Chapter Thirty-Three
Phoebe
The panic in the basement started out relatively quietly. Sobbing and hyperventilating. What I’d expected.
Until everything morphed. Suddenly, I was back in the farmhouse basement, and Mom lay on the ground. Bullet hole on her temple, her eyes staring at me. I couldn’t leave. I’d been chained to the floor, and I was forced to sit there and stare at her.
At first, I told her how much I miss her. How sorry I am for everything. I thought maybe she was there to help me survive until Tucker came to find me. There was a strange comfort in having her lying there, even in the horrifying way I remember her.
That all changed when she started talking. It scared the hell out of me, but it wasn’t so much that she was talking as what she was saying. And even when I was whisked out of the basement, I could still hear everything she said.
You are such a disappointment, Phoebe.
You let Grandma die without ever knowing the truth.
You lied to the police, and it was selfish. You are selfish.
How could you let yourself be used by a man like Tucker? Let him do the things he does to you? You’re disgusting.
He’ll never love you. You know that, and you still stay.
And look at what that’s gotten you? Kidnapped by mobsters. Are you happy? Proud?
You are pathetic. You are not my daughter.
“I love you, Yellow Crayon. Do you hear me? I love you.”
Suddenly, I’m in an unfamiliar living room on Tucker’s lap, his hands cupping my face. I want to say it back, but I’m not positive he means it. He might have just said what he thought would bring me out of my personal psychotic hell.
It worked.
“I found a key!” Rooster calls and runs into the room.
Zep walks over and crouches down, his voice soft and cautious. “Phoebe, babe, we need to… free you.”
Holding out my hands, I stay silent. All I can see is blood dripping down my arms as he tries the key to unlock the shackles.
The chains rest on the floor, and I stare in disbelief. Did they rip the chains out of the floor? They look broken, so they must have. That had to have taken so much strength.
The metal opens, and my wrists look horrifying. Cut and bloody, and I tilt my head. I should feel something. Pain. It looks terrible, but I just feel numb.
Tucker slips his left arm around my back and his right under my knees, and he walks briskly down the hallway. My heart races, panic starting again, but I breathe in relief when he sets me down on a toilet and digs through the medicine cabinet.
“You’ve lost more blood than I’d like,” he says, grabbing a towel and dampening it before touching my wrists. “I know it hurts, but I need to see how much damage there is.”
“It doesn’t hurt,” I say, my voice hoarse.
Screaming for however long I was down there probably has something to do with it.
Tucker smiles. “Hey, welcome back.”
“I must seem like a crazy woman to everyone, huh?” I ask, suddenly mortified.
Those men are Tucker’s friends and family. And I screamed like a banshee, completely feral. I just hope I didn’t hurt anyone.
“You seemed scared,” he says, his eyes on my wrists.
“I don’t blame you if you want to be done with me after all this,” I say, finally glancing down to my cut up arms. “This is the worst it’s ever been.”
Once the blood is cleaned up, the cuts don’t look too bad. Nothing that I think requires stitches.
“Didn’t you hear me?”
I blink and shake my head. “What?”
“Look at me, Phoebe.”
My heart races as I do, and I hate how nervous I am. There’s so much I want with this man, and I may have just ruined everything.
“I love you.”
“You weren’t just… trying to pull me out of my head.”
He cups my face again, and he rubs my cheek with his thumb. “I’ve known for a while, but something told me to wait until the time was right. This was the moment. I needed to save you from yourself, and I’m glad I waited.”
“You… you can’t love.”
“You’re the exception. You’re my exception. When I realized Ryan took you, I lost my fucking mind. And when I heard you screaming in the basement, I’m glad I killed him.”
My jaw drops. “You killed Ryan?”
“He said he’d killed you. I saw red, baby. No one hurts my Yellow Crayon.”
“Are you okay?”
Laughing, he shakes his head. “Only you would worry about me in this moment.”
“He was your brother whether you had a good relationship with him or not. That can’t be easy.”
“It was one of the easiest things I’ve ever done. He made it a you-or-him situation, and I was never gonna fucking choose him.”
“Where’s your dad?”
He shrugs and reaches for the gauze, wrapping it around my wrists. “Gone.”
“Dead?”
“Don’t know. Joanna’s family took him away. I doubt they’d end it this quickly.”
My eyes widen. “Scotty? Is he okay? Ryan hit him with his gun, but he said he wasn’t going to kill him. But—”
“He’s okay. He’ll have a hell of a headache for a while, but I’m sure Sarah will gladly be his nurse.”
“The bars!”
Tucker chuckles. “Baby, what are you talking about?”
“I put the carrot bars in the oven right before Ryan showed up. I didn’t turn the oven off. They’re ruined. Oh God! Your house didn’t start on fire, did it?”
He rubs my thighs and smiles up at me. “They’re burned to shit, but we got them out before they did much more than smoke up the place.”
“I was going to surprise you with them. You said your mom used to make them for you.”
“It’s a good thing you can make more, huh?”
I smile and watch as he fixes me up. It’s not as bad as it looked out there, but I’m still horrified by my reaction.
