Chapter 29
AURORA
I’m officially living out my worst nightmare. Holding a gun on the two of them. They look like scared rabbits, totally not expecting me to take control. I didn’t expect to, either.
I have it now. I only wish I knew what to do with it. I didn’t ask for any of this.
“Get off him,” I tell Dad. “Now. I want the two of you away from each other.”
It’s amazing, the way he can pretend. All of a sudden, he’s my dad again, a loving man, gentle and soft. “Sweetheart, don’t fly off the handle.”
“Sweetheart?” The laughter that bubbles out of me is high-pitched. I sound insane. Who wouldn’t be after all of this? “You have never called me that in my whole life. Now move.”
The other gun is way on the other side of the room where it landed when Liam kicked it aside. Dad would have to get past Liam to reach it, and I don’t think Liam will let that happen.
Dad moves slowly, hands raised, getting to his feet without taking his eyes off me. Blood drips from his nose and a split lip, trickles down the side of his face from the gash Liam carved in his temple. “You are upset. You’re overwhelmed.”
“Don’t tell me what I am,” I whisper.
As soon as Liam moves, my gaze cuts his way. His hands are raised. “I’m only getting up,” he murmurs. “That’s all.”
“Remember what he did to you!” Dad urges. “He abducted you. He forced you to marry him, didn’t he? He used you.”
“And you didn’t?” I ask, looking back and forth between them.
“It was for your own good,” he insists. “Listen to me. You are my daughter. This fucker deserves to die if only because he took you away, locked you up. Let me make him pay for it.”
Liam doesn’t say a word. He only watches me, occasionally glancing at Dad. I almost wish he would beg and plead, but that’s not him.
“Aurora.” An edge creeps into Dad’s voice. Of course, because he’s not calling the shots, and I’m not giving him what he wants. “Give me the gun. Hand it to me. I’ll take care of this. You shouldn’t have to do it.”
“You’re smarter than that,” Liam whispers, finally sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Don’t listen to him,” Dad barks. “He only thinks he’s in your head. He’s been using you, and you know it. We both do.”
I still have the gun trained on him, but I can’t help the way his words sink in. He’s right. Liam is in my head. He has been using me, too.
“Do you deny that?” I whisper to him, glancing his way. As soon as Dad flinches, I turn my attention back to him. “Do. Not. Move,” I warn.
“I’m proud of you,” he murmurs. The worst part is, it sounds like he means it. The first time in my life, my father is proud of me, and why? Because I’m holding a gun on him? It’s sad and hollow.
“Were you proud of me when you were holding a gun to my head just now?” There’s desperation in my voice. The emotion he just made fun of moments ago. I can’t hold it back no matter how hard I try. “When you promised him you would kill me? And make him watch?”
“You know I didn’t mean that!”
“I don’t know that at all.”
“You should! You are my daughter, goddammit. I wanted him to put down the gun, and he did! I would never, ever—”
“Stop lying,” I warn. “We both know you’re lying, Dad. It’s embarrassing for you.”
“You think he gives a shit?” he rages. He’s coming closer and closer to the edge of losing it altogether.
His desperation is building bit by bit the longer I hold him in place with a gun I’m fighting to hold steady.
“The way he locked you up? Made you marry him, took away everything that should’ve been yours? ”
“It was never going to be mine. You’re still lying.” God, I’m so tired. Weary in my bones. “You were going to sell me to Gabriel Russo, or did you forget? Because I didn’t. You were going to keep everything that belongs to you. It would never have been mine.”
And the thing is, even while I say the words I know are true, I feel… nothing. Absolutely nothing at all. I can’t even hate him for it. I don’t feel anything toward him. Maybe sadness at the way it’s all gone down, but nothing else.
He makes a move toward me and I shake my head. “What is wrong with your memory? I said, do not move. Either of you,” I add in case Liam gets any ideas. “You used me. You were both going to sell me. Like I’m nothing.”
Dad shakes his head furiously. Liam doesn’t. “That was the original plan,” he agrees in a quiet voice while my father sputters. “I admit it.” At least one of them does.
“Remember something.” Sweat rolls down Dad’s face, mixing with the blood while he babbles. “If you make the mistake of killing me now, you’ll never know where your mother is. Only I know. Are you going to sacrifice her?”
Mom. My only chance at ever finding her. Knowing her. A part of me that’s been missing my whole life. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?” I ask.
“You’ll only know if you give me the chance. But you’ll never have a chance at finding her if you kill me now. I know you understand that.”
