Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
Asher Montgomery
I lied to Beckett, and the guilt clung to me all the way to my father’s door.
Days before the holiday, I should have been with Theo and Beckett, visiting Beckett’s dad in prison and offering my support. But I was here, bracing myself for something that felt just as bad.
Beckett said it was urgent, that he had no choice, but he didn’t give me any other details.
I hoped Beckett was strong enough not to fall into his father’s trap. I believed he had changed, become someone far removed from his family’s influence.
I needed that version of Beckett to find his way back to me. To us. We were a family now, and they were all I needed. That was why I had to make this trip. Had to confront my father in person and deal with him myself.
When Beckett crashed back into my world, I still carried years of resentment toward him.
But my father dangled the promise of approval in front of me like bait, along with access to my trust fund.
Grandfather had arranged it so Dad couldn’t touch the money himself, but he could block me from it, even though I was set to get access at twenty-one.
The unspoken condition was clear—my father would never willingly hand over a penny to the gay son who had disappointed him.
So when he offered me a chance at redemption, I grabbed it.
I convinced myself this would fix everything—my finances, my family, my future.
Instead, it just tangled me in lies I hated telling Beckett and Theo.
The worst part? Somewhere between plotting against Beckett and actually knowing him, I watched him transform into someone I barely recognized.
And against every intention, I fell completely for this new version of Beckett Harrington.
My family once lived in an upper middle class neighborhood.
It was nothing like Mercer Island—where Theo and Beckett lived—nothing like the waterfront mansions on Mercer Island where Theo and Beckett grew up, but worlds away from the peeling paint and chain-link fences of the place Dad dragged me to after everything fell apart.
The social chasm between us meant our lives never intersected until college.
They had no idea I once lived just twenty minutes from their private school.
Theo knew fragments of my life—the outskirts-of-Seattle childhood, the public school where metal detectors greeted us each morning, the sanitized version of my father I’d constructed.
But the complete picture? I kept that locked away, a skill perfected through years of never letting anyone close enough to see the whole truth.
Plus, revealing the truth might give way to some of the hidden truths about my pasts.
Thing that would’ve exposed my plan. Things that would’ve made Theo hated me.
He’d stand with Beckett every time, and I’d be left with nothing.
The thought of losing them both made my chest tighten, made it hard to breathe.
Soon, I’d likely lose them both.
But I was here hoping to prevent that.
I needed to stand up to my dad and tell him the truth. His threats about the videos had forced my hand, but facing him had always been inevitable.
I had no idea how he could have videos of us—or if he was even telling the truth. Was he bluffing, or did he actually have footage? Surely he wouldn’t have saved anything from FanFeed. He was still my dad. He wouldn’t want to see that.
I told myself he must have meant videos taken by the private investigator he’d clearly hired.
How he could even afford something like that was beyond me. But I knew the truth the moment his text came through—he’d had someone follow us, digging up information to use against me, as if blackmailing his own son was just another move in whatever game he was playing.
In his mind, it was only about getting revenge on the people he blamed for his failures. The Harrington’s.
Beckett might’ve just found out months ago that his dad was a fraud and a crook, but we knew it years ago.
He was why my father lost everything. He trusted the wrong man. The cops laughed my father out of the station—just another bitter failure trying to blame his problems on someone with a billion-dollar business and country club membership.
Approaching the door, my hands began to shake.
My fingers curled and uncurled at my sides like they were trying to escape my body, and my pulse thudded so hard in my chest it made my vision blur at the edges.
The porch felt too small, the air too thin, each breath shallow and loud in my ears.
I swallowed, but my throat stayed tight, dry, like the house had already wrapped its hands around it.
My hand hovered between knocking and just turning the knob. Some part of me made the decision before I could think it through—fingers wrapping around cold metal while every nerve in my body screamed to run back down those steps and never return.
Inside, the scene was exactly as I’d pictured it: Dad sprawled on the couch, beer bottle dangling from his fingers, the droning news anchor’s voice filling the room.
Air caught in my lungs as I tried to inhale courage that wasn’t there.
I could tell him to fuck off. Cut all ties with him.
“Hey Dad,” I said, unsure what he already knew.
Unsure how brutal he’d be.
This time would be different. I’d built myself up for this moment—mentally rehearsing how I’d block his swing, how I’d stand my ground.
The promise I’d made to myself years ago echoed in my head: never again.
The countless hours I’d spent at the university gym between lectures had transformed my body into something that could, theoretically, defend itself.
I told myself I’d never be a victim of his anger again.
Dad tilted his head back, draining the last of his beer in one long gulp.
The bottle came down hard against the table with a sound that made me flinch.
As he rose from the couch and moved toward me, my body betrayed me—feet shuffling backward, shoulders hunching inward, making myself smaller before he’d even raised a hand.
“I commend you for the blackmail material, son, but you failed me. You kept it a secret. When were you going to tell me?” He shook his head.
“The classroom video is extra special. That’ll get him kicked out of school once I send it.
I have to say, I thought his dad would be willing to pay to not have his son dirty his name, but he couldn’t care less.
I told him he or Beckett better give me the money I’m owed.
Better sign his trust over to me when it’s released on his birthday.
” The truth hit me like a punch to the gut—he wasn’t bluffing about the videos. They existed. He had them.
I exhaled slowly, defeat washing over me. Back when I’d nodded along to Dad’s vague promises of revenge, I never imagined Beckett would become the bullseye of his obsession.
“Dad…Beckett doesn’t have a trust anymore. His mom found a way to access it and used the money for her bills,” I explained.
I had no illusions about my father. His revenge plot would continue with or without my help. He’d destroy Beckett just to feel powerful again, convinced it would fill the hole inside him.
But revenge wouldn’t bring my mother back or restore his lost fortune. It would only wound someone who’d somehow become everything to me.
