No Turning Back

by HelenKay Dimon

  “Oh, all of a sudden you give a shit about her?”

  “Everyone calm down.” Ed walked up the last step until he stood even with Leah’s dad. Ed’s rational voice cut through the rising tension, which was the reason she dragged him here without giving him one hint about what was happening. “We should step inside.”

  The older men filed in the door, leaving her trailing behind with Declan. He shot her that you-can’t-be-serious look he did so well. “You brought a lawyer?”

  “I thought Dad might need one.” In reality, she wanted a level-headed witness. She had no idea what sort of hate her father would spew. He’d never lifted a hand to her, but his words sliced deep enough. “Don’t act innocent or disappointed or whatever that expression is supposed to be. You’re the one who dug around and found the evidence. God, Declan. The sheets weren’t even cold.”

  Her father got to the edge of the foyer then spun around. His red face signaled trouble. “You’re sleeping with him? I was sure the town gossip about that was all wrong.”

  As if she wanted that news announced to the whole county. She shut the door then faced them all. She was a grown woman. She refused to pretend she was a virgin on prom night. “Were. Not anymore.”

  They all stopped just inside the door. Her father didn’t invite them to sit down and she doubted Declan would have agreed. Despite the stern grimace and broad shoulders, she’d bet inside he wanted to bolt. Part of her couldn’t blame him.

  He stared at her until she returned his gaze. “I came to ask your dad to ease up on you,” Declan said as if the words had been torn out of him.

  She shook her head as she tried to force his words together in a way that made sense. He’d uncovered the mess and should be gloating. If the situation were reversed . . . no, she wouldn’t turn any of the Hanover brothers in. She wanted to believe she would, but she knew better.

  But Declan wasn’t her. “I’m supposed to believe you didn’t mention the file or the information you found?”

  Ed frowned at them. “What are you two talking about?”

  It was now or never, and it couldn’t be never. The urge to hide the document, pretend she’d never seen it, smacked her like a slap to the face. But part of breaking out of old habits and moving on was stepping up. She had to face the past to overcome it.

  “This.” She held a thick envelope and kept her arm hanging there in midair until her father finally took it. “Declan had his own file full of papers about what happened in Sweetwater all those years ago, and one of the documents in his doesn’t match mine, or I should say, yours. Specifically, your version didn’t include your note from all those years ago.”

  Her father turned the envelope over in his hands but didn’t open it. The smug look on his face disappeared. For a second she thought she’d seen panic flare in his eyes.

  “What the hell is it?” Ed asked as he looked over his friend’s shoulder.

  Declan widened his stance as he clasped his hands together behind his back. “Proof your friend was in on Charlie’s cons from the beginning.”

  Declan’s face made the perfect target and her father lunged for it. “You lying sack of—”

  Being younger and fitter, Ed also moved faster. He grabbed her father around the shoulders and dragged him to a halt. “Stop it.”

  Before anyone could say anything, her father turned on her. “How can you believe this boy over me?”

  “I’m a man,” Declan pointed out in a deadly soft tone.

  And if Leah guessed right, a very angry one. But she had bigger problems, like a potential second heart attack for her dad. “I didn’t say I believed him.”

  But she did. She also trusted her own eyes. She’d seen that handwriting her entire life, and the timeline implicated her dad in a way that was all too clear. The fact he didn’t have the paper or anything like it in his files told her he’d tried to hide the truth by burying any evidence of it.

  Whatever her father saw in her eyes had him opening the envelope and scanning the paper. He looked up again with a blank expression. No anger or fury. That’s when Leah knew for certain. The father she grew up with would have fought off any false accusation. His expression, so careful, was about calculating how to get out of the mess he’d created.

  The last of her adrenaline puddled on the floor. She’d been emotionally bruised and battered. All the arguing and fighting had come down to this. Her father had lied for years.

  She tried to take it in but couldn’t. Her brain shut down. Her body followed. Muscles ached like she had the flu, and the countdown to falling over started.

  Her father shook his head. “It’s a fake.”

  “I’ve seen that one and the one you had. They don’t match.”

  “This is nothing, and your boyfriend is blowing it up into something.” Her father snorted. “And you’re falling for it, which is pathetic.”

  “It’s real. The prosecution had it and gave it to us when they turned over other files following Charlie’s death. It proves you handled the money when it was stolen,” Declan said.

  “I . . . what?” Her father slapped the back of his hand against the paper as he sputtered. “It’s a document that says nothing.”

  “Ed?” Leah looked to him for help, but he was too busy reading over her father’s shoulder.

  “This criminal you’re sleeping with is trying to take the focus off him and put it on me.” Her father got more wound up as he spoke. “He hid in the Army and throws around his medals, but none of that can hide the dirty little delinquent underneath.”

  Leah realized none of that was true. Oh, she knew about Declan’s service, but he never once bragged. If anything, he added his service and good deeds to the list of things he wanted to put behind him.

  Ed put a restraining hand on his friend’s arm. “Marc, you need to calm down.”

  The worry over her father’s health battled with the need to say it all. He was on meds and strong. Still, she debated shutting this down and calling his doctor.

