Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Josie
Something wet squishes under my shoe as I make my way into the alley. Ezra stands at the end, beneath a light beside the dumpster. When I get within fifteen feet of him, I come to a halt and shake my head.
“Nah, I can smell that hot trash juice from here. I’m not putting either of us through this,” I say. “Let’s go chat across the street. There’s a playground.”
He pulls his hands from his pockets and jogs toward me. “Thank fuck. I was merely trying to be polite and meet at the designated spot, but I couldn’t take many more whiffs of that. Atrocious doesn’t begin to cover it.”
We cross a narrow street and slide onto a bench near the swing set. Not wanting to drag this out, I get to the point. “You can’t elope with Kindra.”
His brow creases, and he slips his glasses down his nose, looking at me over the top of the frames. “How could you possibly know about that?”
That is actually a very good question that I didn’t consider until it was entirely too late.
“That isn’t important,” I say, pushing on in the face of defeat. “What’s important is that you stay with your siblings and help them make the decision that final day. When you finally meet your father—”
His face relaxes. “How long have you known?”
“Known?”
“How long have you known that King is my father?”
I deflate in front of him. My lips refuse to work, so he graciously steps in.
“I’ll go first,” he says. “When we were at the Grand Canyon and he said something my father once said, that’s when I knew.
I hadn’t even suspected before that moment, but it was like unlocking a door in my brain.
The words he’d said had always been in my head, but I couldn’t remember his face or his voice.
When he spoke to me on that ledge, it all came back to me. ”
I blow out a breath, sending a tendril of red hair shooting off my forehead. “Last night. I found the box of letters. I read yours. I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay, really. It was eating me up inside to harbor this alone.”
“You haven’t told Kindra?”
“I wanted to be sure. A feeling wasn’t enough, but now that you’ve confirmed it, I’ll tell her everything the moment I’m back in our quarters. I don’t keep secrets from her.”
“I’m glad to hear that, but can we get back to the elopement bit?”
He leans forward, placing his elbows on his knees. “I’d already decided to call it off. I wrote that letter before I knew who my father was.”
“And now that you know?”
“I want to give him an opportunity to explain himself. If what he has to say makes any sense at all, I’m reasonable enough to forgive him.
” His hands clench, and he looks up at the black sky.
“I want to forgive him. I was angry with the man who abandoned me, but I’m having a hard time being angry with King. He’s been there for us . . .”
“Like a father?”
He utters a single laugh. “Yeah.”
“I won’t say that his reasoning is sound, but I will say that, in many ways, he was only doing what he thought was best at the time. But you’ll have to hear it from him.”
Ezra rises from the bench and looks across the street at the club. “Then let’s go. I’m eager to hear him out as quickly as possible. You and Kindra have a shared affliction in IBS. We’ll say you’re unwell, and then we’ll take a limo back to the RVs so that we can talk next steps.”
His escape plan is impressive, and I love his gusto, but there is no way in hell I’m telling King that I blabbed his big secret.
Then again, I don’t have to.
“Okay, I’ll agree, but only if you tell him that you figured it out yourself. Don’t tell him I confirmed a damn thing.” Even though that was my plan all along . . . “And you have to pull Kindra aside and catch her up to speed first. I don’t want her blindsided.”
“Wouldn’t dream of blindsiding that one. Have you seen her when she’s pissed?”
“Not yet.”
“Count yourself lucky.” He glances at the ground and shakes his head, then looks at me again. “Just follow her lead. When she gets sick, you give it a moment and follow suit.”
I stand from the bench and give him a salute, and we start back across the street. We part ways in the stairwell. He lingers behind, and I head up to the lounge to send Kindra down. Things are about to get messy.
King strokes lazy circles on my shoulder. He places his other hand on my knee to stop my foot from jackhammering against the floor. Gary sits on his other side, telling King about his favorite basketball team and why they’re his favorite. I’m not sure why King humors the poor guy, but it’s sweet.
I wish I could focus on anything in this room.
My mind keeps jumping to how long Ezra and Kindra have been in the stairwell.
There’s every chance she’s unwilling to go along with any of this.
Which means there’s every chance this plane is going down, and I’m the one in the cockpit.
Everyone knows the pilot is the most likely to die.
The doorway swings open.
Ezra enters alone.
Mayday! Mayday!
My stomach cramps up, and now I won’t even have to fake it. I really might shit myself. If Kindra couldn’t even bring herself to come back inside, her reaction must have been pretty fucking terrible.
“Kindra’s having a touch of tummy trouble, I’m afraid,” he says as he approaches the sitting area. “We’ll need to head back.”
“We might as well head home together,” Blayne says, and nobody groans, but I can tell everyone wants to.
Meanwhile, I just want to ram my fist into his throat.
He gets to his feet. “We may not have an event tomorrow, but we can still do with a little more rest. Like Eve said.”
His brown-nosing behavior finally clicks in my head for what it is. And here I thought he was unaffected. Meanwhile, he’s shaking in his fucking boots. That’s why he’s being such a horrid little kiss-ass. He’s hoping some of us might be convinced to back him if he can charm us.
Hate to break it to you, dude, but it’s having the opposite effect.
“Nah, I’m good here for a while longer,” Eve says, clearly going against whatever he says, just to annoy him. God, I love her. “Sit down, pretty boy. Let the girl go shit herself in private.”
I take that cue and raise a finger. “I might need to catch that limo back too.”
