She turns to look at my father. “Your father and Hank made some kind of a deal for money. He agreed to pay Hank if Hank could keep the pregnancy quiet. That’s why Hank pulled me out of school and kept me locked up in the groundskeeper’s cottage. He wouldn’t let me leave. He turned off the phones and hid the car keys at night. He was furious, I guess because someone else had gotten me pregnant and he couldn’t play his games anymore. I think he wanted the baby to die right from the beginning. He barely let me eat and I got really sick. The two times that I tried to leave when I thought he was gone, he caught me and hit me until I couldn’t stand up. After the second time, he wouldn’t let me out of my room unless he was there. He kept me like that until I went in to labor, but it was too early.
“By the time we got to the hospital, they couldn’t stop it. She was too tiny to make it, too weak to breathe on her own. She died two days after she was born.” Kennedy bursts into sobs so deep, they sound like they’re coming from somewhere in her soul rather than her physical body. “Your dad came to visit me. He told me that it would ruin your life to know about her, that if I loved you I would never tell a soul. So I didn’t. I never told anyone. Because I loved you.”
Over Kennedy’s head, I glare at my father. I’ve never felt more hatred for another human being in my entire life. It burns in me like a hellish fire.
“How could you?” I growl.
“I did what I had to do for you, son. For your future. You wouldn’t be where you are today if you’d stayed with her. She was tarnished goods.”
Tarnished goods?
Ice. My heart pumps one sudden burst of icy cold blood through my veins before it bursts into flames. An inferno traveling through my body.
“What did you say?”
“You think I didn’t keep an eye on you? You think I didn’t know what you were doing? And who you were doing it with? I knew all about her. Her perverted father, too. I saw the way he looked at her, touched her when he thought no one was around. He couldn’t stay away from her. That’s how he found out about you. He was following her and saw you two in the woods. He was filth. I would never let something like that touch you, touch our family.”
I see red.
I release Kennedy and I lunge at my father, grabbing him by the throat and throwing him against the wall, intent on choking the despicable life out of him, intent on watching existence drain right out of him. “You knew? You knew what he was doing to her and you did nothing? You did nothing?”
My father makes a sputtering sound, his face turning bright red, fading into a dusky purple the longer I cut off his air supply.
“You make me sick! You are every bit as much a monster as he was!” I shake him, slamming him harder up against the wall as he claws at my hand, trying to loosen my grip. “I hate you! I hate that I share your blood!” I squeeze harder.
“Reese! Reese no!” Kennedy cries, pulling at my arm. “Let him go! He’s not worth it.”
I hear her words, but I don’t care. To me, taking his life is worth it. It’s a service. I’m doing the world a favor by ending him.
“Reese, if you hurt him, we won’t have a future. It’ll ruin your life. Please don’t hurt him. Please don’t let him take anything else from me.”
The pain in her voice penetrates the haze of my fury. I see the consciousness dwindling from my father’s eyes and I know how close I am to killing him.
But I think of Kennedy.
Always Kennedy.
I release him and back away.
My father slides bonelessly to the floor, gasping for air and holding his beet-red throat.
“I swear to all that’s holy, if you ever, ever come near her again, I’ll kill you. I’ll drop you where you stand and bury your body where no one will ever find it.” He neither moves nor speaks. “Do you hear me?” I shout, bending to scream into his ear.
My father raises hate-filled eyes to glare into mine. We stare at one another for a few seconds and I see the instant that my sincerity sinks in. A wary light flickers in his cold eyes and I know that he realizes that I’m as serious as I’ve ever been about anything. I just pray that he’s smart enough not to test me. Because he will lose. He will lose everything if he crosses me. I’d give my life for her, even if it means taking someone else’s.
Finally, he nods.
“Now get out,” I say, dragging him to his feet and throwing him toward the door. “Get out!”
I watch him open the door and stagger through it. It takes all my self-control not to kick his ass onto the walkway and make him bleed, but Kennedy asked me not to hurt him. So I won’t. Instead, I shut the door, shut the door on my father and that part of my life.
I turn to gather Kennedy into my arms and I let her cry. My chest feels heavy. Crushed, like I’ve suffered a great trauma to it. I hurt for her, for all the things she’s suffered, for all the time we’ve lost and for the baby that I never even got to see.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO - Kennedy
I never considered how much it might hurt me to have to tell Reese about Mary Elizabeth. Or how much it might hurt him to hear it. The look on his face when he finally turned to me after coming to blows with his horrible father was agonizing to see. However, it was just another reminder that, deep down, Reese is nothing like that man. Henslow Spencer might’ve steered Reese in one direction or another, but not even his evil manipulation could kill the wonderful soul that Reese was born with. It just delayed its appearance by a few years. In a way, that almost makes it sweeter. It certainly makes me thankful that I’m still around to see it. I wouldn’t have missed this Reese for the world.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE - Reese
Waking with Kennedy in my arms is the only solid, real thing that I feel when I open my eyes. I’ve always known that my father was a bastard, but I guess I never knew just how much of a bastard.
I feel overwhelmed by wrongs that need to be righted, by mistakes that need to be rectified, by apologies that need to be made. But how? How can I go back and fix things that happened so long ago?
Kennedy stirs against me. She’s my first priority. Making things right with her. Making things right for her.
I turn onto my side, pulling her into the curve of my body and pressing my lips to one bare shoulder. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” comes her hoarse reply. I can hear her smile, though. Gone are the tears. I just need to make sure they stay gone. After today…