Chapter 29 #2
“You still haven’t told me why you did it.”
“Do you really want to know? Are you even going to believe me?” His eyes flick to the hallway and back to me. “You listen to him now.”
“Forget about Liam.” I lean in so his attention is all mine. “It’s you and me right now. Talk to me, tell me why you did it, make me understand.”
“He’s going to kill me, you know. He has to kill me. What else can he do?”
“Luke—“
“Don’t hate him when he does it.” He says it fiercely, like he’s forcing the words out.
“You’ve been better since you married him.
I keep catching glimpses of the old you.
Like when you were running toward me on the dock, I swear, it was like you were ten again and I was eight, and everything was going to be okay.
So don’t hate him when he does what he has to do. ”
That breaks me. More tears roll down my cheek. I have to wipe them away and sit up straight, putting some iron in my spine, because if I’m soft now it’ll only make things worse.
“I need you to talk. No more bullshit. Tell me why, Luke, and make me get it.”
He looks up at the ceiling and closes his eyes.
“I did it for you. I did it for Mom too. I wanted to break Dad’s power over both of you, and he only has what he has because of the company.
I thought if I took that away from him, he couldn’t hurt either of you anymore.
I know, it’s stupid, but that’s the truth. ”
I hug myself tightly. I wrap my arms around my stomach to hold my guts in, otherwise they’ll spill out and sop into Liam’s nice rug. I press my teeth into my lip, trying not to scream, as I take steadying breaths.
“I kept telling myself I was the one who would save you.” The confession hurts, but he needs to hear it. “I rationalized marrying Liam because it meant you might be safe too. I told myself I could fix it, but now… I was making it worse…”
“Regan, don’t do that,” he says as I cry.
I dig my fingernails into my thigh but it doesn’t help.
He burned his life, nearly ripped our family to pieces, and he did it for me and Mom.
He did more than I ever could, and I hate myself so much in this moment, so much it hurts.
It takes a few deep breaths as pathetic self-pity floods my guts before I gather my shit together and face him.
“Tell me how it happened. Start from the beginning. Tell me everything, Luke, or else I can’t help you. Make me understand.”
He takes a breath, looks like he wants to blow me off, but exhales instead.
“Kieren was smart about it. He laid the groundwork. I’ve been thinking a lot about how I got here, especially out there in the woods, and I keep coming back to this conversation me and him had one day, on a random Sunday over a year back.
We were drinking on the porch and he looks at me out of nowhere and goes, your dad’s pretty intense, huh?
And I was like, oh wow, he’s talking about it, and nobody talks about it.
At the time I didn’t think it was a big deal and I was just like, yeah he can be pretty crazy, and sort of laughed, but Kieren wasn’t smiling.
Then again like a month later, he mentioned how tough dad is on mom, which was weird, and again a few days after that, he said he thought Mom should try to stand up for herself or something like that…
and soon the comments turned into conversations about our fucked up dynamic.
I thought I could open up to him, that’s the sickest part. I thought he really cared.”
Cold, ugly dread fills me. Kieren can be charming and charismatic, and when his attention is fully on you, it’s hard not to get sucked into him.
My head’s boiling as I start to question everything we did together, all the time we spent, the promises he made, the life I thought we were building.
Was it always some lie he spun to get something he wanted?
Then there’s poor Luke, looking for any affirmation from someone outside the family, desperate for someone to see the fucked-up shit he’s been seeing all his life, falling for Kieren’s trap.
Exactly the way I fell for it.
“He told you to take the blackmail stuff, didn’t he?”
“Not at first, but eventually. We sort of planned it… I mean, I planned it, that’s the worst part.
Now I think he was walking me toward it the whole time, making me feel like it was my idea from the start, when really it was what he wanted all along.
But he can’t really be that big of a bastard, can he? ”
“I think he can, Luke. He cheated on me with Vera Baranov in our own bed. I don’t think he feels things the same way we do.” Even now, after everything, Luke’s still trying to justify what happened.
His head hangs low. “I know you’re right. I don’t want you to be though. I want Kieren to come running through that door and explain everything… tell you how we did it to save you… to save Mom from Dad… but that’s not going to happen.”
“No, Luke, it’s really not.”
The grunt he makes breaks my heart. He sucks air between his teeth and meets my eyes, his own streaming tears, jaw gritted.
“What’ll happen to me now, Regan? Don’t bullshit me. Don’t you dare lie, tell me the truth. What are they going to do to me?”
