Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 63139 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 316(@200wpm)___ 253(@250wpm)___ 210(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63139 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 316(@200wpm)___ 253(@250wpm)___ 210(@300wpm)
For a minute, I feel bad.
I always thought it was only me, that I was the only person who Dad affected, but I can see now I was wrong. He was affecting the other two in the same way. Both of them might have been preferred by him, but he was still slowly destroying them. I just learned today that it doesn’t matter what role you play in a toxic person’s life, they’re still destroying you all the same.
I wish I had seen this earlier.
Maybe, just maybe, I would have had a different relationship with my siblings.
Sarcasm and wit was all I had, because I thought everything they did was to suck up our father’s ass.
And it was, but it wasn’t for the reasons I thought.
The yelling becomes more frantic, my father arguing back, calling Brad a list of names that make my skin crawl. Brad is screaming about how he’s had enough, how he has ruined his life enough, how everything has just been so fucking hard for him and he can’t take it a second longer.
Then I hear a sound, a sound that makes me weak at the knees.
A gunshot.
Everything moves fast after that, everything except me.
The phone shuffles and crackles as it’s flipped around and I can’t see anything that’s going on. It’s clear I’m put onto a table, because all I can see is the ceiling.
It doesn’t matter. I stand in the clubhouse, phone in my hand, fixed to the ground, my legs unable to move.
All I can hear is Riggs barking at them. Why didn’t they check him for a gun? Why didn’t they fucking check him?
Someone picks up the phone, it’s Hugh again.
Through the chaos, it flashes past the room and all I can see is my father’s head, slumped forward.
Just a split second before it’s gone.
He was just in the chair, his body limp, not a single ounce of life left in him.
The phone flashes past again.
Remy is holding onto Brad who is just staring blankly, his face empty.
My hands start shaking as the reality of the situation dawns on me.
He just killed our father.
Bradley just killed our father.
I can’t move.
Why can’t I move?
The phone turns toward my brother, who looks into it with empty eyes.
“It’s over now,” he says to me, his voice low. “You’re free.”
Oh. God.
“Hey,” Hugh says, turning the phone onto him. “Hey, I gotta hang up now. I need to help. You don’t need to see this.”
“But ...”
“Gabby, you gotta go.”
“But ...”
“I’m sorry.”
He hangs up the phone, and I stare at the blank screen, numb. I keep looking at it, like maybe if I stare long enough, it’ll come back on and I’ll see this was all just a nightmare.
“He just killed my father,” I say numbly. To nobody. There is nobody around.
I stand in that room until the door opens and Eve rushes in, followed by Ramona and Poppy. They rush toward me, throwing their arms around me and hanging onto me tightly. Someone must have called them. Someone must have told them I needed them.
In my wildest nightmares, I never thought that would be how today ended.
I never ...
I close my eyes, letting the feeling of them hanging onto me take over my senses.
“It’s going to be okay,” Eve says.
My dad is dead.
He’s gone.
Is it over?
Is it really over?
20
“BRAD’S GONE,” RIGGS tells me the next day as we sit around the table at the clubhouse. “We helped him with what he needed, and he’s gone. You won’t see him again.”
I shake my head, confused. “Where has he gone?”
“I don’t know, but that’s the point.”
“What about ... What about Dad?”
“Nobody is goin’ to find him. As far as anyone will be concerned, he did a runner with Bradley.”
I swallow, feeling sick to my stomach.
Remy squeezes my hand.
“And ... Constance?”
“Bradley wrote a confession, he said where the body is and what happened. He mailed it to the cops. We sit tight, we wait. It’ll be enough to clear you. It’ll look like the two of them just disappeared.”
“I don’t ... What if they find out?” I whisper. “What if they find out we took Dad, and they figure out what happened?”
“They won’t,” Remy says, his voice clear and strong. “I promise you, they won’t.”
I’ve been in a state of shock since everything went down—not a single second has passed by that I have been able to think about anything else. What happened there yesterday, changed everything. It changed the way I saw things. Becky knows what happened, but Riggs assures me she won’t say a word.
She left Magnus and has gone to be with our grandparents for a while.
They haven’t spoken to my father in a very long time, but they’re good people.
She is going to start again.
“What if Becky can’t live with the guilt?” I whisper. “What if she decides to blab like she did about Constance?”