Broken: Boxed Set

by Wilde, Leah

  He held me at arms’ length and studied me carefully with his gray eyes. “I made a mistake,” he said eventually. “I acted out of anger and spite. I should have known that keeping you locked away wouldn’t do what I wanted it to do. I wanted you to be safe, that’s all. After that monster stole my wife, stole your mother away from me, I was desperate to protect what I had left. You.”

  “But you gave him to me,” I said, sniffling.

  “I’m sorry, Paris.” He stroked away a tear running down my cheek. To my surprise, I saw one shining at the corner of his eye. He rubbed at it with the heel of his hand. His whole face was softened in sadness. “I thought that you had chosen him, in a way. That it was just my fate to have him take everything from me. I shouldn’t have done that. It was wrong of me. I hope you can forgive me.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I was stunned that he was crying and that he was telling me all these things. He’d waited so long. If I’d known that Micah was the one who murdered my mother, I would never have gone to the party to begin with. All the memories I had of him, the ones that had been so comforting this morning, were tinged now with a sickly sheen, like someone had come along and wiped a nasty, greasy film on top of them. He was distorted in my mind’s eye. He was exactly what my father had called him: a monster. Not satisfied with taking my mother, he had to take me, too.

  No wonder he refused to tell me about the cause of the hatred between my father and him. It was him all along! He kept me close to him because winning me over would be the final dagger in my dad’s heart. He’d been so charming, so loving, so goddamn cunning. I hated him. I hated Micah Youngblood.

  But was I ready to forgive my father? It was hard to say. Even if he had felt like I had betrayed him by sleeping with Micah, it had been so wrong of him to just cut me out of his life like that. What father abandoned his daughter to his worst enemy, her mother’s murderer?

  “I know it’s going to take a long time to earn you trust back, Paris,” he said. “I understand that. I just want you to know that I’m here now, and I won’t leave you ever again. I love you, baby girl.”

  I buried my face in his chest as the tears dried up. “I love you, too, Daddy.” His arms around me were huge and comforting. They blocked out the world around me. I didn’t want to be anywhere else but here.

  “Come inside,” he said. “There’s some food here. Lasagna, your favorite. I want it to be like old times, just you and me.” He kept an arm around my shoulders as he guided me inside.

  I cast a look behind me just before we crossed the threshold. The man who had driven me here, a massive mountain of a biker with a black and red bandana tied around each bicep, had taken a seat on a lawn chair at the front of the yard. He had an automatic rifle lying across his lap. I frowned, but kept walking. Daddy pulled the door shut behind me.

  The table inside was heavy with a heaping tray of lasagna and plates of breadsticks. There were table settings for three, but he didn’t say anything as he pulled out a chair for me to sit in. I settled down and tried to calm my breathing down.

  After the initial shock of what he had told me, I was beginning to come back to earth. It felt like things were finally clicking into place. After all, what he’d said had made so much sense. It explained Micah’s vagueness and Zeke’s reluctance to explain what his boss was up to. It explained my father’s anger at the wedding. I would probably hate everything the way he had if my daughter had come home pregnant with my worst enemy’s baby. He must have felt like Micah was stealing his whole life away. I couldn’t blame him.

  But now he was trying to make things right. He was still my daddy, after all. How could I not love him back? How could I not give him a second chance?

  “Everything okay, Par Bear?” he asked from across the table.

  I smiled. “Getting there,” I said.

  He nodded. “It’ll take time, I know. But we’ve got plenty of that. Now, I’m starving. Let’s eat.”

  Taking my plate from in front of me, he ladled out a big slice of the lasagna from the tray in the center of the table, then stacked a pair of breadsticks alongside it. “Here you go, babe,” he said, setting it back down on the placemat.

  “Thanks, Daddy.” I dug in quietly. I wanted to focus just on chewing and swallowing. Simple, basic things that I’d been doing my whole life. Bite, chew, swallow. Nothing complicated about that. It felt good to have food in my stomach, like there was something solid and dependable in this world after all.

  I still had so many questions for him, though. “Where are we?” I asked after a few minutes of quiet eating.

  “Don’t worry about it, dear,” he replied quickly.

  I took a deep, shuddering breath. “Daddy, you need to start being more honest with me. I’m an adult now. You can’t keep me hidden away from everything.” My gaze was level, but I was sure to keep my shaking hands below the table. After all, a reaction like that from me flew straight in the face of the relationship I’d had with my father in the three years since my mother died. If I didn’t ask any questions, he wouldn’t have to give me fake answers. It was his own cloaked form of don’t ask, don’t tell.

