Chapter 36
E verly
My childhood bedroom had once been my sanctuary. Here, I’d been able to hide. To lock the door and dive under the covers, and for the most part, I’d been safe.
Not today.
It was a jail cell I couldn’t escape.
Music played, my attempt to distract myself. The random choice, Taylor Swift’s ‘I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)’, could’ve made me laugh, but that wasn’t happening.
I trailed over the trinkets. Scarves and formal dresses. The jewellery box my father had bought me. Even if I could leave, there was little I’d take. It could crumble into dust for all I cared.
The moment we’d returned, I’d hidden myself away in here, blocking the door with the chest of drawers I’d used to hold Piers off after our awful date. The fact my room hadn’t been tidied made me hope to God that Laura had finally quit.
Though the drop from the balcony was great, I’d intended to use that as my route out. But a security team patrolled the patio below. They were outside the front, too.
I was trapped.
My father hammered on the door. “Piers will be home any minute. He knows you’re waiting for him, so do yourself a favour and put on a fucking dress.”
In the walk-in wardrobe, I huddled in on myself, unable to summon an answer.
He meant to give me to that man after all.
My anger turned to fear. For a minute, I allowed the emotion to take hold of me. Pictures of what would happen this evening filled my mind, spurred by the knowledge I couldn’t run from this. My father’s new favourite would break down the door, picking up where he’d left off during our last encounter. He would attack me. Tear off my clothes and assault me.
I could already feel his vile touch erasing all of Connor’s.
My father’s voice returned again, echoing up the hallway, though his words weren’t for me this time. He was on the phone, his blithe conversation showing me exactly how calculated he could be.
I trembled. If Connor showed up here, my father would call the cops. He’d carry out his threat and reveal how Connor had been cleaning up the worst of Deadwater’s criminals. He’d put him away for life.
The man I loved was a killer. I couldn’t protect him from the danger he was in. I couldn’t even tell him because my phone and bag were still on my desk in Town Hall. Every piece of long-held anger I had for my father surfaced, and tears of pure frustration fell.
A sound played through the house, the ring tone for the public landline which lived in the hall. A click followed of the answerphone picking up, then the caller spoke, loud in the echoing space.
“Mayor Makepeace. I have a proposition for you.”
The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t tell from where. Silencing my music, I crept to the door and listened as the caller continued.
“Arran Daniels’ skeleton crew is making a mockery of you and will bring down your campaign for re-election.”
In May, my father’s position was up for the vote. He was so far ahead in the polls, it was considered a shoo-in, just like in his previous term.
“Your daughter was paraded naked through their brothel, her tits on display for any dirty bastard to get an eyeful of. How can you tolerate that? A man like yourself. I can help you manage the threat.”
At last, I recognised the voice. It was Red from the Four Milers. I’d heard him speak when Arran called him. Shame chased the memory.
The clatter came of the phone’s handset being lifted from its cradle, the message intercepted.
“What did you just say?” my father snapped.
After a pause where he listened and I could no longer hear the rival gang leader, he spoke again. “What’s in it for you?” Another pause. “What kind of licence?”
A deal, underway.
Another nail in my coffin.
Misery sank me to the floor, and I braced myself for the loss that was to come. History was repeating itself. In this very house, I’d fallen hard for Connor, then my hopes and dreams had been shot down by the realisation I couldn’t keep him. It had happened again. I loved him beyond reason, and I had to let him go.
My father knew about his crimes. He didn’t make empty threats. If he said he had evidence, then he did. If I didn’t obey him, Connor would go to prison.
I couldn’t allow that.
No matter what he thought of me, I only wanted his life to continue unchained.
The burden of pent-up emotion rocked me, and I wiped my eyes then struggled to my feet. I loathed my father with everything in me, but all he’d ever wanted was my obedience. If I gave him that, he mostly let me exist untroubled.
Perhaps one more time I could trade it in for Connor’s safety.
With a sickened stomach, I shakily searched through my dresses. A gold evening gown with a low-cut neckline. A floaty chiffon day dress that softened my curves. An emerald-green cocktail dress that was a nice fit but didn’t suit my colouring.
Which would Piers like?
Tearing off my long-sleeved top, I snatched up the green dress.
But in my quest to ready myself for a man worse than even my father, the edge of the tape covering my inner arm tattoo caught on my clothes.
I hadn’t looked. Hadn’t even peeked. Suddenly, I needed to know. I dropped the dress to the floor and peeled away the tattoo’s opaque cover. A word was revealed, black ink written into my skin in beautifully executed script.
CLAIMED.
My breath hitched. My heart pounded. Spinning around, I peered back to the mirror and lifted my cami, tearing away the tape over my lower back.
WANTED.
The next were at the top of my back and then my thigh.
OWNED. NEEDED.
The word under my breast gave up MINE.
My laugh came out as a sob. He’d threatened his name, but the delivery was just as perfect.
My hip declared LOVED.
Oh God.
I had one last tattoo to read, and it was the smallest, inked right behind my ear.
FREE, the mirror told me.
I wasn’t free, not yet, but a burst of hope suffused me. I’d been wrong about his rejection. What he’d done to me was the evidence of Connor’s claim, and it changed everything.
Now, I’d do all I could to end this horror show in the best way possible.
My heartbeat marked my exit from the wardrobe, the click when I unlocked my room, and each step of my cramped limbs carrying me down the stairs. By the front door, my father set down the phone, his conversation over. He spotted me and his lip curled.
“How dare you disgrace me in public.”
I lifted my chin. “How dare you spend a lifetime doing nothing but causing hurt, manipulating people, and enabling abuse.”
