Chapter 28
Iwas going to be sick.
Thorin strode in, his footsteps echoing through the room.
His dark hair was slicked back, his noxious presence taking over the entire place.
His grin chilled me to the bone, a triumph there that terrified me.
The man had the same imposing presence as when I’d first met him, a malevolence in his stare, a deadness there birthed from pure evil.
He was flanked by three guys outfitted in black, with guns strapped at their sides. They moved with the fluidity of experience, with not only competence in their job but the understanding of coordination.
This had all been planned.
I’d walked straight into danger, and my father had been complicit. Had he been threatened? Had…
When I looked at him, the bowed posture, the tremors rocking through him, the way he refused to meet my eyes told me everything I needed to know.
No, he’d sold me out.
My stomach rolled. Oh fuck.
My throat squeezed tight, and I backed up a step, farther away from him.
“I’m sorry, Beau,” he begged, staring into his mug as if it might absolve him somehow. “I was out of options.”
Fuck. Disgust roiled through me. How could he?
How could he? Rage thrummed through me, and sheer despair tugged on its heels.
This was my father. I’d sacrificed everything for him—twice.
The conversations we’d had since I’d entered the Spires, the check-ins, all the concern he’d levied my way with message after message—had it been fabricated?
My mind spun at a dizzying force as the weight of this descended.
My own father.
The person who’d raised me, who’d taken care of me as a kid, who loved me.
Yet he’d sold me out.
To Thorin fucking Glass.
“I’m surprised Cillian let you go,” Thorin said, his cruel voice slicing through the air. “He’s really shown his weakness.”
“Fuck you,” I snarled.
Thorin simply smirked. This apartment seemed to shrink in size, and yet the door and my escape lay interminably far away.
A dizzying distance, even though it had felt like nothing when I’d walked in.
I glanced at the only avenue out, then back to him, and he shook his head.
“We’re all armed, and you won’t get far. ”
He lifted the pistol from the holster at his side, making his threat clear. The sight of it caused the breath to snag in my throat. The barrel was exposed, its lethality making the deadliness of the situation crystal clear. Thorin wasn’t fucking around.
Except, then he aimed the gun in the direction of my father.
“You’re no longer of use.”
One moment, my father sat at the kitchen table clutching his mug tight.
The next, the porcelain shattered on the floor, dark liquid flying everywhere. Time slowed as my father tumbled from his chair with a heavy thud, one that resounded through the room. Red liquid and chunks splattered across every available surface. Several flecks hit my cheeks, hot and wet.
I froze in silent horror.
I only looked at where my father landed once, but the sight of him would be emblazoned in my mind forever.
The man I’d known, the one who’d raised me, was splayed out on the floor, his head…
fuck, there was so much blood. Rivers of blood.
Pools. Pieces of pinkish-gray brain matter strewn across the floor.
Splinters of his skull like a scattered jigsaw puzzle.
His arms and legs splayed out, unnatural, unmoving.
His head wasn’t intact anymore. My father was no longer recognizable.
And his body had stopped moving. The body that had wrapped me in so many soul-squeezing hugs over the years.
The one that had held me when I cried over bullies and breakups.
The one that had lifted me onto his shoulders as a child so I could pretend to be taller than the trees.
Completely still.
Bile rose in my throat, and I lowered to my knees as I vomited on the floor. Oh god.
Horror grabbed me by the throat, making breathing difficult.
Oh god, he was gone.
Gone.
I averted my gaze, unable to look at the body on the floor mere feet from me. My insides iced over.
No. This had to be some terrible nightmare.
“Get up,” Thorin growled. “We’re getting out of here.”
My mind blurred, barely registering his demand. Rough hands grabbed me instead, tugging me up, and one of the guys in black yanked at my pocket. I felt out of body, numb, as if I didn’t belong in it anymore but instead stared down on all this happening to someone else.
“Boss, he has his phone on,” the guy said.
“Break it. By the time whoever he called gets here, we’ll be long gone.” Thorin stood in front of me, and my body rioted at his proximity. The stench of his cologne, his oppressive aura, the gun dangling in his hand.
The gun that shot my father. The man who shot my father.
A crunch sounded beside me, and bile rose in my throat again.
Any chance of Amelia finding me now was dashed.
