Chapter 35
THIRTY-FIVE
HARLEY
The sound of my racing heartbeat is the only thing I can hear as I shift in my seat and prepare myself to press play.
Logan’s words were repeating in my mind the entire night, so I ended up staying outside his room despite his warning to stay away. I just couldn’t be that far away from her, not when everything was so fresh.
What if she needed me?
Though it turns out he was right—she doesn’t need me. She doesn’t want me anywhere near her, and I only have myself to blame.
It’s like a switch has been flipped, and now I’m determined to get to the bottom of whatever the fuck Logan was talking about, about how she’s been protecting me.
I can’t ask Savannah, and I know he won’t betray her confidence more than he already has, so that left me with one option—to come home and look at the video of her in my father’s office all those years ago.
Really look at it this time, not just a fleeting glance before rage consumes me, and I assume the worst.
It was a no-brainer, really, to make the two-hour drive so I could do some digging. At least it makes me feel useful, rather than sitting in my room at home, torturing myself.
I’m currently at the main house, searching through his files and wondering where the fuck I’ll find it.
Just when I’m ready to give up and call him to ask, I spot a folder titled SUMMER ’22, and I know in my gut that’s the one.
I sift through photos—pictures of me and mom chatting, pictures from parties of the two of them, and pictures of the three of us. I look so young, so naive. And I guess I was.
I finally find the video, and my heart stalls as I see Savannah on the screen. I may have seen this video before, but this time, I’m looking at it with fresh eyes and a clear head.
Just as I did, she also looks so young. She’s always been beautiful, but she’s grown into a breathtaking woman.
I hit play and watch the scene unfold before me.
Unlike the first, anger and betrayal doesn’t hit me square in the chest as soon as she starts digging through my father’s desk before turning her attention to his laptop.
No, this time I’m hit with steel determination to figure out what the fuck is going on and what Logan was referring to.
I watch with keen eyes and a hawk-like gaze, looking for something—anything—that will point me in the right direction.
And that’s when I see it.
My heart stalls, and I stop the video, rewinding it a couple of seconds and zooming in before pressing play again, and there it is—a slight tremor in her hand as she reaches for the mousepad. It’s almost unnoticeable, so much so that only someone who knows her and was looking for it would see it.
I watch the rest of the clip, this time zoomed in enough that only she sits in the frame, my eyes zoned in on every one of her breaths, noting her labored breathing, the way her body trembles, and the tears escaping her eyes.
To me, that doesn’t look like someone doing something of their own volition. That looks like someone being forced to do something they don’t want. It looks like hesitation and reluctance.
I can’t fucking believe it.
Whether she was forced into it somehow or blackmailed, I’m not sure, but I do know it was not because she wanted to.
And I’ve spent the last three years tormenting her because of it.
“Fuck!” I scream and jump out of the chair, sending it swinging backward.
I grab a hold of it and throw it at the other end of the room, sending it crashing into a glass cabinet.
The glass shatters, but that has nothing on the feeling inside me.
I feel like I’m being fucking shredded to pieces by my own doing.
I fucking—I tortured her. For weeks, months, years, I made it my mission to make her life a living hell.
Why didn’t she tell me? Why wouldn’t she say something, anything, to make me stop? Why did she make me hate her when it could have been fixed? I can’t make sense of it all. The only thing I understand is that Savannah wasn’t the one deserving of my ire, rage, and intensity.
No, it had nothing to do with her and everything to do with whoever made her do it, the person who must have forced her to go into my dad’s office.
Her father.
I grab something from somewhere—I don’t even know what—and throw it at the wall as I scream out my frustrations.
I scream, and I throw, and I fucking rage, feeling that familiar panic from before bubbling up inside me, and this time, Savannah isn’t here to help me through it.
I don’t deserve to have her help me through it.
A throat clearing has reality coming crashing back to the surface, drowning my panic away. I swing around to find my mom in the doorway, and my legs collapse from under me.
“Mom,” I say, my voice tight. “I didn’t know you were here.”
Her assessing eyes sweep over the room and the destruction I’ve made. “Clearly,” she mutters dryly and approaches me.
I pull my knees up to my chest, resting my elbows on them. Pressing the balls of my hands into my eyes, I try to ease the tension and ward off the tears threatening to fall.
“What’s going on, Harley?” my mom asks, but I can’t answer her. If I do, I’m afraid I’ll break completely.