  “Do not coddle me.” Her father’s well-known temper flared, and he whipped his phone across the room, where it bounced before cracking and shattering. When Declan didn’t even wince, the fire in his father’s eyes grew brighter. “You followed in your father’s footsteps, I’ll give you that. Dragging everyone down with you, spreading your foul garbage to anyone who’ll listen, including my easily influenced daughter.”

  The shock from his words kept her from saying anything. She looked at Declan and saw the rage boiling inside him. If he stood any stiffer, his bones would crack.

  Ed tucked the envelope with the letter into his pocket. “Marc, stop this.”

  Leah kept watching Declan, looking for any reaction. Ed now had the only copy, the only evidence. Declan just stood there.

  No, all the reaction, complete with waving arms and loud voice, belonged to her father. “He turned Leah against me.”

  Ed cleared his voice. “I think you’re doing it all by yourself.”

  Her father’s frown turned to a feral smile. “Wait until the FBI gets ahold of you. And they’re coming. Callen first, but I will make it my life’s mission to have you be the number-two hit.”

  That was too far. Too much. Leah would not let her father drag the brothers down with him. “Dad, listen to Ed. That’s enough.”

  “Is this what you want for your life?” The question came from Declan in a deadly soft tone. “You want to be like your dad and wallow forever?”

  “Don’t talk to her.” Her father took another threatening step in Declan’s direction.

  Declan didn’t even blink. “She’s a grown woman.”

  “She needs protection from you.”

  Every fight she’d ever had with her father replayed in fast-forward in her mind. They always ended this way. He’d treat her like a child and
she would back down so he wouldn’t get angry, or lately, so he wouldn’t wind up back in the hospital. It was emotional blackmail, and she was done.

  “I can make my own decisions.” She responded to her father but looked at Declan.

  “And you’ve chosen revenge and hate.” Declan blew out a long breath. “God, Leah, why? Learn something from my past. Let your life be easier.”

  “Call Clay.” Her father looked around the floor, probably for his now-broken phone. “I want that boy arrested. He’s threatened us for the last time.”

  Her father’s words broke the spell of Declan’s husky voice. She didn’t believe her father’s version. “He didn’t threaten you.”

  “You don’t know what he said before you got here, young lady.”

  “You should stop talking now, Marc. Upsetting Mr. Hanover is a mistake,” Ed said.

  The last tiny doubt spinning in her brain slipped away. The royal indignation and threats. Her father used all his old games to cover up his years-old crimes. “It’s real, isn’t it? You were in on Charlie’s con in Sweetwater from the beginning.”

  He didn’t try to deny. Just skipped right to blame. “Don’t believe that boy.”

  “As I keep telling you, he’s a man.” Big, strong, dependable and just out of her reach. Probably forever so.

  Her father turned his full wrath on her. “You did this. You let him into your house. You’re just like your bitch of a mother. You get on your back and let a Hanover use you. You believe his lies and then what happens? I have to clean up the mess. I get the call that you’ve been dumped.”

  Shock vibrated through Leah. As the shouted words echoed through the house, her hand went to her mouth. “Oh my God. Mom knew. She left because she knew.”

  Declan, who looked like he was headed out the door a second ago, crowded closer. His arm rubbed against hers and she welcomed his added strength. Let it hold her up when her body ached to flop to the floor.

  “She left because she was a conniving, backstabbing bitch.”

  “At least she never stole from the town,” Declan said.

  Her father pointed at Declan with an arm shaking with fury. “You shut up.”

  Leah saw it all now. It was so obvious that she wondered how the clouds hadn’t cleared earlier. “All those years I made excuses for your behavior. I blamed her and Charlie, and then his sons came to town and I sucked up your rage and transferred it to them.”

  “You did more than that. You’re sleeping with him.” Her father actually spit on the floor at Declan’s feet. “Your taste in people has always been terrible. You don’t know who to trust or how to act.”

  Her head wouldn’t stop spinning. “You’re not wrong about that.”

  “Declan, I think you should go,” Ed said. “Leah, let me talk to your father. I need to explain a few things to him in private.”

  “I’m staying.” Declan’s voice suggested no one argue.

  She did anyway. Her world kept shifting and twisting. She needed five minutes to sit down and think it all through. Doing that would only be possible if her father and Declan weren’t sniping at each other. “Go, I’ll be fine.”

  “How can you—”

  She willed him to listen. Put her hand on his arm and stared at him until he closed his mouth again. “Please, Declan. Just leave.”

  With one last burning look, he turned and walked away. The door slammed behind him with a crack that vibrated with a sort of finality. She stared at the space and fought the urge to call him back. He dealt with so much of his own family crap. He didn’t need to add hers to his load.

  And after everything she had no idea where they stood. It was all so confused and entangled. She wanted to crawl into bed and cry it out . . . then beg him to come back.

  “Leah, are you okay?” She didn’t realize she’d been standing there for almost a minute until Ed asked the question.

  “I’m fine.” The real answer was the exact opposite of fine.

