Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 122074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Why would he—what son wanted their mother’s true reputation to come out? I was shaking my head. “That makes no sense.”
“I have my reasons.”
“Why now, though? Why—” I couldn’t wrap my head around all of this. My father. My mother. His mother. The lies.
The brainwashing.
My father had brainwashed me for how long?
“I’m telling you this because I need your help with something.”
“With what?” I didn’t want to hear any more. I didn’t want to get pulled even more into this than I was, whatever this was.
I started to push back my chair. My hands were beginning to tremble.
“I need your father to do something for me.”
“What?”
“I need a rat on the street, and that deal was struck between your father and my grandfather. I’ve always loathed your father. I’ve never made that a secret, so now when I need something from him, I don’t believe he will deliver. If he did, I couldn’t believe it was the true information. This is too important. He could easily con me, what he does best. There are other avenues I could go down, but . . . I’m trying a different way, a less-torture type of way. You.”
“Stop.” I wanted nothing to do with this. With him. Not with what he’d just told me.
I shoved my chair back the rest of the way and crossed for the door. I reached for it, my hand touching it, and then I was pulled backward. “No!”
“I am telling you the truth. Truth for truth. I hated my mother. I hated what was said about her. I was forced to swallow those lies, while your mother was taken from you. I’m giving her back to you. All cards are on the table right now, and I need your help.” He turned me, in my space. His hands were surprisingly gentle as they touched my arms. He moved me so I was leaning against the wall next to the door. His head was angled down, peering at me.
I looked beyond him, to the gazebo, to the vines. To the stars.
“She’d read me books about the stars. The night sky.”
I barely registered those words, sounding broken. They came from me.
Ashton’s eyes flared briefly, in pain, but he schooled them again. “There’s only one person who your father cares about other than himself. Only one other person who might be able to get him to do something.”
I focused on the stars above. Pretending I was among them. Floating free. Flying.
He moved in even more, but I didn’t mind. I liked the warmth. It made me feel closer to the stars for some reason.
“You’re his daughter. If there’s anyone he might do something for, it’s you.”
My father. He took my mom away from me. He took Easter Lanes away from me.
My father was the reason I was alive, but he was also the reason this world was so hard.
“What do you need me to ask him to do?”
I wanted to keep looking at the stars.
For the first time, there was no cruelty shining back at me. He was looking at me like I was a real person. Funny how that wasn’t his default setting.
“I need you to ask him to find out who killed Justin Worthing and Kelly. Too many doors are closed to me, so I need a rat on the street. Your father is the best kind of rat there is, and if you ask, he’ll do it. For you. You’re the only one.”
Kelly. Justin. Another lump was back in my throat.
“I was friends with her too,” I murmured.
“I know. It’s the reason your dad won’t question why you’re the one asking him to find out.”
“Then what? If he finds out?” This was his less torturous way?
“I’ll give you Easter Lanes. You won’t owe my family anything after that.”
“What if Shorty doesn’t find out?”
His nostrils flared, and he gave me a hard look. “Make sure he does.”
I nodded, closing up inside, walling myself to everyone and everything because it was all too painful, but I needed one more thing. “How do I know you’ll actually give me Easter Lanes?”
“I will. I don’t break my word.”
I stared at him, holding his gaze, because of all his reputations, I hadn’t heard one where he went back on his word.
Also, I had no other option.
I gave a small nod. “I’ll get him to find out, but I don’t just want Easter Lanes.”
His eyebrows pinched together, just slightly. “What else?”
My darkness. It was in me. Sometimes it made me uncomfortable. Tonight, I was just fine with it. I let some of it out. “I want my father gone, as far away from me as possible, and I don’t care how you do it.”
He never blinked. “Done.”
Good. We had a deal. It was a cruel arrangement in a way.
They brought the food out once we sat back down, and he’d been right. I never ate it.