Chapter Twenty-Four #2
“It is, though. You’ve just been operating with limited information and making decisions based on the shitty intel we’ve given you. It’s not your fault for getting it wrong half the time.”
I shook my head. “It’s not just that. It’s not just us. I’ve been in a constant state of hyperawareness this whole time, feeling like I was a heartbeat away from danger, and I need to give my body a break from the stress.”
He pulled back a little more, smirking down at me. “Do you?”
“What? Yes, of course I do.”
His smirk sharpened. “I’ve been watching you throughout all this.
Tell yourself whatever you want, but you’re the one who wanted in.
You’re the one who asked to help, to be part of getting revenge on the Jokers.
” He leaned in again, lips brushing my ear, voice dangerously low.
“And you loved every fucking second of it. So don’t act like this isn’t the most alive you’ve felt since you stopped flying. ”
I went still beneath him. God-fucking-damn it.
Now that was a hard truth I didn’t want to hear.
As stressed out as I’d been, as scared, as worried about Gran and myself and the entire town of Kearny, I’d felt like…
like my old self. Like the Krista who had hung half out of an open bay door, a thousand feet off the ground, laughing into the rushing wind as we flew above the battlefield.
But did I want to be her? Was I so jaded that I was willing to give up what little light I’d clung to?
Descend with Jakob into the darkness and revel in the seedy underbelly of society?
I didn’t know. He was too close. I was too close, to him, to all of it, and this revelation only reinforced the fact that I needed to back off.
“If you two are done fornicating in my driveway, get your asses inside!” Liam called from behind us.
I glanced around Jakob to see him standing by the front door, arms crossed over his wide chest, his face a thundercloud.
I looked up at his son. “Please tell me you filled him in on the way here.”
Jakob nodded and took a step back, ignoring his looming father, eyes locked on me. “This isn’t over between us.”
“I’m not saying it’s over. I’m saying I need a couple of days.”
His jaw flexed. Without another word, he turned on his heel and strode inside.
I got my stuff out of the car and followed after him a few minutes later. Liam blocked the doorway. Jakob was nowhere to be seen.
“Where’d he go?” I asked.
Liam met my eyes with the same unflinching focus as his son. “Probably down in the basement, kicking the shit out of a punching bag.”
“Good. You and I need to talk.”
He held out his hand. From the look on his face, he was as mad at me as I was at him. “Give me the thumb drive first.”
I fished it out of my handbag and passed it over.
He turned back inside the house and headed toward his office. I followed him, pausing to check in on Gran and Jennifer playing cards in the living room.
“How’s it going?” I asked.
Jennifer snorted. “She’s kicking my ass.”
I met Gran’s eyes over her head and grinned. “I told you she was a shark.”
Gran smiled back. “You want to join us?”
I shook my head. “Iliza invited us to stay with her and Fred for a few days.”
Gran’s expression lit up. “Really?”
I nodded. “Want to pack your things? I want to head out soon so we get there in time for dinner.”
“As soon as we finish this hand,” Gran said.
Jennifer let out a pained groan and laid her next card. From the hungry gleam in Gran’s eyes, she was about to finish her off.
Liam was at his desk when I walked into his office.
He sat behind a computer screen with a pair of glasses perched on his nose.
The sight did the trick of reminding me that he was human after all, aging and as fallible as the rest of us.
Gran and Jennifer were just in the other room, Jakob downstairs only a yell away.
I had nothing to fear from Liam. The only way he could hurt me was with words, and I knew from experience that people only hurt you if you let them.
The good thing was that I didn’t care enough about his opinion to be bothered by what he thought of me, and as I focused on that thought, I readied myself to go to war with him.
“There,” he said, closing his laptop. He set his glasses aside and turned to me. “I sent the pictures to Mike. He’ll get them to the Jokers. They should be out of Magnolia in a few hours.”
“Good. Thank you,” I said. No harm in being polite.
“What you did—” Liam started.
I cut him off. “Nope.”
He frowned. “Excuse me?”
“Nope,” I repeated. “You don’t get to sit there and pass judgment on me for what I did. Not after all the shit you put me and Jakob and my gran and your wife and God knows how many other people through.”
