by Elyse, Drew
“What are you doing?”
“Figuring out where I can find that asshole.”
“What?”
There it was. Jager. He’d get me an address. I was about to send the call through when Gwen was there, hand wrapped around mine and the phone.
“Parker, what are you doing?”
“Are you going to tell me where they live?”
“Why do you need to know that?”
That was a no.
“Then the Disciples can get me the info.”
I tried to move the phone out of her grasp, but she didn’t let up. I wasn’t about to get physical with her. She’d let go in time.
“Why do you need to know where they live?”
She knew damn well why. It was why she was so anxious, why her forehead was creased, why her lips were pulled down.
“No one does that shit to you. He thinks he can, I’m going to show him otherwise.”
“How?” she pushed, even though we both knew she didn’t want the answer.
It was time to give it to her, though. Time for her to understand what kind of man she got into bed with every night.
“By force.”
She released me, backing up a step. “What?”
Her beautiful face had gone pale.
“You can’t,” she whispered.
“I can,” I stated. She went from pale to stricken hearing how firm that was.
“You can’t just go there and attack him! You aren’t that kind of person,” she argued, trying to convince herself.
“Aren’t I?”
“Parker, I’m being serious. I realize you’re upset, but to actually hunt him down and hurt him…” She shook her head.
“Nothing I haven’t done before.”
She took another step back, whispering, “What are you talking about?”
She was fucking scared of me. I knew the look. I’d seen it before.
Her beautiful face mixed with theirs, and I blinked, clearing that away.
I had always known that this was where we’d end up eventually. We were always living on borrowed time, and it’d be running out for days.
She’d been pushing, trying to carve into my past thinking all she’d reveal was my wounded soul, but she had no clue what was actually hiding in there. Now, she’d learn the truth.
“I’m talking about the shit that you wouldn’t let stay buried the way it should.”
She shook her head fast, almost violently.
“Denial won’t help,” I warned. “I’ve tried that for fucking years. It won’t change a goddamn thing. It won’t change the fact that for weeks you’ve been getting into the bed of a man that has blood on his hands.”
“B-blood?”
I could still see it, still remember scrubbing it off my arms in a dirty gas station bathroom. Still remember the way the warmth went cold as it stayed on my skin. My stomach churned like I might get sick all over again at the memories of it.
This was it. There was no going back now, no going back to pretending like all was well. Time to fucking end this and let her go.
“Blood, Gwen. I’ve beaten the shit out of men who did nothing to me, for no reason other than I got fucking paid to. I’ve lured someone off the street and delivered them to people that did God knows what to them, but it wasn’t fucking good. I’ve taken a knife to a man in his own fucking house—”
“Stop it,” she whispered.
“No. You can’t bury your head in the sand and pretend you aren’t hearing this. You’ve been trying to get this shit out of me for weeks” —I threw my arms out— “here it is.”
“Please stop.” Her voice broke.
And then she wasn’t Gwen at all anymore.
“Please stop.”
She wasn’t supposed to be here. They told me no one else would be here.
“Please,” she sobbed.
My hand loosened, the knife falling from my grip.
“Please don’t kill him.”
She was young. Younger than me.
I looked down, seeing the blood on my arms above the gloves they’d given me. His blood. Her dad.
What would happen to her? Would she end up like I did, living in fucking alleys, picking half-eaten food out of dumpsters? Fending off monsters who wanted to do more than just beat her because she was an easy target? Would she make it?
“Parker,” Gwen called, her voice still trembling.
Gwen, my beauty, scared just like that girl had been. Scared of me, of what I was capable of.
She’d known too much horror with what happened to her that day, with the shit that followed, but she was innocent. None of it had been on her.
Not like me.
“I have to go.”
She blinked twice. “What?”
I didn’t repeat it. I couldn’t.
I took one more moment to just look at her, to see all that beauty that ran so deep. One last memory of the best weeks of my life. The best ones I’d ever have.
Then I went to the door.
Thaddeus followed me. I could hear the quiet jingle of his name tag jostling around as he moved quick to keep up with my strides. Gwen would take care of him. She’d give him a home he deserved.
“Parker,” Gwen called again, confused, worried. I could hear her moving to follow, too.
I couldn’t look at either of them. Not again.
I just had to go.
All but running out of the building to my car, I drove off. I had what I needed, a bag in the trunk ready in case someday this life couldn’t be mine anymore. In case every it all turned out to be a pipe dream.
I couldn’t stay, not when it meant being so close to Gwen and knowing I couldn’t have her. Knowing it wasn’t right to try to have her as mine.
So it was time to let it all go.
But first, I had to call on an old friend one last time.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Gwen
He left.
He just… left.
The silence that remained in his wake did nothing to drown out the things he’d said about himself as they repeated again and again in my head.
It won’t change the fact that for weeks you’ve been getting into the bed of a man that has blood on his hands.
