by Zoe Hill
I’m not even sure if it can be healed.
Poppy’s parents come into view and she twists in my arms to shout at them. “You knew, didn’t you?”
Confusion clouds her father’s eyes. “Knew what?”
“She saw him?” Poppy’s mom directs her question at me.
“He was the driver.”
Relief strips years from Eloise Tennyson’s face. “He’s still alive then.”
“For now,” I reply.
Poppy’s father gives his wife a look that would strip pain as the meaning of our stilted conversation starts to make sense to him. He stalks over to me and wrenches his daughter out of my embrace. Lowering her back to her feet, he pulls her into him. Although her face is hidden in her father’s neck, I see that her shoulders are shaking.
“Zricha,” I plead. When I try to touch her, she darts behind her dad. “I found out when you did. I wouldn’t keep something like that a secret.”
“Promise?” Hope brightens her voice as she poses her question.
“Promise.”
She emerges from behind Bennett. I take her hands, ready to accept the apology kiss she’s rising to her tiptoes to give me, only to be interrupted by the one voice I never want to hear again, now that Harrison is dead.
“Spenser,” my dad calls from the second van. “We need you to come with us.”
“Impeccable timing, like usual,” I grumble beneath my breath.
“I think you should hear him out.” Poppy touches her fingertips to the middle of my chest. I place my hand over hers, trapping her hand against my heart. “I think it might help you.”
“It’s important,” my brother says, coming up behind us. He stands as close to me as he can without actually touching. I growl, a low sound that vibrates my chest and makes Poppy laugh. Smiling down at my woman, Stirling quips, “I’d say it was nice to see you, except we only meet when blood’s been spilled, so maybe next time?”
“Third time lucky.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” He inclines his head. Clapping a hand down on my shoulder, Stirling murmurs, “Come with us… there are things you need to hear.”
“All right.”
Lifting my shoulder, I shake his hand off. He returns to the van. Once we’re alone, I find myself lost for words. Sensing my uncertainty, Poppy presses her fingers against her lips and then lays them against mine. Before she walks back to her dad, she says, “You don’t have to say anything, I get it. They’ve let you down too many times to ask for forgiveness. Maybe if you listen, it’ll give you a fresh perspective? If not, you still have me… I’m not going anywhere.”
Poppy’s advice rings in my ears as I turn to face my parents. Finding various degrees of desolation displayed on their faces, I drag in a ragged breath to steel myself for what’s to come. They want absolution.
I’m not sure if I can give it.
Even if we tore down the Coalition with our bare hands, my family would still be a mess. The bad things outweigh the good. Any trust that once existed has been destroyed. Love doesn’t even come into the equation. We all bear the scars of their choices, and I’m not sure if there is any way to come back from the past we share.
Even if we had a magical reset button, I’m not sure I’d want to press it.
What would it change?
***
After a silent journey back to the Samaritan’s Soldiers compound, my head is a disaster zone filled with questions and allegations and a driving need to hurt someone. The residual effects of the drug they used to knock me out have worn off and I’m filling with a restless energy that’s quickly zapping my ability to control my urge to take out my frustrations on someone’s face.
As I battle with my rage, counting to empty my head of all conflict, my mind circles back to one question.
Why hasn’t Harrison’s death given me closure?
I should be on the top of the world right now, instead I feel like I’m teetering on the brink of eternal damnation, and the person who’s going to push me over the edge is the man sitting across the room from me. My father’s eyes have barely left me the entire time my brother has been cleaning up the injuries I sustained while I was unconscious.
His attention is making the fire beneath my skin flare. Being so close to him makes my blood boil in my veins and my body burn from the inside out.
“I think I’ve bandaged up all your boo-boos,” Stirling announces. His poor attempt at a joke falls flat. Never one to give up his self-appointed role of peacemaker easily, he tries again, “Come on, people. This should be a celebration. We should be clearing the air and deciding who’s going to piss on his grave first.”