“Now, you listen to me,” he said, brow creasing in anger.
“No,” I told him, voice even but firm. And then I said, just as calmly, “You’re going to lose your son.”
He blinked. I’d caught him off guard. Good.
“I don’t speak to my parents,” I said. “They’re terrible human beings, and I’m much better off without them in my life. Jakob is about a heartbeat away from feeling the same about you. I should know. I recognize the warning signs.”
“My relationship with my son is none of your business,” Liam ground out.
I shrugged, beyond caring anymore. Not even his angry tone could get a rise out of me. I’d been through too much, and I was going to say what I needed to say and then get the hell out of here.
“It might not be any of my business, but I’m making it my business because no one else will say this to you, and you need to hear it.
Your relationship with your son is fifty shades of fucked up.
Jakob didn’t bring me here to meet the family.
He didn’t want to show his girlfriend off and see if his father approved because he doesn’t give a shit about whether you do.
He brought me here because he knew you were manipulating him, and he wanted to manipulate you right back by playing into your hand.
He didn’t come here to spend time with you; he came here to spy on you.
Let that sink in. And while you’re at it, I think you should know that he told me the only reason he has anything to do with you at all is because he wants to see the next manipulation coming. ”
Liam rose to his feet and braced his knuckles on the desk.
“How dare you try to tell me about my own son like I don’t know the first thing about him?
Who the fuck do you think you are?” he asked, voice nothing but a growl.
His eyes raked over me dismissively. “You just met him. This time next month, he’ll be fucking someone else. ”
I bit back the sharp response that rose to my tongue, forcing myself to stay calm.
“Maybe,” I said. “But I’ve been around Jakob enough to see both sides of him.
I see the public face he wears, but I’ve also seen him relax around the people he trusts.
He laughs. He cracks jokes. Sometimes he even stops scowling.
” I braced my knuckles on the other side of Liam’s desk and leaned in, refusing to be intimidated.
“Tell me, when’s the last time your son smiled at you, Liam? ”
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
I doubted anyone but family had spoken to him like this in recent memory, and he didn’t know how to deal.
Jennifer was right; the power had gone to his head.
People did what he said without question, and when someone swerved right when he told them to swerve left, he couldn’t just roll with the punch and adapt.
The sadistic side of me howled in glee to see that my hits were landing.
That I was getting through to him. But more than that, it was happy to see I was hurting him like he had hurt me.
“It’s not too late,” I said. “But it will be soon. You have to let this thing with Daniel go.”
At Daniel’s name, Liam’s expression turned ugly.
“Trust me, I get it,” I told him. Lord, did I get it.
“I’ve spoken to Daniel less than five times, and each and every one of them he’s said something or done something that made me want to punch him in the mouth hole.
I’ve seen the way he treats your son, and I don’t like it.
I imagine you’ve seen enough by now to warrant hating the smarmy bastard.
But he’s not your problem; he’s your son’s and the Kings’.
Let them handle it. No one will thank you for meddling but especially not Jakob.
Have you ever stopped to think that every time you get involved, you make him look weak? ”
Liam blinked.
I pressed on. “Like he can’t handle his problems without Daddy’s help.”
“That’s not what I’m doing,” Liam said, but from his tone, I could tell that he no longer bought his own bullshit.
“That’s exactly what you’re doing,” I countered. “And if you continue down this path, if you keep pushing Jakob into a role he doesn’t want, you will lose him.”
Liam stared at me like he was trying to set me on fire with his eyes. “Anything else?” he growled.
I’d said everything I needed to say, but now that I’d managed to get through it all without snapping, there was still one thing left that I wanted to say.
“Yeah, fuck you for ordering your goons to trash my apartment.”
He reared back like I’d hit him.
I kept going. “Fuck you for endangering innocent people like my grandmother. And fuck you for not even having the decency to apologize for any of it.”
He straightened to his impressive height, hands flexing at his sides like they wanted to curl into fists. “Get the hell out of my house.”
“Already three steps ahead of you, asshole,” I said, turning on my heel. I paused by the door. “Oh, and before I leave, I’m going to need you to write me a check for ten thousand dollars.”
He took a step back, incredulous. “You what?”