I had to stop him.
Why should Beckett pay for sins he never committed? He was just a kid who’d had the misfortune of being born to the wrong father—something I understood all too well.
“I think I’m going to have fun sending these videos,” Dad said with a wicked grin, waving his phone teasingly. “You should really change your cloud password. Gave me access to everything.” Well, fuck.
“And you don’t care that some of them could ruin me, too?” I asked, cocking my head.
Of course, I knew the answer.
He laughed, low and bitter, the sound scraping against my nerves.
“My own son,” he said, shaking his head, “a pathetic, homosexual disappointment who chose not one, but two filthy men over his own father.” I felt his eyes drag over me, slow and deliberate.
“You didn’t just betray me; you turned on me. ”
He stepped closer, and I had to fight the urge to step back. His voice dropped, quiet and cold. “You’re a disgrace. A walking embarrassment. And if you want to go down with him so badly, I’ll gladly drag you both there myself. You know what they say. Lay with the dogs and you’ll get fleas.”
I had never felt this amount of anger inside me as my fists curled at my sides. I wanted to resist violence, always feeling it’d turn me into my dad, but I couldn’t contain myself as I reached forward and smacked his phone out of his hand, watching it crash onto the floor.
I kicked it across the room, watching as it slid under the couch.
“You had no fucking right,” Dad said, veins bulging at his temples, his skin reddening. “That’s my phone.”
“With inappropriate videos of me, your son. If anyone in this family is a disgrace, it’s you,” I said bitterly. “You failed Mom and I. Not Beckett’s father. Not Beckett.”
Pain exploded across my cheek, his knuckles connecting before my brain registered the movement.
My head snapped sideways from the force of the blow, but I stayed conscious.
I wanted to fight back, but I had a smarter route.
Instead, I provoked him further, meeting his eyes as I forced my lips into a cruel smile, copper flooding my mouth though I couldn’t tell if I’d bitten my cheek or split my lip.
“You’re growing weaker in your old age,” I responded, chuckling. “Beckett hits harder than you.” It was a lie, but he didn’t need to know that. Beckett was never trying to actually hurt me, unlike my father.
Mentioning Beckett sent him into a rage.
I expected the usual—a shove to the ground followed by kicks. But his hands shot to my throat instead, fingers digging in as he slammed me against the wall.
My legs thrashed in the air, my own hands clawing at his wrists while spots danced in my vision. The realization hit harder than any blow—my plan had a fatal flaw. Drunk, he became something else entirely—something I couldn’t predict.
I didn’t have a good escape route.
My vision started fading as my lungs screamed for air. The irony wasn’t lost on me—after everything, I’d die right here on the same floor where I’d learned to walk, killed by the man who’d taught me how.
I’d never get to apologize for what I did, and he’d win. He’d destroy the people I loved.
Strength drained from my fingers as darkness crept in at the edges. I was slipping away when Beckett’s face flashed through my mind—his smile, his trust in me. Something fierce ignited in my chest. Not today. My father wouldn’t destroy another person I loved.
My knee found its target between his legs with desperate force.
His grip loosened as he doubled over, just enough for me to collapse to the floor.
My lungs burned as I dragged in ragged breaths, but before I could recover, his boot connected with my ribs.
Again. Again. Each impact drove me deeper into myself until I was nothing but a tight ball of pain, certain these were my final moments.
There was blood in my mouth and on the floor, and I hadn’t known where it came from.
A car door slammed somewhere outside—the sound pierced through my pain, igniting a desperate flicker of hope that help might arrive, even as the rational part of my brain knew no one was coming to my rescue.
“You’re worthless.” Kick. “But thanks for the material to ruin Beckett Harrington. I hope you’re still alive to see his fall from grace.” Kick.
Consciousness slipped through my fingers when shadows filled the doorway. Two of them. Moving toward me through the haze of pain, their outlines swimming in and out of focus as my oxygen-starved brain grasped at the possibility of rescue. “Beckett’s going down, thanks to you.”
The kicking ceased abruptly as the two figures tackled my father to the ground.
Through the fog of pain came Beckett’s unmistakable voice, sharp with panic: “Call 911!” Though I wasn’t sure who to.
Even as darkness pulled at me, that sound anchored me to life—the voice I’d recognize anywhere, even here at the threshold between living and dying.
“You’re safe,” Theo’s voice rang out.
Beckett held my dad down while Theo dialed the police.
“Don’t…don’t hurt him,” I croaked out, my voice drained from being choked. I didn’t want the police to think I had been hitting him back. It couldn’t look like a fight.
Theo’s voice swam through my ringing ears as he spoke to the dispatcher.
“We walked in and found his father strangling him against the wall, then kicking him repeatedly after he fell.” I forced myself to roll onto my side, each breath stabbing my ribs.
The room wavered, then steadied. In the distance, sirens wailed closer, their promise of safety feeling impossibly far away.
“I’m…sorry…so…sorry,” I said, eyes locked with Beckett until he turned away, unable to look at me, and I was unsure if it was because he knew what I had done, or if my face was just that fucked up at the moment.
I hoped it was the latter. That seeing me hurt still meant something to him. That after all of this, he’d still care, even if he could never forgive me.
Beckett pinned my father’s wrists to the floor while Theo sat on his legs, both of them breathing hard with the effort.
My dad thrashed beneath them, his movements sluggish and uncoordinated.
The stench of alcohol rose from his skin as he muttered curses, his eyes unfocused from the combination of booze and the impact when they’d taken him down.
The sirens grew closer and closer as I felt myself fading away, my vision growing darker until everything turned black. The last thing I saw was Beckett’s face twisted in horror, and I knew then that he cared. And I could die knowing it was real—it wasn’t one-sided.