Chapter 33
Quill
Istay frozen for several whole seconds, staring at the man pointing the barrel of his gun straight at me.
By the time I realize what’s happening, the soldier I’d pushed past to get outside has managed to get to the car, and it’s now a distant point in the horizon, turning the corner onto the road at the far end of the driveway.
I couldn’t catch up to it no matter how fast I ran.
Fuck. I’m so fucking weak. Fuck.
It’s not fear but utter shock that had kept me locked in position, unable to do anything as Piper was taken away from me. Again.
The man in front of me is the last person I ever expected to see right now.
“What’s going on?” I manage at last. “Logan told you to take her home?”
“Logan had nothing to do with it.”
At those words, I realize just how much I do trust Logan. Far more than the man who raised me. I know Logan would never hurt her. But I don’t know a thing about my dad.
What the fuck is wrong with me? Why the fuck did I freeze like that? Why didn’t I save her? Why am I so weak?
So fucking weak. So fucking weak.
“Come on,” says Dad, gesturing toward a second car with his gun.
Or what?
I’m getting in the car, but fuck it if I’m getting in with him. I take a step toward him as he watches, far too relaxed.
“Get in the car, Quill.”
Gone is the fear I used to imagine in his eyes, whenever he beheld his bloodthirsty son. Was it ever there to begin with? Suddenly, I’m questioning everything.
“I’m going to fucking kill you,” I hiss, giving voice for the first time to the promise I made myself in first grade.
He actually laughs. “Be reasonable. Car. Now.”
“Or what? How are you going to stop me from killing you? I know you won’t use that gun. Bet you’ve never shot a man. Do you even know how to use a gun?”
By now I’m standing flush against him, my forehead inches from his. He doesn’t look the least bit intimidated.
“You’re right. I’ve never killed a man. The powerful people aren’t the ones who shoot, Quill. They’re the ones who put guns in weaker men’s hands. That’s you, son. A weak man.”
I stand before him, completely unable to do anything but shake with tense fury. It’s not humanity that keeps me from murdering my own father in cold blood. It’s not from lack of physical strength. It’s twisted and cruel, this thing that’s oppressing me.
I always did take his beatings. Even the ones in high school. Even when I grew taller than him. I had imagined, then, that the reason the beatings grew more sparse was because he was scared of me. Bullshit. He certainly doesn’t look terrified of me now.
I’ve masturbated a fuckton to the thought of my father dying the worst death possible, but now that killing him has turned from a fantasy to a necessity… I just can’t do it.
You can save a mistreated dog, you can teach him to love you… but he’ll only ever kneel at the feet of the man who beat him.
And the worst thing about that is that my dad knows it.
He hands me the gun. “Go on,” he taunts. “Kill me. Try it, big boy.”
I clasp my hand around the handle of the gun, pointing its barrel at him. I grit my teeth, trying to keep myself from shaking. My finger presses against the trigger. I know killing him is the only way to save Piper. I also know I can’t do it.
“Thought so,” he says, laughing derisively. “Now kill him.”
He gestures to the still unconscious Josh, lying in a crumpled heap at our feet.
Without thinking, I bring down the gun, pointing it at his head. Like a robot, I put my finger on the trigger, preparing to pull it.
“Go on,” says Dad impatiently. “Kill your friend.”
I’ll never know if it’s that word—friend—that does it, or if it’s the flip phone I suddenly see peeking out of Josh’s pocket. Whatever the case, I turn the gun away from him.
“No.”
“No?”
Dad looks just a bit surprised. Surprised and unsettled. Like he’s suddenly realizing he didn’t quite get me right. Not such a fucking robot after all, huh?
“There’s no point in killing him,” I say wearily, repeating the flat words I gave Tragen before. This is feeling a hell of a lot like déjà-vu. “He’s not involved in any of this. Let’s just leave him here.”
I keep my eyes focused on everything but the cell phone peeking out of Josh’s pocket. This is my one shot to save Piper again. Convincing Dad to let him go. Then maybe he’ll call Logan, and they’ll figure this out and save her.
It’s a bitter pill to swallow, realizing that the only person in Piper’s life who’s useless to save her is me.
But I’d swallow far more bitter pills to save her.
Unlike Tragen, though, Dad is apparently not an idiot. He clearly sees right through my attempt to leave Josh behind. “Get him in the car,” he says. “It’ll be easier to deal with him later anyway.”
Back to obeying robotically, I lift Josh up and lie him down on the backseat. He stirs and groans but doesn’t wake.
Then I sit down in the front seat, and close my eyes.