“Roman put a contract on your head,” Dad reveals. Standing, he crosses the room until he’s opposite me. “Bennett and Eloise have agreed that you can stay here. They’ll give you a new identity and you’ll be able to join the MC.”
Abruptly, he spins on his heel and strides toward the door. His hand is on the handle when I ask angrily, “That’s it? You palm me off on someone else, then leave?”
Dad leans his weight against the closed door. His shoulders are slumped, and his voice is tired when he says, “What do you want me to say? I am a failure as a father. Everything you said on the way to the church was right. I’m a monster. I enjoy hurting people… not you or your brother, but I don’t blink before ending someone else’s life. The list of things I’ve done wrong in my life could reach the North Pole, and half of that list would be my crimes against you. My own flesh and blood.”
He turns to face me. Resting with his back against the door, he continues purging his conscience, “Harrison was always bad. I knew that. I saved your mother from him, only to serve my son on a platter to him ten years later. When I asked Roman if I could kill him, I was relieved when he said no. What type of father does that make me? The worst kind… I didn’t even take your request to finish him to a vote. I buried my head in the sand and pretended that he didn’t exist.”
“Wh-y?” my voice cracks over the simple word.
Mom doesn’t wait for him to answer. She shifts from her chair at the table to the seat closest to mine. Closing her eyes, she takes over the retelling of a sorry tale that happened years before my birth. “If Harrison died, then this family forfeited their stake in the Coalition. Your dad made a deal with Roman when I was eighteen that he wouldn’t kill his half-brother, no matter what he did.”
It was the only way to save me from a marriage to your uncle that would’ve sentenced me to a lifetime of pain and misery, and then a painful death. In the eyes of the Coalition, Harrison was the legitimate heir to the Greaves’ position at the able because he was born in wedlock. Your father, although older, was the result of your grandfather’s liaison with a Croatian prostitute. He was never supposed to reach the pinnacle of power within the Coalition. In fact, your grandfather, who was the head at the time, expressly forbade bastard’s—as he called them—from sitting at the table.”
Stirling voices the question that’s been spinning around my brain since Mom began speaking, “How would Dad lose his seat if Harrison died?”
“Because Roman would reveal to the other members the truth about your grandfather’s death,” my dad replies. He appears to age by decades as he walks across the room to take a seat in the chair on my other side. “I killed my father to save your mother. That’s how Roman became the head of the Coalition. That was the deal we made. I was given a seat at the table and permission to marry your mother if I murdered my father. It was unsanctioned and would be punishable by death if it came out. With me dead, your mother would be married off to Harrison to secure the Ingram-Greaves’ alliance. It seemed like the perfect solution. I hated my father for what he’d done to my mother and I was in love with your mother.”
Reaching across me, Dad takes hold of my mother’s hand. “Of course, I had no idea that Harrison was really Roman’s son until much later. His affair with my stepmother was a well-kept secret that only surfaced once I’d taken car
e of the obstacle between them. I solved every problem they had. I took out the competition, and my presence at the head of the Coalition set the precedent they needed to secure Harrison’s position should the truth about his paternity come out.”
“It’s all my fault.” Mom dabs at her eyes with her free hand. “If I hadn’t fallen in love with you. If Rosalie hadn’t asked you to help me escape my engagement to Harrison… Roman would have had nothing to manipulate you with then.”
“I regret nothing about our love,” Dad protests. He lets go of her hand to crouch in front of me. “What I do regret is the destruction that our love brought down on your head. I’m sorry, son. For everything.”
As we look at each other, the tension between us grows. It’s like he’s caught me in an invisible lasso, and he won’t allow me to be free until I accept his apology. Pulling tighter the longer we stare, the cord tethers me to him. His perspective melts into my memories, and all the warnings he gave me when I was young begin to make sense.