Thaddeus was sitting in front of the door, waiting, like he thought Park might turn around and come back through. He knew something was wrong. He didn’t usually follow either of us as we left.
Maybe I should have followed him. Run after him. Stopped him before he could go.
How could Park—my Park—do those things?
I’ve beaten the shit out of men who did nothing to me, for no reason other than I got fucking paid to.
Who would have paid him to hurt people?
I’ve lured someone off the street and delivered them to people that did God knows what to them.
He’d tried to mask it behind anger, but he’d been wracked with shame. He wasn’t proud of his past, he wasn’t excusing any of it. No, he hated himself for having done those things.
There were times I got the sense Park had nothing before he got the spot at Sailor’s Grave, times when I was sure that nothing was truly nothing.
Maybe it had all been about survival.
Or maybe he’s right and you don’t know him at all.
I shut out that voice in my head. I’d seen the agony he felt as he confessed those things. I’d seen the way it choked him. Whatever faults he had, whatever things he’d done that couldn’t be excused, he wasn’t a bad person at his core. No matter what he thought.
I looked at the door, then down to Thad in front of it, still waiting. Maybe not for Park to return, maybe it was for me to go after him.
He needed time. I’d give him that.
“He’ll be back.” I tried to sound sure.
Somehow, Thad didn’t look any more convinced than I felt.
I waited up all night.
Thaddeus eventually gave up on the door and came to sit at my side, the both o
f us perking up if we heard any noise out in the hall.
It was never Park.
We waited.
The sun came up, and nothing.
Eventually, in the early morning, I fell asleep.
When I woke, it was the middle of the afternoon.
Park never showed.
I paced, the phone to my ear.
Through the line, Jess’s voice sounded strained as I knew mine was.
“No one’s seen him. I talked to everyone. I’ve called him, they all have. Then I started taking phones and calling him from their numbers myself.”
It’d been three days since Park walked out. He hadn’t come home. I’d called out of work to be there during the day in case he did, Caroline more than happy to handle anything I couldn’t take care of from home. She was as freaked as I was, probably because of how freaked I was.
I hadn’t wanted to make Park’s business anyone else’s, but when Jess called because he was late for the first appointment, there hadn’t been much of a way to avoid it. I had no idea where he was, how to reach him, when—or, if I let myself even think it, if—he was coming back.
She’d made my panic even worse when she told me he’d never done this before. Never as in never since he started working there since she’d already been on the staff back then. He’d canceled just a few times because he was sick. Never once had he not called.
Now, he wasn’t only not calling in, he wasn’t picking up when the people that cared about him called him.
“You’re sure Sketch doesn’t know anything?” I pressed, because Jess was all I had. If he didn’t come home on his own or answer his phone, I was out of options.
“As sure as I can be. He seemed legitimately worried. Tried to call him right then. I tried convincing him to have Jager track him down because that’s what he does, but he wouldn’t go for it. He wouldn’t invade Park’s privacy like that, at least not yet. Then I tried calling Ember myself and getting her to convince Jager to do it, but he wouldn’t. He said the same macho-man bull.”
I was tempted to ask for Jager’s information myself, but I’d been introduced to him at the barbecue weeks ago. He was the most intimidating man I’d ever met. The only things that softened him somewhat were Ember and their daughter, both of whom he obviously loved even if that fearsome glower never fully left his face. If Ember couldn’t get him to do it, there wasn’t a chance I would be able to. I couldn’t say I understood how someone as social and outgoing as Ember and the silent, scary Jager worked, but they did.
Though I could hardly talk, I’d fallen in love with Park who wasn’t so big on facial expressions himself.
That was a realization that had hit me hard while I waited and waited, hoping Park would come back through our apartment door. It was also something that, aside from accepting it, I was touching. Until I had him back, until we got through this, I wasn’t unpacking that information at all.
One thing at a time.
“You talked to Carson?”
I was grasping at straws, I knew it. Park was a grown man. He could go wherever he wanted to, check into a hotel, and hunker down for however long he pleased.
“He said he hasn’t seen him.”
Something about that made me pause.
I’ve been around long enough to learn to say what I mean and mean what I say.
Carson said that, all those weeks ago when he laid it out about how I needed to push.
“That’s what he said?” I demanded.
“What?”
“Carson. He said he hadn’t seen him. That’s exactly what he said,” I pressed.
“Yeah, he hasn’t seen him,” Jess, clearly not following, replied.
“I need his address.”
I pulled up to the house. It was at the far edge of Hoffman. All the houses out here were spread out a little more. They all had to be sitting on at least full acre lots, most probably more than that. They were also surrounded by large, old trees.
Another day, I might have taken that all in. Right then, it was all insignificant.
Pounding on the door, I almost winced at the racket I was making. If Jean, the sweet woman that she was, answered, I’d probably feel like an asshole.
Oh well.
It was Jean that answered though.