“I saw my mom,” I whisper. “She told me she was disappointed in me. That I was pathetic, and I wasn’t her daughter.”
“It’s this house,” he says. “That wasn’t your mom, baby. I know it wasn’t.”
Tears fill my eyes, and I don’t know how I even have tears left. “What if it was?”
“Your mom loved you enough to kill her brother for what he did to you. And she probably blamed herself, feeling like she let it happen. She couldn’t take that, and she took her own life. It’s kind of fucked up, but it’s love.”
“I love you, too, Tucker.”
He smiles and kisses me. “Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere else?”
I point to a red mark on my skin. “I think Ryan drugged me with something. I woke up in the basement. It was stupid to take the blindfold off, but I had to know when I heard them walk upstairs. And then all hell broke loose.”
“Nothing else is hurt or broken?”
Shaking my head, I wince. “I have a headache, and I’m thirsty. But I’m okay. Thank you.”
He helps me stand, and we walk into the living room where everyone stands, waiting. Their eyes all land on me, and I feel both embarrassment and happiness. They’re worried about me.
Blood on the fireplace catches my attention, and I walk over to gently touch the mantel. “What happened?”
“That’s where I fucking killed Ryan,” Tucker says.
Pulling my hand back like it’ll burn me, I step away. “I see.”
“Are you okay, sweetheart?” Jethro asks.
I blush and nod while Tucker slips from the room. “I’m okay. I’m sure I was a sight—”
“It’s okay,” Capone says. “We can only imagine what they said or did to you.”
“It wasn’t them,” I say. “I have a thing about basements. They… make me lose my mind.”
“You don’t say,” Rooster jokes.
His comment earns him a punch from Zep, and I smile. “It was quite a sight, wasn’t it?”
“It’s okay,” Penn says. “We all have things that drive us crazy.”
“I found my mom and uncle dead in our basement when I was twelve. She killed my uncle in the place where he… hurt both of us. Then she took her own life. Basements bring me back to the day I found her.”
Kannon gasps, and Capone wears an expression I can’t quite decipher. After hearing what that man he killed in my bakery said, I think he might empathize in a way others can’t.
“Your uncle… Are you fucking kidding?” Kannon asks.
Shaking my head, I look at the ground. “It lasted a few years, and Mom found out. He’d done the same thing to her, and she lost it.”
“Where was your father?” Jethro asks.
I shrug. “He left years before. I barely remember what he looks like.”
Tucker walks into the room with a glass of water, and I take it gratefully. My throat is scratchy, and my ears ring. I must’ve been screaming for a while.
“I’m sorry,” says a man I don’t recognize.
“Are you Tanner?”
He looks shocked. “Yeah. You know me?”
“Your dad mentioned you. He said I reminded him of you.”
“What else did dear old Dad say?” Tucker asks.
Swallowing, I look at the ground. “That I’m not your type. And he’s surprised you’re with me. Then he lost it on Ryan when he found out that we only met because Ryan robbed my bakery.”
“You told him?”
“Yeah, it was kind of self-preservation, I guess. I told him Ryan knew my death wouldn’t bother you because you told him so. I hoped I was wrong, but I didn’t tell your dad that.”
“You thought that if Benito didn’t think killing you would hurt Pacino, he’d keep you alive,” Capone says. “Smart.”
“Then he told me he liked me. It wasn’t exactly a warm and fuzzy feeling, but he and Ryan left right afterwards. You guys showed up, I think.”
Tucker wraps his arms around me and holds me close. I nearly spill the water as he does, but I don’t care. Today has been one of the worst days but also one of the best. Tucker loves me.
“For the record, Pacino about killed himself getting here when he learned you were gone. If anything happened to you, he was going to burn the place down,” Zep says. “I think hurting you would do more than bother him.”
Smiling, I nod. “Thank you.”
“And the rest of us. We’ve kind of grown attached to you,” Penn says.
“You don’t think I’m annoying?”
“I think you can fucking bake, and I love to eat.”
I laugh as an unfamiliar man walks into the house. Tucker’s embrace tightens to an almost painful strength, and I hold my breath.
“John,” Tucker says.
John looks me up and down, shock on his face, and I hate it. Clearly, he knew Tucker before, and he’s as surprised as everyone else that he could have any interest in me. It’s really starting to lower my self-confidence.
“Your father would like a word with you before we…”
“We got her,” Jethro assures. “We’ll get her back home safe. Take your time.”
Benito’s still alive. But not for long.
“Baby, this is John. Joanna’s father,” Tucker says. “John, this is my girl, Phoebe.”
Joanna’s father? Oh God. No wonder he looks surprised. He probably sees nothing of his daughter in me.
“Hello.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” I say. “I’ve heard great things about your daughter. And I’m very sorry for what happened to her. I can’t even imagine the pain you felt.”
His brows shoot up. “Thank you. You’re… not what I expected.”
“I’ve been getting that a lot.”
He smiles. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Thank you for asking.”
“I’ll be home as soon as I can, baby,” Tucker says and kisses me.
It’s a strange feeling. Getting kissed in front of the father of his dead love of his life. But he’s not hiding me.
He loves me.