Chapter 6
HARLOW
Cass hadn't stopped pacing from one side of the apartment to the other. He glanced over at me.
"Are you sure that's what he said? Judge Forrest Cross is Zeus?"
"That was what he said." I hated the way he looked blindsided. Not by me withholding the information from him, but by the fact Hypnos claimed his father was Zeus.
I had to thank whatever deities existed that Cass stayed in the kitchen last night. If he saw Forrest sitting there, in my restaurant, everything would have gone to hell.
If Forrest saw him, he might be dead right now.
"There's still a chance Hypnos was lying," I pointed out. "He might have pointed fingers at him for some other reason. Petty vengeance, maybe?" People had done less to get back at someone for any number of reasons.
Cass stopped pacing and placed his hands on the back of a chair, leaning against it and exhaling slowly.
"It makes too much sense," he said slowly. "Why my father was always away. Why he wasn't interested in anything my brothers and I did. He was too busy preying on innocent people like your sister." He wiped a tear off his cheek. "If I had any idea,"
I hopped up and went to place my hands on his shoulders, resting my head on the back of his neck.
"How could you have known? You were a kid. What happened to her wasn't your fault. It was his. His and all of his associates."
Cass swallowed audibly. "Granger Fairfield was one of his associates," he whispered. "He was friends with the man who abused his own son. How could he do that and not…" He shook his head, his hair flopping back and forth.
"I don't know," I said. "It's possible he didn't know."
Honestly, I hoped that was the case, because if anyone did that to my son, I'd rip them apart, starting with their balls. No one who let that fly should call themselves a father. If he had…
I tried to remember if Forrest had ever eaten my special meatballs. He could have. I didn't recall. He might have been eating one of his friends. If men like that had friends.
Mostly they surrounded themselves with other people as hideous as they were. People who also deserved to be turned into meatballs.
One small mercy? I hadn't killed Cass' father and fed him to him. That would have been all sorts of awkward.
"This is all very horrifying and stuff," Boner said, just this side of serious for a change. "Do you have any idea where this prick is? Asking for a friend. Okay, the friend is me. I have a blade with his name on it."
Cass turned his face to look at him. For a moment I thought he was going to ask Boner not to kill his father.
Instead he pressed his lips together and closed his eyes.
"I don't know. I tried not to pay attention whenever his name came up. It was easier to pretend he didn't exist than it was to wish he was around."
"We understand," I said softly. "He shouldn't be too hard to track down."
He was an important, influential, high-profile man. Finding him would be easy. Getting to him? That was going to be the challenge. One we had to be up to, or this wouldn't end. At least, it wouldn't end well for us.
"We know who we're up against," Archer said. "We know who to look for."
"Yeah. Someone with a shit ton of money," I said. "And a whole bunch of connections, including police connections."
Did Cross know about Getzoff? Or vice versa?
I suspected Getzoff didn't. What would he have done if he knew?
Trying to arrest someone as powerful as a judge would be career suicide if not physical suicide.
That was exactly why men like Forrest got away with too many things. Everyone was too scared to speak out.
Personally, I wasn't too scared to stab him in the balls. Or anywhere else, for that matter.
In fact, the whole situation was strangely satisfying. Now I had an excuse to go after Cass' father for what he did to him and Jules. Judge Forrest Cross left a trail of victims behind him. It was past time for that to stop.
Cass dropped his head. "I feel responsible. If I'd known what he was doing, I could have…"
"How could you have known?" I asked. "Men like him are good at keeping secrets. What matters now is what we're going to do about it."
"You're not going to ask me to reach out to him, are you?" He lifted his head up and looked back at me, his expression pained.
I hesitated for a moment before saying, "Absolutely not. Not if you don't want to."
"Might make it easier to trap him," Boner said, sounding just as unhappy about the suggestion as I was.
"I'm not using Cass for bait," I said firmly.
Even if Getzoff hadn't ended up dead, I wasn't going to throw one of my men to the wolf. No, we'd have to find another way.
"Does Jules know?" Archer asked, directing the question to me.
"I haven't told him yet," I said.
Now I understood why my instincts told me not to say anything.