The hole he punched in my heart the day he dismissed my revelation about my uncle’s abuse begins to close… just a little. I don’t think it’ll ever fully heal, but his apology is definitely patching the raw edges. At first, my left hand has a mind of its own as it lifts from my lap and my fingers straighten out to touch Dad’s forehead. As I trail my fingertip, with a feather-light contact that barely burns, between my father’s eyebrows and down his nose, my touch becomes deliberate. I am in control as I trace over his top lip and down his chin.
A solitary tear rolls down his face, racing my finger down his neck. I travel the same path he would when I couldn’t sleep as a kid beneath his jaw and down to the center of his collarbones. The gut-wrenching sob that erupts from his mouth when I finish strikes me like a bullet to the chest. Dad touches the scarred remains of my index finger for a mere heartbeat, then he pushes upright and runs out of the room. I lower my hand to my lap and try not to give away how much that shook me up.
“Fuck,” Stirling curses in a guttural tone. “That was—that was…” Trailing off, he rocks back on his heels until Mom places a hand on his shoulder to stop him. “Jesus, Sabra. I can’t believe you did that.”
“The damage he inflicted on you broke him too.” Mom pats Stirling’s cheek, then she retakes her feet. As she steps in front of me, I stiffen. Her voice is filled with kindness when she says, “Oh, honey. I know that telling you the full story wasn’t some magical cure. Please trust me not to touch you until you ask.”
The lump that lodged in my throat when Dad ran away from me takes some effort to swallow down, so I settle for nodding. The smile that lights up my mother’s face is stunning, and I realize that I’ve missed it. While my memories of Poppy and her family have returned, I’m beginning to grasp that I still have some gaps when it comes to my family.
“Why did the Montgomery’s change their last name to Tennyson?” I ask.
Worry flickers across Mom’s face, but she tamps it down quickly. “Because of Harrison. He knew how much Poppy meant to you, and we worried that he would continue to look for her once he lost his seat. His entire life revolved around his need for revenge against your father. And, he knew that he would hurt your dad the most by hurting you.”
“That doesn’t make me feel like chopped liver, at all,” Stirling mutters. I roll my eyes at him, and he chuckles. “Oh, come on… that was funny.”
“Mildly,” I drawl.
“I’m going to find your dad and make sure he’s all right.” Mom fluffs Stirling’s hair. “I want you both to remember that we are doing everything we can to bring the Coalition down. There will be setbacks, but we will prevail in the end.”
A heavy silence invades the room after she leaves. My brother and I stare at each other. In his eyes, I see my own conflicted emotions reflected back to me.
“Well, that story was too far-fetched to be made up,” Stirling quips. “Don’t ya think?”
“When did you find out?”
Immediately contrite, he doesn’t even try to deny it. “I found out a little bit here and a little there over the years. The bulk of it was lobbed at me on the way here after Bennett had called Dad to tell him you’d arrived here.”
“You remembered Poppy?”
“Hell, Sabra. I remembered them all. When Mom told me that they were going to give you the contract to kill the Montgomery’s, I expected you to balk straightaway. Color me surprised when you trotted off to New Haven, ready to murder the girl you were so protective of when we were kids.”
Shooting daggers at him with my eyes, I growl, “Shut up, dickhead.”
“Why don’t you shut up,” Stirling wisecracks. When I jokingly lunge for him, he falls onto his ass. Covering his head with his hands, he acts like I’m about to kill him, screaming in a bad imitation of an elderly female. “Oh, please. Please. You big, mean, scary man. Spare a little old lady’s life.”
He looks completely ridiculous—which is his intention. I try my hardest to bite back my laughter, but it tumbles out of my mouth anyhow. Peeking out from under his arms, my brother smirks. Together, we burst into laughter. I end up sitting on the floor next to him, holding my ribs, when I can’t contain my mirth. Every time our eyes meet, we set each other off again.
Anyone listening in would think we’d lost our minds.
I think we’ve finally found them again.