His gaze darkened. A backhand I didn’t see coming knocked me to the wall. Adrenaline helped me ignore the pain. I stood and spat blood, not taking my eyes off him.
“Show me the evidence,” I demanded. “Show me exactly what you’ve got on Connor. Do it now if you want me to play along with your game.”
“You’ll do as I tell you.”
“I’ll bite Piers Roache’s dick off and see how much he likes you after that.”
He stalled. Never once had I seen him falter.
“Do it,” I shouted.
A thud rocked the front door beside us.
“Mayor Makepeace? You have a visitor. He’s unarmed,” one of the guards called.
My father’s smile returned. “Piers, at last.”
My skin crawled, and I readied myself for the fresh hell of my father’s associate.
He swung open the door.
But it wasn’t Piers.
Connor waited on the other side, one hand raised in a position of surrender presumably to mollify the surrounding guards, but the other held out a tablet. On the screen, three men sat on chairs, their faces completely covered with skeleton masks. Behind, a fourth man stood over them, only his lower face covered. Riordan. Despite only knowing him a short time, I recognised my brother.
All of that paled in my heartbreaking happiness to see the man I loved.
Connor’s gaze travelled over my face. Down on the street, multiple cars full of skeleton crew waited, their occupants poised but holding back.
Somehow, Father’s security patrol had let him walk straight through. Probably because of the numbers—the skeleton crew had come in mob-handed, and the team that managed our home security handled trespassing kids. Lost delivery people. Faced with a ruthless gang and entirely outnumbered, they had no choice.
But one phone call to the police, undoubtedly already made, and this was all over.
I couldn’t smile.
With a neutral expression, Connor opened his lips. “I’ll make this brief. Everly is leaving with me. She’s out of your clutches for good, and ye willnae contact her ever again. Even on your fucking deathbed.”
My father scrutinised the screen. Alternating that with glimpses of Connor, I tried to piece together his plan.
“Why would I do that?” the mayor asked slowly.
Connor shrugged. “Because I have your diseased balls in a fucking rat trap. Ye just don’t know it yet.” He turned his gaze on me.
The intensity in his eyes told me he’d got this, but how could he? Besides, he didn’t know about my father’s threat.
“Everly, is there anything you’d like to say to the mayor before you leave?”
I swallowed. “He threatened you. He says he has evidence.” I managed my words carefully for the sake of the watchful guards.
Connor lifted his chin. “Turn the camera on Chief Constable Kenney.”
I gasped. Holy hell.
Whoever was filming panned left to reveal another man standing at the back. A police officer who had so often come to meetings in this house. He glowered at the camera but focused on his phone, strolling away to make a call.
The message was clear. Connor and Arran owned the police.
Which meant no one else was rushing to confront them now. Inwardly, I sagged, my heart thumping.
“Just in case ye were thinking of going over his head,” Connor continued, “I own the circuit judges as well. The time I spent under your roof wasn’t wasted, on any count.”
Meaning he’d learned from my father. I could have laughed.
“Ye have a choice.” Connor tapped the screen. “Pick one, two, or three.”
If looks could kill, my father would have already slit his throat. “Stop playing games. What am I fucking choosing?”
At a gesture from Connor, Riordan stripped the bandannas from the three prisoners, one at a time.
I clasped my hand to my mouth. The first two were the councillors who’d insulted my body at the conference. Slaughter and Blake shared an expression of wide-eyed terror, their mouths bound with thick silver tape.
It was the third man who I stared at most. Piers Roache wrestled against his bindings, his eyes wild and his neck muscles taut. He bellowed behind the gag, his chair rocking under his exertion.
Riordan placed a hand on his shoulder, and Piers stilled. I could only imagine what they’d put him through to intimidate him so easily. Or maybe he was just a coward when it came to other men.
The reality of the situation crashed around me.
Connor couldn’t have taken three men prisoner in the space of time my father had abducted me. He’d already put this in motion, which meant he knew exactly what risks he was taking. And he’d done it all with the purpose of setting me free.
I linked my gaze to his again and saw all the devotion and care I felt for him reflected right back at me. Without saying a word, he told me everything I needed to know.
“Before he chooses,” I said, “can I clear a couple of things up?”
Connor’s lips twitched. He inclined his head. “Anything ye want is yours.”
I spun back to the mayor. “You fathered another child. Why didn’t you tell me?”
My father’s sullen focus drifted to me. If he was surprised, he didn’t show it. “That bastard boy.”
“Didn’t you think it important for me to know I had a brother?”
“I told the bitch mother to get rid of it. He should never have been born. Either way, it was none of your business. I kept tabs on him. I knew where he was.”
Except it was. And my heart broke for Riordan. Our father really had known all about him and done nothing to be part of his life. For his sake, I was both glad and full of sorrow. I wished I’d never asked.
“Did you kill the murdered women?” slipped from my lips.
Now, he recoiled. “Would I be stupid enough to shit on my own doorstep?”
What a strange way to deny it. “Did you arrange for someone else to do it?”
“Ev,” Connor warned.
I shut my mouth. My father smiled.
“I know nothing about their deaths.”
Believing him was impossible, yet that was it. I had nothing else to gain from speaking to him ever again.
I stepped around him and joined Connor in the fresh air, my spine tingling like my father would stab me in the back as I passed.
He didn’t.
He let me go.
Connor pulled me tight against him, touching his forehead to mine for a second of bliss. Then he whispered an order. “Go to the car. You’re leaving with me.”
Walking away now felt like the worst thing I could do, but I had to obey. In a reversal of our awful parting a decade ago, I smiled and managed a shaky, “Yes.”
This time and always.
Unchallenged, I walked between the stony-faced guards to the safety of Arran and their crew. All I needed was for Connor to do the same.