Chapter 29
THE SINS OF OUR FATHER
JAKE
My hands won’t stop shaking as the last of Dad’s files transfer—financial records, communications, lists, contacts. His entire darkness laid out in neat little folders.
It’s a fucked up kind of organized evil.
One folder in particular—the one that proves what he almost did to Nora—makes my stomach flip in a way that has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with guilt.
When Nate told me they’d found nothing the other night, something in me snapped into overdrive. Dad doesn’t “get rid of” evidence.
He relocates it, hides it.
So I dug.
Hard.
His calendar, construction schedules, property permits. And there it was—brand new estate, conveniently filed right when Nick and Danny started sniffing around.
Classic Scott Sullivan: always three moves ahead, always anticipating, always watching.
Only this time, I was watching him.
The half-built house feels like a mausoleum—silent, unfinished, cold. The kind of place where bad things happen because no one’s around to hear you scream. Every creak in the wood hits me like gunfire.
I keep checking my phone.
Where the hell is Nate?
He said ten minutes and it’s been close to twenty now.
And of course, my brain decides now is a great time to dump the entire Nora situation on me.
God, I was such an idiot.
She was my best friend, and instead of acting like it, I let jealousy turn me into a complete asshole. I pushed her and I hurt her. I tried to wedge myself between her and Nate like I had any right.
And yeah—everyone knew.
Everyone saw how Nate has been in love with her since he was like seven, and part of me always knew that, too. I just didn’t want to believe it because it made me feel replaceable. Like I wasn’t enough for either of them.
But the crazy part?
He never gave up on me, not even when I deserved it.
All those nights as kids—Dad coming home drunk, fists hungry for a target—Nate was the wall that stood between me and carnage. He took the blows. He tried to hide it all from me but that shit was too hard to hide. I know now, it wasn't an obligation to him.
It was love.
And I repaid him by siding with Dad and sabotaging his happiness. If I can’t erase the years he spent bleeding for me, I can at least give him this. Evidence and leverage and hopefully in some way, freedom from the lasso that’s been tied around his neck.
My phone buzzes.
Nate
Sorry, got caught up with Mom. I’m almost there.
Relief barrels through me, followed immediately by guilt because he thinks we’re here to talk. He doesn’t know I’m about to drop a bomb that will drag every ghost we’ve ever had out into the open.
I tear through the documents, photographing everything. It’s horrifying.
Dad’s mind isn’t chaotic—it's calculated.
Every payment, every threat and every destroyed family is all catalogued like he’s proud of it. And then the profiles with full names and photos.
Residents of South Eden, past and present—a collection of lives he dismantled with the kind of precision serial killers dream about. And the most damning thing is the police officers, councilmen, inspectors that he’s bought, trained and turned into loyalists.
My hands shake harder as I photograph everything, because this—this is the chain-breaking stuff. I hit upload and wait impatiently for the files to finally send.
“Come on, come on.” I whisper to no one.
A sound snaps the air and my head jerks at the sound of heavy footsteps.
“Nate?” My voice sounds thin.
The footsteps get closer and then stop just as the door swings open.
And my blood turns to ice.
Monty.
He fills the frame like something sculpted out of nightmares, blocking out the hall light with his bulk.
“Your daddy’s not happy with you, kid.”
My lungs lock.
Scott knows about everything.
I was careful. I was so careful.
“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lie, but my voice cracks like I’m twelve again, hiding while Dad storms down the hall.
Monty laughs and the sound is pure gravel and cruelty.
“You thought you were slick? Scott’s been watching you for weeks. Letting you run around, seeing how far the little prince would go.”
Every secret I thought I kept suddenly feels ridiculous. I wasn’t ahead of the game—I was the entertainment.
“He trusted you,” Monty says as he steps closer. “And look how you repay him.”
I stumble back until I hit the wall. There’s nowhere to go despite this house being the size that it is.
And then before my brain can process what’s happening…pain.
His fist slams into my stomach and it feels like my entire body folds in half. The air leaves me in one violent rush, and I collapse to my knees, gasping, choking.
The floor slams into me, my vision sparks white. I think I’m going to be sick from the impact but that goes away when Monty grips my hair, yanking my head up so hard tears jump from my eyes.
“Where you gonna run, kid?” he growls.
“Fuck you,” I wheeze, but it’s pathetic.