“I can find her,” Liam murmurs.
“You can’t!” Dad snaps at him.
“You know I can.” He’s looking only at me, speaking only to me. “You know I can make it happen. You don’t need him.”
“Shut your fucking mouth!” Dad’s getting more desperate by the second. “Don’t you do this to her!”
“You know he’s pretending, right?” Somehow, Liam manages to ignore him, looking only at me. “He doesn’t mean a word. You know who he is. Remember all the things you told me about him.”
“She didn’t tell you shit!”
“Remember,” Liam quietly urges. “You know what this is all about. You know he’ll never give you what you need. He’ll offer, he’ll promise. He’ll do anything to protect himself, but he doesn’t mean a word.”
“You do?” I ask.
“Don’t listen to him,” Dad growls. He sounds like an animal. Spitting a mouthful of blood on the floor, he adds, “Please, Aurora. My girl. Don’t let him do this to you.”
“He’s never going to change.” There’s no desperation in Liam’s voice, because he knows he’s right—and he knows I know it, too. I can’t deny it. “He can’t. He’s incapable of it.”
That’s what does it. Whatever little bit of control Dad was clinging to evaporates. He moves like lightning, bending to pull something out from inside his sock.
The knife he planted there.
He lunges for Liam.
He makes my choice for me.
It all happens so fast, I don’t know at first where the deafening sound came from. My ears are ringing from it when Dad drops to his knees, then slumps heavily against the bed. His eyes are still wide open even though his blood and brains paint the blanket.
And I feel… nothing. I killed my father and I might as well be on another planet.
I barely understand what I’m looking at.
There’s a man who was alive and breathing seconds ago.
A man who helped create me, then did everything in his power to keep me small and dependent on him.
Who treated me like a possession, nothing more.
Now he’s dead. For real, this time. And I’m still pointing a gun at him because part of me refuses to believe it’s all over. Part of me expects him to get up even with half his head gone. Something between a laugh and a sob forces its way out of my mouth,
“Aurora.” I hardly notice Liam getting up and coming to me. He closes his hand around the gun, meaning he covers my hand, too. “Give me the gun now. It’s over. You’re safe.”
Am I? I wish I knew.
The only thing I know for sure is the way something in my heart loosens when he puts his arms around me. When he pulls me close so I can rest my head against his chest. His heart is still racing away. Mine is too. “You’re safe now,” he murmurs. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”
“It’s better if we stay away from the penthouse for a while.”
I understand Liam is trying to explain why we’re in this strange place, but his words are bouncing off me without making a dent.
“We’re safe where we are.” He keeps using that word. Safe. Like he’s trying to get through to me.
Good luck. I’m going through the motions of living, breathing, but I’m not really here. I’m still back in that room, deciding whether I should shoot the man who abducted me and forced me into marriage, or the man who gave me life… then decided he could rule over every part of it.
The house Liam brought me to is a lot more homey than the penthouse could ever hope to be. Except for the guards posted out front, that is. Just another reminder of how safe we supposedly are. Is there any such thing as real safety? I don’t know anymore. I don’t know anything.
“Here. Drink this.” He places a steaming mug in front of me. “Don’t worry, it’s just tea.”
I know. I watched him prepare it. Somewhere in the fog that’s wrapped itself around me, I still feel like I have to watch him.
It hasn’t been all that long since he drugged me.
Even that doesn’t make me feel angry or resentful anymore.
Maybe I’ll never feel anything again. Maybe I killed part of myself back there, when I shot my father.
It still doesn’t feel real. I wrap my hands around the mug, willing the heat to work its way through me. To thaw the ice.
And in a way, it helps, because I’m able to speak after taking a sip. He added plenty of sugar, too, the way I like it. “You came to rescue me.” It still doesn’t feel right. I have to say it almost like I’m confirming this is all real.
“Of course I did.”
And the tracker is the only way he was able to find me. I understand that now. I’m not going to thank him for it. That would be too much.
Instead, I voice the question ringing in the back of my mind. “Even after what I did? You still came for me?”
“Do you think I would leave you there, with him? Is that what you think of me?”
Uh… yes. “But I betrayed you.” Like Selina must have.
I understand that now, too. That’s what dad was talking about.
Emotional women, how there’s no room for them on a team.
He took advantage of her the way he took advantage of me.
Not that I feel sorry for her. It would take a hell of a lot more to ever make me feel sorry.