Once we have purged it from our system, Stirling lightly kicks my boot. “When are you going to go get your girl?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “With all the shit that went down today, do you think she’ll still want me? She knows what I am now…”
“Always with the overthinking,” my brother interjects. “She’s been head over heels for you for twenty years. All you need to do is man up and talk to her… the rest will work itself out in time.”
TWENTY-SIX
“Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.” ~Rabindranath Tagore~
POPPY
I once asked my mom why she named me Poppy. After all, the flower doesn’t exactly invoke optimism, considering it’s most closely linked with death. I thought it might’ve been my hair color, but that didn’t make sense. My brothers might’ve been redheads of varying shades, but there wasn’t any guarantee that I was going to be born with red hair since both my parents have brown hair.
As is her way, Mom’s answer was straight to the point and told me everything I needed to know about my mother’s love for me.
“The poppy also symbolizes peace,” Mom replied in her no-nonsense tone. “God knew after dealing with your brothers that I desperately needed some. That’s why he blessed me with you. My little Poppy, kind, gentle, and best of all, peaceful. You brought calm to my heart when everything else was devolving into chaos from the minute you were born.”
Sitting here, watching my family and Spenser’s celebrating the successful mission to dispense of Harrison Greaves, I’m reminded of her words. My brothers are loud, always demanding the center of attention and willing to fight for it if they aren’t voluntarily given it. My little sister, Violet, has her own way of drawing a crowd. She stands up for what she believes in and does her best to speak up for those without a voice.
Then there’s me.
I’d like to say that I’ve remained kind and gentle throughout all the drama that’s plagued my life, but I can’t say that I’ve been peaceful for a long time. I’m tense around my family. I constantly question every decision I make. Late at night, when I’m struggling to sleep, my mind goes to war with itself. All the things I should’ve said throughout the day play over and over in my head. I promise myself that I’ll do better in the morning, but the moment I reopen my eyes to face a new day, my anxiety returns. I become mute. I lose the ability to speak up for myself. Worst of all, I find myself examining everyone and everything I encounter for ill-will and ulterior motives.
The trauma I experienced at Harrison’s hands has shaped every thought I’ve had since I was seven.
The last time I remember feeling peaceful was when I jumped off a cliff at Elmer’s Point after a beautiful boy told me that the way out of my horror was to tell my parents. Somehow my soul recognized that we shared the same pain, even when I didn’t understand what was wrong with me.
Spenser’s advice saved me that day.
All it cost me was my peace.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Spenser pulls a barstool next to me and sits down.
I haven’t seen him since we returned to the compound. His parents whisked him off and my dad told me to leave them alone when I realized that his parents were using one of the spare rooms in the main building to host their long overdue mea culpa.
Every moment that he was gone, I felt like my right arm was missing.
Now that he’s close enough for me to feel the heat radiating off his body, I’m unsure where we stand. In the Escalade, I felt like our connection had grown stronger. Remembering him as Sabra, the boy who saved me, seemed to break through the final vestiges of my doubt about our instant bond.
Now, I’m not so sure.
Is it ever possible to move past the kind of harm that was done to us?
Spenser sighs. “You look pensive.”
“I am.” Biting my bottom lip, I struggle to put my thoughts into words. The shyness in his actions when he takes my hand in his tells me that he’s feeling the change between us too. Suddenly determined to avoid the mistakes I make with everyone else, I link our fingers, and give voice to my discontent. “Everyone else is happy. They think killing him solves everything. But it doesn’t, at least not for me.”
“I don’t agree,” he scoffs. As my defenses slam back into place, I let go of his hand and slide off my bar stool. When Spenser stops me, I glare up at him. My expression softens when he turns me to face the crowd and pulls me between his legs. With one arm around my middle, he points at my parents and then my siblings. “Look at them properly. Every person in this room is going to remember that bastard until the day they die. They’re not happy, they’re relieved.”