Chapter 11
CHAPTER 11
MACKENZIE
T he whiskey burns going down. It isn’t my first drink of the night, but it is the first that makes my throat tighten, and my stomach twist. I swirl the amber liquid in my glass, my gaze locking on the man across from me.
The bar is dimly lit, hazy with smoke, just like the first night we met. I don’t know why I came here alone tonight and now I am second guessing drunk dialing Creed instead of one of my friends. Low music hums through the space, but it might as well have been silent. I barely register the people around us—just him. Always him.
He’s watching me the way he always does, like he’s trying to figure me out but doesn’t want to admit he gives a damn. Like I am a puzzle he knows better than to solve, but still he runs his fingers over the edges, trying to see where I’ll break.
“What’s going on, little demon,” Creed says, his voice rough. When he calls me that, I lose all focus. “You’ve been quiet. It’s not like you.”
I exhale. “Maybe I’m finally learning to shut up.”
His jaw twitches. He leans back against the booth, stretching an arm along the backrest. “That’d be a shame. I like your mouth.”
My stomach clenches. His voice alone could undo me, could make me forget every reason I should stay away. My father suspects something so tonight isn’t about our fucked-up game of push and pull. That night when he almost caught Creed in my room, I didn’t escape his punishment. Bile rises to my throat at the thought. He hadn’t touched me that way in a while, and I was foolish enough to believe it was over.
So tonight, I am fucking drowning, pushed so deep under the tide, I can’t see a way out.
I tipped back the rest of my drink, slammed the glass down, and met Creed’s gaze. “This – us, it has to stop.”
Creed’s expression doesn’t change—too controlled for that—but his eyes darken.
“I wanted to stop a long time ago. You wouldn’t let me. So, why the sudden change of heart?” He tilts his head a little, observing me too closely.
“My father.”
“I know he’s a bastard,” he says slowly. “That never stopped you before. What is this really about?”
I let out a cold laugh. “You don’t know shit about him.”
A shadow passes over Creed’s face, but he stays quiet. I can’t decide whether or not I should just rip open the wound.
“I was six the first time he climbed into bed with me. Not to read me a bedtime story,” I laugh mirthlessly. “A week ago was the first time I fought back. It didn’t change anything and it earned me more bruises, but I still did it. The funny thing is, I did it for you – not me.”
I refuse to let pain crawl into my voice. I am better than that.
Creed’s fingers curled into a fist on the table. “Mackenzie. I will fucking kill him!”
I scoff. “Kill him? Creed, he’s Gordon Yates. He’s untouchable.”
“Does Amelia know about it?”
“Of course she does. But this is what happens in this world of ours, Creed. We belong to a long line of monsters and one day I’ll be a monster, too. The lines are so fucking blurred I don’t even know if what he’s been doing to me is as sick and twisted as I think.”
The muscle in his jaw ticks. “You know it’s fucking sick. You know it’s wrong, Mackenzie. God.”
We both fall silent. The noise of the bar fades into a low hum, background to the storm brewing inside me.
Creed exhales, long and slow. When he speaks again, his voice is lethal. “It ends now. It ends tonight.”
I know he's talking about my father, not us, never us. “What are you gonna do?”
His silence is the answer.
Something about the look of determination on his face sends a twisted warmth through my chest. No one has ever looked at me like that—like they might actually be willing to burn the world down just to make me feel safe, but that isn’t how this works. My friends hate what my father does to me, but they are bound by honor in much the same way I am.
I smile, feigning indifference. “What, you gonna be my knight in shining armor now?”
Creed doesn’t smile. “No,” he says with so much certainty it knocks the breath from me. “But one way or another, I’m gonna make sure he never touches you again.”
And I know, at that moment, it isn’t a threat. It’s a promise and that is scarier than anything. St. Jude’s is unforgiving to those who break its rules. There are consequences for challenging the old ways, for trying to erase the stains that are woven into our bloodlines for generations.
I know that. Creed doesn’t.
And yet, when I look at him now—jaw tight, hands clenched, something vicious and raw burning in his eyes—I realize he doesn’t care about how powerful my father is. Not about the money. Not about the consequences.
Not when it comes to me.
I should stop him. I should tell him to leave it alone, to walk away before this goes too far. But the truth is, I don’t want him to.
For once in my life, I want someone to fight for me. Maybe, we’ll actually get it right.
Creed studies me, reading the words I wasn’t saying. “You’re shaking.”
I curl my fingers around the empty glass, forcing myself to stop. “It’s nothing.”
His gaze darkens. “It’s not nothing.”
I hate how easily he sees through me. How effortlessly he peels back the layers I wear like armor.
* * *
When we pull up to my house, Creed leans in, lowering his voice. “Go to the pool house, pack a bag and I’ll come get you. I know that we’re not going to be able to stay in town once I do this.”
I know what he’s planning. And I know there will be no turning back. My father won’t survive the night.
“This could go horribly wrong and then...” My voice is barely a whisper.
His thumb brushes my lip, just for a second. Just long enough to make me forget how to breathe. “It won’t.”
He tips his chin toward the side of the house.
My stomach twists. “Creed—”
“Don’t ask me not to,” he cuts me off, his tone final. “Not for him.”
I swallow hard. “This won’t fix me.”
“I’m not trying to fix you.” His voice is rough, edged with something dangerous. “I just want him to fucking suffer.”
And God help me, I do, too.
A cold, bitter part of me wants to see my father bleed. I want to hear him beg for mercy the way I once begged.
I reach for Creed’s wrist before I can stop myself, my fingers curling around his pulse. His heartbeat is steady. Unshaken.
“If you do this,” I whisper, “there’s no going back.”
Creed holds my gaze, unflinching. “I never planned on going back.”
I release him, slowly, and then reach for my bag. My hands aren’t shaking anymore.
“I’ll see you when it’s done.”
We climb out of the car and head in opposite directions, him to house and me to the pool house.