If anyone was going to go off half-cocked and chase after Forrest, it would be Jules.
No doubt he'd take the whole thing personally when I explained it to him.
Something I wasn't looking forward to, not even a little bit. He was going to lose his shit.
I didn't blame him. If someone said all of this about my father, I'd lose more than my shit. In fact, I had, but that didn't matter right now.
"I should be the one to tell him," Cass said. "He might handle it better if it comes from me."
It was Boner who articulated all of our thoughts by snorting softly.
"He's not going to take it well no matter who tells him. That being the case, can I tell him? I mean, he hates me anyway."
"I don't think he'd believe you," I said honestly. "He'd think you were trying to stir him up."
"He'd only be half-right,” Boner said, pretending to look sulky. "Fine, I'll leave it to you then. But I'll be right there watching. I might even film it on my phone so we can watch it back later."
Cass turned around and snapped, "This isn't funny. I knew my father was an asshole, but I didn't know he was a monster."
Boner didn't flinch. "My father was an absolute monster and an asshole. So was Harlow's father. Welcome to the 'My Father is a Prick Club.' No wonder we all have issues."
It did explain a few things. None of us had an ideal childhood. Except maybe Archer, who didn't seem to hate his parents.
I put my arms around Cass and held him as close as I could, given he was still looming in Boner's direction.
"We know how difficult this must be for you," I said gently. "If I had any idea he was your father, I would have broken the news differently."
I didn't know how. Ripping off the bandaid was usually the easiest way to say things like that. I wasn't one to beat around the bush most of the time, but the last thing I'd wanted to do was hurt someone I loved.
"You couldn't have known,” Cass said. "It's not like I said, 'Hey, my father is this rich judge guy. Maybe you know him.' I should have told you."
"You had perfectly good reasons for not telling us," I said. "He wasn't in your life."
He wasn't going to be in anyone's life for much longer if we had our way.
"He probably wasn't in your mind much either." I did the best I could to forget I even had a father. What sort of person offered his daughter to men like those anyway?
My father was the worst kind of monster, just like Zeus, Hypnos, and the rest of them. I hoped they were up to their eyeballs in lava, being poked by demons right now, or something equally nasty.
Dildo cacti came to mind.
"He wasn't," Cass admitted. "I tried to forget he existed. Since he did the same thing, it only seemed fair."
"Absolutely fair," Boner said. "When people let us down, they can fuck all the way off." He punctuated his words with a nod.
"What Boner said," I said. "If you want to sit the rest of this out, no one's going to blame you. Facing your own father…"
I couldn't even finish that sentence. There were no words for how difficult this was going to be, even estranged from him. They were still blood.
For the smallest recorded moment in history, I wondered if Cass and Jules knew about Zeus all along, and if Cass was a really good actor. They might have sought me out to keep an eye on me. Hypnos said as much, didn't he? People were watching me. Could it possibly have been the Titmus brothers?
I looked Cass right in the eyes and knew that wasn't the case. He really was as surprised and horrified as the rest of us. Devastated. His own blood had let him down badly. Peeled back an old wound and tipped salt onto it. It must sting like a bitch.
It stung to look at him, knowing how much pain he was in. I was going to make Zeus' death nice and slow. Just for Cass. If he felt even a fraction of the pain Cass was feeling right now, it wouldn't be enough.
I wanted him to regret the day his ancestors were born. How did a man like that make two incredible men like Cass and Jules? I never met Auggie, but I know he was amazing too. They must take after their mother. They certainly didn't take after their father.
Jules was a grumpy prick, but he'd never walk out on his family. He'd never abuse anyone. He was rough with me, but I loved every minute of it. I fully gave my consent without hesitation. No, he was nothing like Forrest Cross.
"What do we do now?" Cass asked, wrapping his arms around me and holding me like he was scared I'd slip away and disappear forever.
"We wait for Jules and tell him, and then we figure out—"
Boner jumped, pulling out his knife as the door opened.
Jules stepped inside. He stared around at all of us before his gaze settled on me and Cass. His eyes narrowed, looking suspicious as hell. "Tell me what?"