My voice cracks. “I don’t know.”
“Regan, damn it. They’re going to kill me. Come on, you know they are, just admit it.”
“I can’t let them. It won’t come to that.”
“Regan! Don’t do this, not right now, not when I need you. Please, fuck, be here with me, be here in reality and don’t try to pretend like everything’s going to be okay. I’m dead, and you know what? I fucking deserve it.”
“No, you don’t, they’ll understand—“
“They won’t. There’s nothing to explain. I betrayed them and I did it on purpose. Maybe I had good reasons and maybe Kieren lied to me, but that doesn’t change what happened. I still did it. Please, be here with me.”
“Alright, Luke, okay.” I squeeze his hand, still bound to the chair. “They’re going to want to kill you, but I’ll talk to them. I’ll try the best I can, okay? I swear, I’ll try.”
“Yeah, okay.” He lets out a shaky sob and leans his head back against the chair. “Feels better, finally saying it out loud. You have no clue how fucking stupid I’ve felt. I don’t know how I let Kieren manipulate me like that.”
“He was good. I fell for it for years. I don’t know if he meant anything he ever said to me, but he made me feel like I was special, like he loved me more than anything, and it was intoxicating.
But listen to me, Luke, if there’s anything else you can tell me…
something I can take to Liam, maybe use it to help you…
now’s the time. Anything you can think of. ”
His lips twitch as he shakes his head. “There’s nothing.
Kieren never told me anything… except this one time, we went to a meeting…
” He trails off, worried and considering his next words.
“It was in the suburbs. This big house on a cul-de-sac. Kieren kept saying it was the real Baranov inner sanctum where the old man keeps all his dirt. Kieren was joking about how the Baranov boss is old school and doesn’t trust electronics.
So maybe that means they didn’t make copies…
and if those files are anywhere, they’ll be in that house. ”
Hope flips into my chest. “Can you give Liam an address?”
“I don’t know. Maybe, I remember the area, and if we click around street view for a while I think I can find it.”
“We’ll start there.” I squeeze his hand one last time. “That’s really good. Thank you.”
“Do me a favor.” He watches as I move back toward the bedroom, going slow. My head’s pounding again and I need rest. “Don’t do anything stupid… don’t try to keep me alive and get yourself in trouble… live your damn life, okay? Live it the way you want to.”
I can’t answer. Years stream down my face as I escape into the bedroom to bury my face in a pillow.
I sob hard for Luke, anger at Kieren and rage at myself and hatred of my father mixing and pulsing and driving me mad.
If I had never met Kieren, if I hadn’t fallen for Kieren’s bullshit, or if I had been stronger in the face of my father’s relentless onslaught of abuse and bullshit—
Luke might not be tied to a chair in my husband’s living room waiting to die right now.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay, love, it’s okay.” Liam’s voice caresses me, his fingers running through my hair. I feel him sit beside me, his body big and warm. “You’re okay, love, you’re okay.”
“Luke… they’re going to kill him, aren’t they?”
His face is grim. “Most likely they’ll want to.”
“Please, Liam—“
“Don’t beg, love. I’ll do whatever you ask if you beg. Please, don’t put me in that position.”
I sit up, not caring, and touch his cheek. “Help him. Do whatever you can, but help him.”
“He betrayed you. He betrayed his own family.”
“I know, but he did it for me. Kieren lied to him, manipulated him, and I can’t stand watching him die. I can’t survive it.”
Liam’s shoulders tense but I know if anyone can save Luke now, it’ll be him.
He can make it happen, and I don’t know when I got so confident in my husband.
I can’t remember the moment when I crossed the line and began to fully believe in him, but I’m there now.
Liam’s the only one who will do anything for me, and he’s right, I shouldn’t ask this of him.
But I’ve been living for other people for too long. Now it’s time to be selfish.
“I’ll try,” he says at last. “But I won’t promise.”
“I know you’ll do your best.” I lean up and kiss him. “Thank you.”
“Stop crying, alright? It’s fucking me up. I can’t stand seeing you like this.”
“I didn’t even know you cared.”
“Too fucking much, baby.” He slips into bed beside me and wraps his arms around my body. “Now, the doctor said to keep you awake, but you also need to rest, so I’m going to stay right here and poke you in the face if you start to drift, alright?”
“Sounds awful.”
“Yeah, it’ll be torture, but at least you’ll have me.”
“My husband in my bed and my brother tied to a chair. What a wonderful life.”
“You get used to it.”