses for years, siphoning 10% in random fees off the top. And some of that money went to Marina.”
My face hardens. “I’ve heard this story before.”
Isobel turns to me. “They, you know what your men did to him when they found out he was stealing from them. But what you may not know is who that man was that killed Stash.”
The answer creeps over me through the cracks in the room’s silence.
Not a random accident. Not a simple murder, either.
Revenge.
“My father?”
“Yes,” she whispers. “Your father.”
“My parents weren’t killed in a car crash. It was Marina’s people. Avenging Stash.”
My mother was collateral — or, darker, she was killed because leaving her alive meant Gregory and I still had a home. They did such a good job covering it up— Until this very moment, even I, their son, didn’t know what really happened to them.
My voice wavers. “And how does Carlos fit in?”
“Stash was the closest thing to a father-figure Carlos had. After he got Marina the job, they became close. Then, Stash was killed. Marina and Carlos got their revenge.”
“And that left you afloat,” Rafe says. “And Carlos moved in to become your anchor. He had plans for deeper vengeance.”
“Me.”
“Exactly,” Rafe says.
My brother…
“Gregory should be here.”
“I can fill him in with Blaze,” Rafe offers.
My world goes hazy.
“I’ll be the one to tell him. I should be the one to tell him our parents’ death wasn’t an accident.” It was the single most important event, shaping his entire life.
“I will tell him.”
“Carlos took you under his wing. Planning to plot your demise. He wasn’t sure how.” She gives me a soft smile. “But then, in your very Lucian way, you got under his skin. And he stopped planning.”
A sick flood of relief fills me. Something between Carlos and me was real. Isobel may not have really wanted me dead.
The thoughts are sick within themselves.
There should be no relief. There will be no forgiveness.
“But then you grew into your own. You were a Bachman by blood.” Isobel stares at me. “You had it all at your fingertips. Wealth. Privilege. Power. But you turned away from it. Carlos both envied and feared you while he had you.”
Isobel looks like she wants to reach for me. She clasps her hands tighter. “Something shifted in him when you started talking about joining the Brotherhood and taking your rightful place as a Bachman. Saying the time was coming.”
Rafe puts the pieces together where I can’t. “Lucian had the name, the blood, the natural command — and Carlos knew he was losing control.” He looks at me. “And he feared that when you joined the Brotherhood, his men would follow.”
“Back then,” she looks away. “I read your leaving as something different. Carlos planted seeds in my mind, and when he meddles, things take root.”
She’s alluding to the thing that hangs over the room, clamping the two of us together like a vice in a way that I hate.
I know that no matter what Isobel says, she will never earn my forgiveness.
“Now I see the past for what it was,” she continues. “You started to get under his skin again. This time, in a bad way, one that hurt his pride, his ego, and, if he has one, his heart. He had taken you in, and now you were turning on him.” Isobel adds, “In his eyes, at least.”
I shake my head. “That’s not how it was.”
I only understand loyalty. My thoughts, my actions, everything, go through a filter of loyalty to my people, first.
Yet, my entire life, betrayal has surrounded me.
He thought that my joining my family meant I was turning my back on him. And the whole time I was with him, I thought he was looking out for me, getting me ready.
“I thought we had an unspoken agreement. I thought we wanted the best for one another.” I stare around the room, stunned. I look at my men. “I’m loyal to a fault, aren’t I?”
“You’re one of us,” Rafe says sharply. He holds my gaze till I feel his words.
“Aye,” Bayne’s low Scottish rumble filling the space. “My clan is the same way.
My men and I are loyal to one another. To death do us part. If I didn’t see the same in you, Lucian, I wouldn’t be here.”
We haven’t even put the pieces together of how Caleb fits into this whole thing, or how Carlos infiltrated the Village. And I want to ask Isobel what Carlos told her that was so vile that she’d turn on me, too.
Asking feels like a betrayal to Erin. I can’t think straight. I feel like I’m starting to go mad.
I’m relieved when there’s the sound of a thick fist pounding the wood door of the library.
Mack opens the door. “Time to go.”