Everything is unsettling. Confusing. Is he taking me to Piper? Am I going to see Piper again?
It feels like I’ve been submerged in a cold basin and I can’t get out of it. My world is turned upside down and I don’t even have a single familiar thing to cling to. I feel lost. So lost.
All my energy goes toward not repeating things, though my right index finger beats a frenetic rhythm on my thigh. Dad sits in the driver’s seat beside me, and I stare.
“Where’s Piper?”
There’s a million questions I should be asking, but the answer to that is the only one I need.
“Don’t worry your head about it.”
I clench my fists around the gun he’d handed me and has left me with, apparently as a constant reminder of my own weakness.
But now, when he eyes my hand tensing around it, I can sense just a tiny bit of nervousness in his eyes again.
Maybe he knows that if anything could make me surmount what he calls my weakness, it’s her.
“She’s being taken to my boss,” he answers at last.
“Devil?”
The beating rhythm of my finger turns to a gentler circle on the denim of my jeans. Maybe this isn’t so bad. I know Damien wants her dead, but if Logan’s there… all isn’t lost.
I hate that I have to depend on Logan instead of myself.
“Not Devil,” says Dad, sending a chill down my spine.
“Since when don’t you work for Devil?” I hiss.
“Since I got a better deal.”
I grit my teeth. This is Tragen all over. Only I can believe it about Tragen. I can’t believe it about Dad.
Tragen is really just a glorified soldier, and when he was offered a particularly juicy contract, he didn’t think twice. Loyalty doesn’t matter when you’re a soldier. Contracts do. Rules do. Fear does.
But my dad… he’s already richer than he needs to be. And he’s not motivated by acquiring more wealth. What he cares about is power.
He’s always bragged about his important position at Devil. He was so focused on me being a soldier because of the prestige. Nothing else mattered to him.
And now… he’s selling out? For what?
“I’ve always sided with the winners,” he says easily, pressing the gas pedal to the floor. “Devil isn’t going to win this war. And when the smoke clears, I want to be on the right side.”
“What’s the right side?” I ask slowly. “Who are the winners?”
“The winner,” he corrects me. “And that’s Miguel Coltello.”
My blood freezes in my veins. “Miguel Coltello,” I manage to stammer. “Coltello. Coltello.” Then I bite my lip so hard it bleeds to keep from repeating it again.
My dad shakes his head, looking disgusted at me, but he doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t need to, anyway. I know what he’s thinking.
Freak.
“He wants to kill Piper, doesn’t he?” I whisper. “She’s being delivered to the man who wants to kill her.”
He doesn’t bother to answer that either, just drives on in silence.
So she’s been taken by Coltello’s men again. Only this time, it’s not Tragen who’s driving me to free her, for his own reasons. My dad’s the one driving, and unless I kill him, she’s dead.
It’s impossible. Not because I give a shit about him. But because I’m locked in the mental prison he’s been building, brick by brick, iron bar by iron bar, since the day Mom walked out.
I sink back in my seat, listening helplessly as his words wash over me.
“Don’t think you ever hid a single thing from me, kid,” he says smugly. “I know just what the two of you have been up to since the day you first brought her home. My son, taking up with the poorest, ugliest girl in town. Pathetic. But I guess she’s the only one who’d date a freak like you, huh?”
I clench my fists, imagining myself smashing into that brick wall repetitively, only to find the bricks have crumbled, leaving behind them solid iron. An impenetrable wall surrounding me, crushing in on me.
“I didn’t try to stop you,” he shrugs. “I did tell Tragen, but he clearly didn’t give a shit. So why should I?” He lets out a dark laugh. “Crazy to think that all this time, Moretti’s last descendant was fucking my own son, and I never knew.”
“What’s it to you?” I growl. “What’s Moretti to you?”
“Nothing much.” Dad shrugs yet again. “Only I’m not a fucking idiot. Unlike you. There’s no such thing as a dead man as long as he’s still got followers and enemies. Devil was built on a foundation of destruction. That’s not the kind of foundation that lasts.”
I sink back even further in my seat, my entire body aching with my need for Piper.
“It was only a matter of time before the cracks in the foundation came back to haunt Devil,” continues Dad.
“Then the shit hit the fan with Angel. A rival gang, quickly rising in strength, representing a threat to the girl Damien’s got a stupid schoolgirl crush on.
What better distraction? Especially now that she’s gone.
People are saying he’s quit Devil for good.
Without him, Devil is nothing. I knew the Moretti followers and Miguel Coltello would pounce on that moment to start building their armies.
Renewing old alliances, forming new ones. ”