“So,” Carson said as a greeting, “you pushed.”
It was all the confirmation I needed.
“Where is he?”
He crossed his arms over his chest and considered me. “How’d you figure me out?”
I didn’t want to play games, but I answered, “You say what you mean and mean what you say. You told Jess you hadn’t seen him. And you haven’t. But you have heard from him.”
He nodded, looking impressed. “Jess is spittin’ mad. Called me not long after she gave you my address. Finally connected for her. I was surprised. That girl’s known me a long time. If anyone was going to see it, thought it’d be her.”
“She’s not as motivated as I am.”
His lips, and the scruffy, white and grey beard around them, tipped up. “No, I suspect she isn’t.”
I didn’t say anything, just waited.
“Come in, girlie. Gotta get you a key.”
I did as he said, following him into a living room that was appointed from top to bottom in comfortable cottage style. Jean’s doing, I was certain.
“He’s at your cabin,” I voiced what I’d realized when he’d mentioned the key.
Carson nodded. “I keep one key hidden up there just in case. He used that to get in, didn’t have to come here at all. You want to get in, you’ll need the other.”
“Why not just tell me? At least once Jess called you. You knew I was looking for him.”
He turned, facing me before he offered his explanation. “You pushed. That’s good. It had to happen. What I didn’t tell you before was that this shit, in some form or other, was always gonna happen. You got a reaction, and I don’t need the details to know it wasn’t a pleasant one. Calling around might have been concern, guilt, something that’d make you back down. Showing up and pounding down my door shows you aren’t done pushing.”
“So it was a test.”
He nodded, not looking the least bit ashamed of that. “Pretty much. Though I don’t figure you’ll hold much of a grudge over me being protective of him.”
No, as irritated as I was then, I didn’t figure he was wrong about that.
It took four hours to make the drive.
The whole way, I went over the things I would say, the questions I would ask, what I’d need to hear from him to move forward. And then the rough, gravel road I was following through thick forest widened, the trees clearing, and I saw the cabin. And parked right out from was a familiar coupe. Just that sight, finally knowing for sure that I’d found him, that I’d see him again in a minute, erased every rehearsed conversation from my head.
He was here.
The relief was so great, the tension that had held me stiff for days melted away, and the tremors took over. Stopping behind his car, I let the tidal wave of emotions that I’d been holding back by sheer will for days crash over me.
Anger. Worry. Exhaustion. Sorrow.
One tight on top of the other.
I was shaking so violently that I couldn’t even jump when the car door opened.
I knew it was him before he spoke.
“Gwen.” I heard the desolation, but it didn’t matter to me.
Looking up at him, cloudy through the tears that had gathered and started to slip out, I spat, “You’re such an asshole.”
“I know.” I didn’t know if it was an apology or him placating me. Neither one mattered.
My seatbelt released, and I shrugged it off my shoulder.
“Let’s get you inside.”
The moment his hands touched me, I flailed out. I didn’t want him to pick me up. I didn’t want to be that close to him.
“No!”
He backed up, hands out. “I’m sorry.”
&nb
sp; Sorry. Funny, I’d be considering saying that on the way up here. Sorry for not going gentle. Sorry for not going after him.
But I wasn’t sorry. I hadn’t done anything. He had left.
He should be sorry.
I got out on my own, not caring that I bumped into him as I did. I didn’t wait for him as I stomped right up to the front door and let myself inside. There, I stood in the middle of the living room, back to the door, arms crossed tight to hold back the tremors I could still feel threatening. I didn’t see a thing, didn’t care about anything but the fact that I could sense Park following.
“Carson told you where I was.”
Really? That’s where he wanted to start?
“I figured it out. He gave me the key and directions.”
Silence.
“Gwen, I…”
More silence.
It dragged out so long it started to feel like I was back in the apartment, just me and Thaddeus and the reverberation of that door slamming behind him. Everything that had happened over the last few days, and we were back to this.
I felt a hysterical laugh start to build up, except none of this was funny. How I’d felt when he’d walked out and disappeared wasn’t funny.
Remembering made that laugh die, and turned my voice harsh when I demanded, “Talk or I leave.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Park
This was it.
For three fucking days, I’d thought of nothing but how much I’d fucked up walking away from her. I’d watched every call she made come through, then listened to her messages again and again until I could recite each one, until I’d let the emotions in them bleed me dry.
Seeing her, watching as those emotions overpowered her, I couldn’t stop it.
I fucking loved her, and I had to do this.
If nothing else, it would set her free.
“I told you I didn’t know my dad,” I started. Her whole body tensed up, and I knew she was listening, so I kept going. “I don’t know if he knew about me or not. She never told me one way or another. By the time I was old enough to ask, she’d tell me I was an ungrateful little shit for bringing it up with another man around in our lives, which there always was. When Mac took that spot, it was forbidden to mention my dad or any of the other men that had been in and out of our lives.”