Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
FINN
A car ride with Jarod Cross never ends well. My brothers have both experienced it and came back scared, shaken, and pissed off.
Now, it’s my turn.
I sit upright, hands at my sides, ready for anything, but Dad says nothing to me.
Eventually, the car rolls to a stop. When I look out the window, I see an empty factory.
Jarod’s driver opens my door, eyes downcast.
My stomach is in knots, and a part of me wants to stay in the comfort of the car, but I force myself to join my adoptive father.
“What is this place?”
“The Aramore Glass Factory.” He gestures for me to walk beside him.
I don’t.
“It’s fine, Finn. You can relax. There are no cameras.”
“Why are we here?”
Jarod squints his eyes against the sun as he stares at the decaying building.
“Years ago, this place burned in an industrial accident. Terrible, really. A lot of factory workers lost their lives. At one point, I believe a few organizations were trying to preserve it as a historic site, but no one really cared.” Dad lifts one shoulder. “The workers were nobodies.”
He speaks about a mass accident so casually that it steals my breath right out of my throat.
“The building was never rebuilt, but Kurosaki bought it. Well, on paper, my record company bought it but… eh.”
“How much of the governor race has Kurosaki been funding?”
“All of it.” Dad twirls a hand that used to be covered in silver rings. “Being a politician isn’t cheap, Finn. Why do you think I was going so hard for the inheritance?”
The ties between my adoptive father and Kurosaki keep going deeper, and it only makes me sick. How can Dad run for governor and pretend to be a moral family man when his soul is this black?
Jarod barks out a laugh. He puts a fist to his mouth to try and stop, but the chuckles seep through his fingers.
“That’s very cute, Finn. I really like this intense face of yours.
Your expressions—they’re not over-exaggerated.
It’s just a tiny movement of your eyebrows or your eyes slightly narrowing…
wow. I could build an entire brand out of you.
It’s a pity that face will probably be scarred in some knife fight in a back alley, but alas, you live by the sword, you die by the sword. ”
“Why did you bring me here?” I bite out. We’ve been going in circles and I’m already exhausted.
“There’s only one way to find out.” Dad bows slightly. “After you.”
My nostrils flare, but I storm in first. The cavernous hall still smells faintly of ash and molten sand.
Shattered panes glitter across the floor like spilled starlight.
The windows are gone, so dust slides through the steel ribs of the building.
Birds that made their nests in the beams scatter like ghosts at the sound of our footsteps.
I slow down to let Jarod walk ahead of me. From behind, he looks like a moving shadow. His many tattoos are covered up beneath the long sleeves of the black suit. His hair is neatly trimmed now, instead of the long, edgy cut that defined most of his years as the legend of rock.
But what the makeover team could not slick down with gel or hide under a Rolex is the dark edge he carries with him. This man would throw his own children under the bus to get what he wants.
And he has.
We walk down a flight of rickety stairs, and we’re suddenly submerged in darkness.
Dad’s voice is the only light that guides me. “This underground level was used for annealing, a process where newly formed glass cooled slowly so it didn’t crack. Fascinating, isn’t it?”
I cough in disgust. In the level above, the cracked windows let in air, so the stench of the old building wasn’t as consuming. But down here, a putrid scent hangs low like a fog.
Suddenly, the room lights up.
The first thing I see is Dad, in his fancy suit and expensive watch, pulling on a string attached to a lightbulb.
The next… are the bodies.
Three people are heaped against the wall like sacks. They’re wearing bags over their heads and have their hands and feet tied. All of them are barefoot and some are bleeding.
My stomach roils.
“Is anyone there?” a male voice says. “Help! Please, help me!”
“What the hell is this?” I snap.
“This is Daniel. He has a very bad habit, and he bought the good stuff through one of our distributors. Sadly, Daniel could not afford the good stuff, and now he’s here, joining us today.”
I look away, my chest pumping violently. “This is insane. This is kidnapping.”
“No, no. Daniel and I are simply having a conversation.”
Bile rises in my throat.
I feel like I’m going to throw up.
“There are consequences for our actions,” Dad says conversationally. “If we don’t straighten Daniel out now, how will he raise his three young sons to know that debt should be paid?”
“Please. Please.” Daniel is squirming. “Don’t touch my sons. Please. I’ll do anything.”
“Enough.” Dad nods to someone I hadn’t noticed was in the room. It’s Ron, one of Dad’s henchmen. Ron takes a big stick and slams it into Daniel’s shoulder.
A pained cry spills from Daniel’s mouth. A chorus of whimpers join his. The other people wearing the brown sacks over their heads start begging for mercy.
Their desperation is as thick as the stench in the room.
I surge forward.
A hand clamps my shoulder and holds me in place. “We’re just shaking them up a bit, but”—Dad’s lips pop—“if they come back, we will be pulling a few teeth or toenails. Depending on how I feel.”
Daniel slumps against the wall, unconscious.
The other kidnapped people keep begging to be set free.
“Enough!” Dad’s voice snaps.
They instantly quiet.
I notice the chains bolted into the wall and red stains on the floor. Most of the red is concentrated around the iron shackles, as if people have bled profusely in that particular spot. How many have been dragged into this dungeon? How many have died?
The ugly sensations in my stomach get worse. Heaving over, I throw up everything I ate for lunch.
Dad covers his nose with tattooed fingers. “Lucien. Clean that up before he steps in it.”
Lucien, Dad’s righthand man, appears with a wet wipe. He kneels on the floor and cleans up my vomit.