I hear her heels clacking, but I don’t look up. I don’t move, and I don’t speak. I just look at everything that’s happened in the last three years with a new perspective, and what I see fucking haunts me.
The times when I cornered her in the library or when I fucked her in the alley and used her whenever I pleased.
I think back to the time she kissed me, and it felt so good and so fucking right that I let myself slip for just a moment before I came back to myself.
How I responded by biting her lip so hard, I drew blood.
How I left her there with tears in her eyes and a haunted expression, even though I knew she’d already been crying that day.
Fuck, I spat her blood in her face and watched her crumble as though she was nothing.
Oh god, just how many times have I left her to deal with shit on her own? How many times have I made her feel worse than she already did? How has she been living like this when I can barely stomach the thought of it?
I hated her so much and made it known. There have been times when my resolve slipped, and I let myself go back to the days before, but then something always reminded me of reality, and I went right back to wanting to take revenge.
I guess the only saving grace is that I’ve carefully avoided her for over a year, so she didn’t have to take my shit the entire time. But then I remember the reason why I’ve been avoiding her, and I feel sick all over again.
How fucking stupid and blind could I be?
Now, I can see it for what it really was.
It wasn’t her who was looking for a husband, it was her father.
Is he really planning to marry her off? To trade her in some sort of deal? What the actual fuck is wrong with that bastard? Clearly, there’s a lot I don’t know about the Marks family, but I plan to find out everything.
I’m not going to let him keep doing this to her, and I’m certainly not going to let her marry some stranger, all because he tells her to. No, fuck that, over my dead body will I let that happen.
I’m not sure how long I sit there, but a soft hand on my forearm has me coming back to reality.
I remove my hands and look into my mom’s troubled eyes. “You came to watch the video?” she asks, and I nod wordlessly.
“Is that what has you so messed up?”
I hesitate. Yes, in a sense it is, but not like she probably thinks.
“We got it wrong,” I rasp. “I’m not sure why she did it, but I know she didn’t want to.”
Doubt fills her expression, and I tense.
“Don’t give me that look, Mom. I know it looks bad, but I know her.
I don’t know whether she was forced, blackmailed, or what, but I know that what she did wasn’t done because she wanted to.
Fuck, it’s only because of Logan that I was forced to see the truth. ”
Her gaze sweeps over me, then to the computer and to the glass and broken ornaments and furniture around the room. I see the way she’s calculating, no doubt taking into account the fact Logan is involved.
Out of all our families, mine is the one Logan is closest to. My mom knows he doesn’t trust easily, so if he believes Savannah, then we probably should too. “Okay,” she finally says.
“Okay? What do you mean o—”
“I mean, I believe you.”
I sag in relief, only then realizing how tense I had gotten, and nod.
“Good. That’s good. Now I’m going to find her father.
” I don’t care if I go to jail, anyone who can sell their daughter the way he is planning doesn’t deserve to live.
I honestly don’t even care about the way he blackmailed my dad anymore.
That’s nothing compared to what Savannah’s been enduring.
My mom snorts. “You’ll do no such thing.
You won’t approach him, and you won’t go around asking questions.
” I go to interject, but she cuts me off before any sound can leave my mouth.
“Let me look into it, Harley. Colin Marks is not someone you want to fuck with, and I have experience dealing with entitled assholes who think they can get away with whatever they like.”
I turn it over in my mind, and the thought has some merit. While I’d love to go off half-cocked to figure out the truth, she’s right that she’s probably better at getting the truth than I am. It leaves me to keep an eye on Savannah, to try and get her to talk to me so I can apologize.
“Promise me you’ll be careful?” I ask, and she smirks.
Well, that’s not ominous at all.
I begin standing and wince when I take in the room. Fuck, I really made a mess of the place.
“You care about her, huh?” Mom murmurs with a knowing look, but the question makes me flinch. “What’s that look?” she asks, and I can feel bile rising up my throat.
“I fucked up,” I rasp. “I really, really fucked up, Mom.”
I don’t know what she sees in my expression, but her entire demeanor changes. Her gaze hardens, her body tenses, and her eyes pierce mine in a way that I’ve only ever seen her use on other people.
“What did you do?”
I don’t answer. I physically can’t.
“Whatever it is, is it forgivable?”
I swallow thickly. “I don’t know.”