He laughs again—low, delighted.
Then he pulls out a syringe.
My heart stops.
The liquid inside glints like something that erases people.
“Stress got to you,” he says casually. “Overdose. House fire. Tragic really.”
My stomach heaves and then my phone buzzes against the floor where it fell. The sound cuts through the room like a gunshot. Monty's eyes flick to it, and his expression shifts.
He picks up the phone, reads the screen, and a wicked smile spreads across his face. The smile is so genuinely pleased it makes my stomach lurch worse than Monty’s fist did.
"I'm at the front gate. Open it up." He reads the text out aloud.
He turns to me and now his smile is one that is hungry. Like he’s been waiting years for this moment.
“You know what,” he says softly, thumb already moving over my screen, “change of plans.”
Panic spikes through me.
“No—no, wait—” My voice cracks. “He’s not part of this. This is between me and—”
“Oh, but he is.”
He taps something, then hits send.
My stomach drops because I know Nate has just called in like a wolf to slaughter.
I’d known about Monty and Nate’s history—small pieces, overheard through doors I wasn’t supposed to stand near.
Bits of conversations Dad had with Monty about “keeping that older boy in line.” The nights I’d followed Nate without him knowing, watching him meet Monty’s crew at the docks, trading cash for pills or powders, trying to numb whatever hell he was living through back then.
And the way he always came back bloody or shaking or both.
I never knew the whole story. Just that Nate hated him with a kind of cold, bone-deep fury I’d never seen before.
The kind you only earn by surviving something.
“He’s been part of this,” he says, leaning in, his breath hot against my ear, “since the day he decided you were worth saving.”
My vision blurs and panic claws up my throat, fast and suffocating.
“You’re gonna watch,” Monty murmurs.
Calm and comfortable like a butcher sharpening his knife.
“You’re gonna watch what happens when you betray your family.”
He lifts the syringe.
I try to move, to fight, to crawl. Fucking anything.
But there’s nowhere to go.
The last thing I see is Monty’s fist coming down and the world swallowing itself whole. The room tunnels and colors drain while everything collapses inward.
Then—
Nothing.
The room explodes back into existence like a bomb going off inside my skull.
Sound first—a roaring, rushing noise that might be my own blood or might be the house collapsing around me. Then pain, sharp and immediate, radiating from my shoulder through every nerve ending like lightning striking the same spot over and over again.
"Monty, get the fuck away from him!"
Nate's voice cuts through the fog like a blade, and suddenly I'm awake, consciousness slamming into me with the force of a freight train.
Nate is charging at Monty like he's done a thousand times before, like every playground bully and schoolyard fight and drunken father who ever raised a hand to us.
Except this time, there's no coming back from it.
I catch a glimpse of metal as Monty shifts his weight—the handle of a knife jutting from his back pocket.
My blood turns to ice.
I see the trap closing around my brother's neck like a noose. See Nate running straight into it because that's what he does—that's what he's always done for me, even when it means walking into hell with his eyes wide open.
"Nate, no! Don’t!"
The scream tears from my throat, raw and desperate, but the words feel like they're coming from underwater, distorted and useless.
They collide.
The impact sends them both staggering.
Nate recovers first, his fist connecting with Monty's jaw in a crack that echoes through the room.
Blood sprays.
Monty's head snaps back, but he's already swinging, his massive fist catching Nate in the ribs. Nate doubles over, gasping, but he doesn't stop moving. His elbow comes up, catches Monty under the chin.
Then his knee, driving into Monty's stomach.
For a moment—just one beautiful, terrible moment—I think Nate might actually win.
He's not as big as Monty, but he's faster, smarter. But Monty's a beast of a man, all muscle and cruelty and years of hurting people.
Monty feints left, then drives his shoulder into Nate's chest. The force sends my brother crashing into the wall, plaster cracking behind him.
Before Nate can recover, Monty's on him.
A punch to the stomach, another to the face.
Nate's nose explodes in blood, but his hands are already moving, clawing at Monty's eyes, going for anything that might level the playing field.
"Stop!" I try to get up, but my body betrays me.
That's when Monty goes for the knife.
His hand moves to his back pocket in one fluid motion, pulling the blade free as Nate lunges forward. The metal catches the dim light, and I see Nate's eyes widen as he realizes what's happening.