I feel like I’m about to throw up again.
“How could you do this to people?” I accuse.
“It’s easy once you get away with it enough times.”
The three people start crying and begging for their lives again.
“Get them out of here,” Jarod snaps. “I can’t even hear myself think.”
Immediately, his men step out of the shadows and shove them up the stairs. Daniel is dragged away like he’s a bag of garbage.
I grab Jarod’s arm, my eyes locked on his. “You’re going to let them go?”
“As long as they pay up.”
My shoulders sag in relief.
“But if I find out any of them knows something they shouldn’t…” He smiles.
My skin crawls. He’ll kill them.
Jarod watches me with a grin. It’s like he finds breaking me in amusing.
“I don’t personally kill people, Finn.” He puts a hand to his heart. “However…” Dad moves toward me, walking on a path of blood. “If a drug addict just so happens to overdose, now that can’t be helped.”
My eyelids flutter in revelation.
Cadence’s mom died of an overdose. Did he have anything to do with it?
Dad turns in a slow circle. The smell of this place doesn’t seem to bother him. “There was one case I’ll never forget. This woman faked her own death, thinking she could get away from me.”
I shake my head back and forth, begging for the sweet release of denial.
“She was a drug addict who pimped out her young daughter’s musical talent for money.”
The world blinks out of focus. “Stop.”
But he doesn’t. “I saw the potential in Cadence far before her mother did. Why do you think Tina never sold her to the streets? She would have, you know, that witch. She put a price tag on her daughters.”
My fingertips are trembling.
“As soon as she was of age, I sent Mulliez to that lounge to offer her a spot at Redwood Prep.”
My heart stops beating for a full minute.
“Didn’t you find any of that odd?” Jarod’s eyebrows fly up. “Cadence was offered a scholarship at the last minute. With no pushback. Do you really believe one lousy teacher had that kind of power?”
I bite down hard on my bottom lip. Enough to draw blood.
Dad’s been pulling the strings for longer than I ever imagined.
“I wanted to make her the next big artist. I knew she had it in her. She’s beautiful, talented, and so very broken. But Dutch…” Dad’s jaw hardens. “Dutch bludgeoned my plans by falling in love with her. Women.” He shakes his head. “They’re the downfall of us Cross men.”
I take in a slow, even breath, trying to ignore the metallic scent of blood hanging in the air. The magnitude of Dad’s manipulation expands fully in my mind.
He’s had his eye on Cadence for years.
I don’t have anything else to throw up, but I bend over and cough up spit and bile. Weakly, I wipe the drool slipping down my chin.
“Y-you really think I’ll keep this to myself? I could be recording all this right now. I could have you arrested.”
“Do you really think you can do that, Finn?”
My nostrils flare. I remember my beating that day in Kurosaki’s meeting room. The yakuza won’t let me or my brothers live if this ever gets out.
Jarod waves a hand at me. “Your father is concerned that I raised you to be too soft. He’s right. To protect you, I let you grow up with the chickens knowing you were an eagle. My sons, of course, are the chickens.”
It’s embarrassing how clear everything becomes in that moment.
Jarod Cross has never treated me like his son, but I foolishly spent my entire life trying to please him as a father.
He pulls at the expensive three-piece suit like it itches.
“I have to cover up. I have to hide. I have to be so careful of the image the world sees. This”—He gestures to the dark, putrid room and the blood on the floor—“is all yours. Don’t you understand?
You don’t have to wear a mask. You don’t have to pretend to be civilized, to follow laws and morals. You’re above it all, Finn.”
I shuffle back. “I won’t ever become this.”
“You don’t have a choice. Do you think the Grave City Crew is the worst of your problems? Kurosaki is about to take over this city. Everything is about to change.”
I can’t take another second down here, listening to his evil villain monologue.
Abruptly, I whirl around. “I’m leaving.”
“I’m not done.”
I stride away.
And then I hear a gunshot.
The room is so small that the sound ricochets, threatening to burst my ear drums. Stopping, I duck and cover my head.
Silence rings out.
I tremble at the realization that I could have died. Just like that. In the blink of an eye.
Jarod Cross walks over, the gun hanging at his side. He gently takes my elbow and helps me to my feet. “Forgive me. Your father and I are trying to teach you the same lesson, but he has more patience than I do.”
I barely hear him.
My heart is beating from outside of my chest.
My body doesn’t feel like my own.
In a soft, parenting tone, Jarod says, “You’re a smart kid, Finn. You know that you’ll have to wield this gun someday. You’re not naive enough to think that you could join your father and keep your hands clean.”
I’m shaking all over, my feet glued to the floor.
“If you know, then skip the moral dilemma. The longer you hesitate, the more dangerous it gets for you and everyone around you.”
He says a few more things, but I don’t hear or feel anything around me. In a state of shock, I let Jarod push me up the stairs and out of the factory. By the time I wake from my daze, I’m already in the car, and we’re on our way back to the city.
I stare out the window, my body tense and cold. All I can see is that brown bag covering Daniel’s head. Is he going to end up “overdosing” in a random, dark alley like Cadence’s mom?
The crunch of chips brings my attention back to Jarod Cross. He’s eating nonchalantly while going over documents.
When he sees me looking, he smiles. “Oh, I heard about the girls, but just so you know, it wasn’t me. I wouldn’t dare do anything to upset you, Finn. After all”—he winks—“we’re on the same team.”
My throat constricts, and I beat on the door until the driver swerves to the side of the road.
Turns out, a human can throw up, even on an empty stomach.