  “She can stay. She knows the rules, and she’s finally come around.” Her father smiled at her. Acted as if everything was fine now and nothing had changed. “Took you a while, didn’t it, but now you see that Hanover boy for who he is.”

  She glanced at the closed door one more time. “Yeah, but I think it’s too late.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Declan swore as he slammed the truck door and walked up the driveway. It wasn’t even ten in the morning, and his two brothers were sitting on the porch doing nothing. They each claimed a chair and balanced their feet on the newly reinforced porch bannister while drinking out of coffee mugs.

  Declan guessed they were waiting for him to come home with a report. Boy, were they going to be disappointed.

  Becks smile fell as Declan approached. “What did you do?”

  He didn’t bother to sit down. Didn’t plan on being out there long enough. Instead, he leaned against the column and faced them both down. “Went to see her father. She showed up, got pissed and I left.”

  Beck and Callen looked at each other, but only Beck answered. “Damn, that sucks.”

  Worse than that, but Declan wasn’t ready to open up and dump his feelings about Leah all over them. And here came the hard part, the part Declan practiced fifteen times on the short drive from the Baron residence to here.

  “I know I talked you guys into keeping the place and putting money into it, but this is over.” He hated the idea. And the possibility of never seeing Leah again left him empty and raw, like he was itching to crawl out of his skin. He wasn’t even disappointed. It would take him weeks, months maybe, to get there. No, he was stuck in a spiral of numbing pain.

  “You sure?” Callen asked.

  “I want to sell her the house and—”

  His eyebrow inched up. “Run?”

  More judgments. Declan was all out of patience for those. “Don’t do that.”

  Callen dropped his feet to the porch. “It’s not your style, man.”

  “How would you know?”

  “I think you should calm down.”

  “I don’t see that happening.” Declan pushed and picked because he couldn’t stop. All that energy racing around inside of him had to go somewhere, and at least this seemed safe. Callen already said he wasn’t going to run.

  “You want to do this now?”

  Declan needed a fight, needed to yell. “Why the hell not?”

  “Fine.”

  “Good.”

  “I know because there hasn’t been a week of your life when I haven’t watched over you from a distance.” The strain showed on every inch of Callen’s face.

  “What?”

  “The high school dance when you acted like a dumbass and drove drunk. I followed you to make sure you didn’t kill yourself or your date, and was prepared to jump in your place in the driver’s seat if you got into trouble. How about the meeting with the Army recruiter? I walked in behind you and asked a thousand questions. Or that idiot who tried to knife you in Seattle. I almost broke that guy in half.”

  Declan came away from the column in a rush. He stood in front of his older brother as his mind tried to process. “What the fuck are you saying?”

  “Do you want the rest of the list? I was there. Maybe not in the way you wanted, but in the way I could be.” Callen looked at Beck. “For both of you.”

  “That’s not true.”

  Callen threw up his hands. “Ask me anything.”

  Shock pummeled Declan until his footing stumbled. All those years he believed he was alone. It didn’t seem possible there was another answer. “You should have stepped out of the shadows.”

  “Maybe.”

  The truth hit Declan out of nowhere. “You didn’t want to get in too deep. Your way gave you distance.”

  Callen stayed in
his chair and looked up with a bring-it look of challenge on his face. “You want to fight with me, fine, but we both know this isn’t about me or us or even Charlie. You fucked this up. Admittedly, Leah fucked it up first, but she’s had a blow, finding out the truth about her father. She’ll rebound in time, but you still have to face your role in crapping this up.”

  The guilt Declan had been pushing out of his head flooded back in. He regretted the way he’d handled it, but he hated the way Callen drove right to the point. “I read a few files.”

  Callen shook his head. “You snuck around because you were checking up on me. You wanted to know what Reeves might know, what this Kristin person might know. You didn’t ask Leah’s permission or mine. You just dove in, and that sucks.”

  “Why would I ask you?”

  “Because it’s my life you were digging in. After meeting Reeves, you wanted more information.” The shout spread out, seemingly hitting every inch of the property’s rolling acres.

  It blared through Declan’s brain. He knew Callen wasn’t perfect, but . . . “I never thought you did anything wrong.”

  “Shit, Declan. I know that. You were trying to help me. I get it, but your methods were all screwed up.”

  Beck continued to rock his chair. “What did Leah say at her dad’s?”

  “Exactly what you think. She told me to get the fuck out.”

  “She said it that way?” Beck looked entirely too pleased at the thought of her using those words.

  “I added the fuck for emphasis.” Declan mind went back to that uncomfortable room and Leah’s defeated look. She looked ready to drop, and it took all his willpower not to reach out and hold her. He wouldn’t have been able to handle her slapping his hands away. “Or maybe her dad said it. I don’t know.”

  “In other words, she got mad and you bailed.”

  Sounded like they were finally getting it. Declan hoped so because that meant he could stop explaining and just go to bed. “Yes.”

  Beck looked at Callen. They shared some sort of told-you-so nod. “Callen’s right, you’re running. It’s kind of pitiful for a guy who’s supposedly so good with battle and weapons and stuff.”