Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 86702 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86702 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
“You don’t have to tell me what my father was like. I know as well as anyone. We talked about it after he hit Cohen, after I stepped in. You knew what I planned on doing.” There’s no heat in his tone, but he watches me carefully. “Your father planned the coup before I had a chance to.”
“Yes.” It’s tempting to pick up the coffee mug, to keep something in my hands, but I’ve trained myself too well to fidget. “I knew he was going after your father and I didn’t tell you.” This part’s harder. Harder to say, harder still to believe. “I thought if we could get Bauer out of the way, we could undermine my father as well. He wasn’t as bad as Bauer, but he wasn’t a saint, either.”
“Why not come to me with that plan? You know how I felt about my father. You knew there was only one endgame for me, and it resulted in my father six feet under.”
Yeah, I knew that. It’s why I did what I did. I take a slow breath, shoving down the past. “That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you. He was your father, Abel. No matter how fucked your relationship, how much you hated him at the end, I couldn’t let you bear the burden of his death.”
His face goes slack with shock for half a second before he recovers. “You’re shitting me. Are you seriously trying to tell me that you did this so I wouldn’t have to kill Bauer myself?”
I’ve gone this far. I might as well finish it. I never considered myself naïve, but it’s impossible to paint me as anything else for believing things would work out that night. That it would end in anything other than disaster. “You’re able to push through a whole hell of a lot when you’re furious, but cold-blooded murder? That was a stretch, let alone planning patricide.”
“I don’t blink at murder any longer,” he says softly.
Maybe not, but if there’s one thing I don’t regret, it’s that he wasn’t the one who ended his father’s life. I spared him that much, at least. It doesn’t make up for the rest, but it’s a small consolation. “I didn’t realize my father had brought in the Mystics and the Amazons. Not until I smelled the smoke.”
I’d been down the street, on my way to tell Abel that he was finally free of his father. I still remember the way my stomach dropped out at the sight of the flames against the night sky. I’d stood there for hours as firefighters showed up to ensure the flames didn’t jump to nearby buildings, as the neighborhood came outside to bear silent witness, as the flames finally burned away to nothing, leaving only ash and death in their wake.
My stomach churns at the memory. I’d thought Abel was in that fire. That, in implementing the action that would set us free, I’d inadvertently caused the death of my best friend. Of the man I loved. Realizing that he survived, that he got all his brothers out… It only made that feeling worse.
Because I knew what he’d believe. That I was behind all of it. That I’d committed a betrayal there was no coming back from.
That everyone would believe it.
I clear my throat. “By the time they realized you and your brothers weren’t among the bodies in the house, you were gone. I knew looking for you was an invitation for them to finish what they started, so I disrupted the hunts as best I could.” It wasn’t enough. Not even close. Every time one of the people my father sent returned a failure, I breathed a sigh of relief.
Until I was able to kill my father and end the hunts once and for all.
Unlike Abel, I have no problem making the cold, unforgivable decision when it means the greater good.
Abel studies me over the rim of his coffee cup. “If that’s the truth, why didn’t you come after me? The transfer of power wouldn’t have been easy, even if Old Town got behind him. The two of us could have done what we’d planned.”
I swallow hard. “What would you have done if I’d shown up in the first year? In the second? Third?”
“Put a bullet between your eyes.” He says it without blinking.
“That’s why I didn’t. There’s a chance that if I found you, my father would finish what he started. But more than that, I couldn’t do it to the faction.” I laugh bitterly. “Forty innocent people died, Abel. I couldn’t let it be for nothing. I couldn’t let him rule for years and do even more damage to the people in Raider faction.”
He’s still watching me with that unreadable expression on his face. “You let your father live for three years past that night.”