Numbness settled over me like a blanket.
I should be resisting, should be trying to push or shove or run away.
Yet Thorin Glass had just murdered my father in cold blood.
Hadn’t even blinked or shown any remorse.
My father was dead.
He was dead.
I’d left Cillian to try to save him, and it turned out there had been nothing to save after all.
He’d sold me out, and for what, I didn’t even know. And even after all that, he hadn’t survived.
My fingers were numb, same as my feet. Hands yanked me away from my father’s body, away from his apartment, and I didn’t even fight back.
I swallowed the golf ball in my throat, trying not to break down.
Static hummed in my mind. I couldn’t process what had just happened or I’d scream and scream and scream.
My whole body trembled as the soles of my shoes scraped against the asphalt.
If only I’d pushed my father a little more for answers of why he’d gotten in trouble in the first place.
If only I’d asked Cillian what my father had done.
If only I had stayed at the Spires.
“Get him in,” Thorin commanded. The guys bracketing me on either side managed to shove me over to an open car door.
I teetered to the side, but they hopped in with me, an uncomfortable fit in the back.
The guards kept their grip tight on my arms, but my body felt like it had iced over, too numb.
One or both of them reeked of sweat and cigarettes, and bile rose in my throat.
Thorin stepped into the driver’s seat and turned on the engine.
Once we left here, no one would find me.
No one would save me.
My father had been my one connection to the outside world, and he’d sold me out.
Fuck. Anguish bloomed in my chest all over again.
“What did you have on him?” I croaked out.
Thorin’s gaze was locked forward on the road as he coasted down one street after another. “Did you not even ask what he did to run afoul of Cillian? I’m shocked your lover never told you.”
I swallowed hard. He tried, and then I’d asked not to know. I’d willfully remained blind, a choice I had already come to regret.
The vision of my father splattered across the floor flashed in my mind, and my throat burned. I choked back the spew, the acidity coating my mouth.
Thorin let out a bark of a laugh. “Your father decided to negotiate a bad deal on behalf of his company…with Cillian. Your father made an offer for Jove Enterprises to handle assets for the Spires, one the company hadn’t authorized.
The plan had clearly been to weasel his way in, convince his company to follow through, and then skim from the top.
However, Jove Enterprises wouldn’t play ball, and when the lawyers at the Spires scrutinized the final contracts, they caught onto your father’s plan.
Cillian doesn’t look fondly on those who go back on their word, and so your father was going to be held accountable. ”
Until I had stepped in. Fuck. My stomach spasmed, but there wasn’t anything to puke up. I thought he’d had a gambling problem, as it had come up before in the past, something that could be fixed.
Not that he’d sold his morals.
“So, after you pulled your na?ve and noble switch, and I saw Cillian’s interest in you, I approached your father.
No one would hire him after he’d pulled what he did, so he offered to help lure you out in return for a higher-level position in my company.
” Thorin laughed again. “You never make deals when you’re desperate, though. ”
He truly had sold me out.
My stomach dropped. How much of my past was a lie?
When had he grown this amoral? Not that he’d been a champion of justice growing up, but he’d been kind to me.
He’d loved my mom. He’d never talked about work much at home, but I knew it had sawed away at him sometimes.
However, I never would have thought he’d sell me out.
Never. It was like the man I’d known my entire life had been bodysnatched, and now I’d never get the answer as to why, because he was dead.
The two men on either side of me jostled elbows often enough to remind me they were there, and my breath snagged. Their proximity made my skin crawl. Their grip on my arms ensured I wouldn’t be able to bolt away, even though we were in the middle of a moving car.
“We got lucky you took the bait, though,” Thorin said. “Our window with Cillian was closing, but it looks like we’ll get everything we want. He’s run out of time.”
“What does that mean?” I asked as Thorin wheeled into a vacant warehouse parking lot.
The huge building was tucked out of sight, surrounded by larger ones that cast deep shadows over the lot.
I’d expected him to drag me off to Spectacle Casino at first, but that would’ve been a lot harder to conceal in the middle of the day.
Enough people streamed in and out of Casino Alley that someone would’ve noticed armed men smuggling me inside.
Guaranteed he planned to move me elsewhere once nightfall hit, though.