“Is your IBS flaring as well?” King raises an eyebrow.
“Thanks for announcing it.” I rise and pull my purse over my shoulder.
We leave the lounge and make our way down the stairs. With each step I take, I only hope Ezra makes good on his promise to tell King he figured it out without my help.
“Blast! Slow down. The toilet isn’t in the damn limo. You were closer to a bathroom back there, by the way.”
“I just want to hurry up and catch a ride with Ezra and Kindra before they leave.”
We turn at the side of the building. The limo sits on the curb, the lights on and the engine idling.
“You mean the limo that appears to be waiting for us?” King says.
“Just get in,” I mutter.
I’m glad to see that Kindra looks completely unbothered as King and I slide into the back seat. Unfortunately, looking so unbothered sends the alarm bells ringing in King’s head.
“All right, out with it,” King says. “None of you is squirming nearly enough for a bowel emergency, so let’s have it. What are you lot scheming about?”
“Are you really Daddy Carter?” Kindra asks.
King’s head turns toward me, but Ezra saves the day and explains how he put things together without any assistance from me. He then tells King that he’s willing to hear him out, and King launches into his story again. He’s a bit more concise this time.
He offers to show Ezra the video interview with his mother, but Ezra declines, saying that he trusts King’s word. Kindra stays silent.
I reach out and touch my fingertips to her knee. “Hey, are you okay?”
She takes a deep breath and blows it out through her nose, but when she speaks, she doesn’t address me. She addresses King. “I can’t grasp how you neglected them for so long. Bennett and his mother suffered. You did nothing.”
Ezra looks at her and strokes her hair.
“We couldn’t interfere with the way the children were raised. It was part of the study,” King says. “The women agreed to our terms, and we refused to deviate from them. If it sounds hollow and cold, that’s because it was. I was a hollow and cold man.”
“But you aren’t hollow and cold now,” Ezra says. “You’re the opposite of those things.”
“Filled and warm?” My lip curls.
“Okay, maybe not the best words,” Ezra says, “but you get my point. I’m mature enough and stable enough to admit that you didn’t make the right choices every time, but you’ve been making the right choices, consistently, for years now. That has to count for something. Otherwise, what are we doing?”
King holds out his hands, palms up. “ I can’t do anything to take back any harm I may have caused.
I can’t even say I would do much of it differently.
Look at what it’s created. Even if my children strike me down at the end of this, it was worth it to know this brought everyone together.
If my death facilitates that, so be it.”
“I don’t want it to come to that,” Ezra says. He pulls off his glasses and wipes the lenses. “Something inside tells me that I should, but I don’t want to feed that emotion anymore.”
Kindra reaches over and places her hand on Ezra’s, her face softening. She looks at King. “If he can find it in his heart to give you a chance, I’ll support him. But if you fuck up, I’ll gut you myself.”
“Message received,” King says. “Don’t think I don’t realize how undeserving I am of this chance.”
“Let’s not celebrate yet,” I say. “I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but it’s an all-or-nothing game here. If we can’t get the other siblings on board, this is a moot point.”
“Frankie won’t be a problem,” Kindra says. “She’s said the only way she wouldn’t kill her father was if her father were King or Jim. We should bring her and Maverick into the limo.”
“I’ll go fetch them,” King says with a sigh. “I can shut Jim up before he has a chance to ask why we’re still in the parking lot when you two were supposed to be seconds away from making all over the floor like unruly puppies.”
With a grumble, he climbs out of the limo and disappears around the side of the club.
An uncomfortable quiet fills the small space while we wait for him to return. I imagine Ezra and Kindra feel conflicted, much as I did—and kind of still do. It’s difficult because I love the person he is so much that I seek ways to forgive the person he was. But does he deserve that?
I don’t know.
He eventually returns with Frankie and Maverick. He also informs us that Jim says the event is back on. The nightclub bouncer discovered a group of men trying to roofie a group of young women, so the men have been secured in the cellar for our games tomorrow.
With that out of the way, Kindra gives them the news about King’s identity, and Frankie takes it about how Kindra did. She has her questions, and King gives her answers. By the end of their talk, she’s come around enough to help me breathe a little easier.
“If you think about the grand scheme of things, being a deadbeat dad isn’t as bad as being a pedophile or a rapist, but it’s still such a shitty thing to do.
” Frankie shrugs and looks at King, her eyebrows pulling together.
“I want to forgive you. It’s just going to take some time.
But I want to get to the forgiveness part eventually, so we have to help Bennett and Aven come around too. ”
“That’s all I want, even though I don’t deserve it.” King closes his eyes. “There’s just one more thing you’ll need to get past.”
He explains about the memory wipes, and while Ezra and Frankie don’t appreciate having had their memories scrubbed, they understand why it was necessary.
I point at Frankie. “So we’ve convinced lawful good.” I point at Ezra. “We’ve convinced true neutral. How the fuck do we convince a chaotic evil and a neutral evil?”
We all look at each other, but no one seems to have an answer. There are only a few days left to convince Aven and Bennett, and I have a sinking feeling that we’re fighting a losing battle. Those two are hellbent on killing their father, and no one can stand in their way.
King finally tells the limo driver to head out, and we make the drive back to the lot in silence. Tomorrow, we have an event to play in before we drive to our final stop on this trip. Then it’s full steam ahead to the Carter family reunion, come what may.