  But I was sick of secrets and lies. If he wanted to be my father again like he said, he needed to start by telling me what he was doing and why.

  He swallowed and dabbed at his face with a napkin. “You’re right,” he said softly. “I’m sorry. Old habits die hard. I’ve been a man of secrets for so long that it’s just what comes naturally to me now. But I’ll do my best to level with you whenever I can. This is a house that my club owns to do business from. We’re on the outskirts of town, just off the highway.”

  “What kind of business?” I demanded.

  “Paris…” he said warningly. I fixed him with the sternest glare I could muster. I wanted to know. I deserved to know. “Okay,” he said, giving in. “If you insist. It’s nothing bad, mind you—no guns or drugs or anything like that—but it’s not exactly legal by the strictest definitions of the law. One of the things we do is print documents for immigrants coming across the border. Passports, social security cards, that kind of thing, the stuff they need to start a new life here. It’s profitable, yes, but I really think we’re doing some good, too. These are good people. Hardworking. Smart. They just want what’s best for their families. I try to help them get that.”

  I nodded slowly as I took in what he was saying. “Okay,” I whispered after a while. “I can live with that.”

  He took a drink of water, keeping his eyes on me the whole time before setting it back down on the table with a clink. “I’m not a bad man, Paris. I’ve been a liar, but I won’t be that anymore. Not to you.”

  I focused on my breathing. This was so much at once. My life was being turned upside down for the umpteenth time in the last few months. This time, though, it felt permanent. I meant what I said; I really could live with this. I had my father back, and if Micah was the man Daddy said he was, then I was perfectly fine with him staying in my past. That’s where he belonged—far away from my family and me.

  “Next question,” I said. He waved for me to go on. I pointed at the unused place setting. “Who’s that for?”

  He smiled sadly. “I’m afraid that one is going to be a secret for just a little bit longer. I’m expecting one more guest tonight.” His gray eyes flashed, stormy and indecipherable.

  All of a sudden, there was a knock at the door. My eyes flew wide open and I squeezed the table until my knuckles went wide. But as I looked over at my dad, he was as calm as ever. He took one more sip of his water, dabbed the corners of his mouth, then laid his napkin on top of his cleaned plate.

  “And speak of the devil,” he murmured, “there he is. Right on time.”

  Chapter 24

  Micah

  I’d roared back to the clubhouse after letting that pathetic wretch Boris scamper off back to his rat hole. I felt filthy after touching him. He was a sniveling coward, too soft to do anything but run away from whatever paranoia it was t
hat threatened him. He disgusted me.

  But I had bigger fish to fry. He’d told me what I needed to know. I felt sure that Tristan was the man behind the trigger, the one who’d murdered Anton, along with his own wife. We had our target. It was time to plan the strike.

  My bike had barely stopped rolling before I was off it and storming inside. I burst into the office, nostrils flaring. Zeke, Carter, Bear, and Bolt were all in there, still poring over the papers. Four pairs of eyes snapped up to me the second I entered.

  “What happened?” Zeke asked softly. “Did you find Turner?”

  “I found the motherfucker alright,” I growled back. “And he told me what I needed to know. It’s time for revenge, men. Tonight, we’re going to kill Tristan Jenison.”

  They all looked at me, flabbergasted. I briefly explained what I’d figured out, that Boris Turner had been there the night of the murders. How he had seen Tristan step into the apartment and shoot Anton and then his own wife. That he’d been high and paranoid and recruited Sergei’s son to help him fake his own death and disappear, but that I’d found him and forced the truth out of him.

  “The bastard,” Carter said when I finished. He looked shell-shocked. “He killed his own wife? Why?”

  That was the last piece of the puzzle I didn’t understand. But I didn’t have time to sit around and twiddle my thumbs while I perused Tristan’s list of possible motivations. They said revenge was a dish best served cold, but they were wrong. It was best served when it’s hot enough to burn.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “We know he did it. He’s got Anton’s blood on his hands. Now it’s time to spill some of his.”

  Zeke nodded and cleared the table. I started to walk across the room to join them, but before I moved, my phone started ringing. Annoyed, I fished it out of my pocket. Paris’s number flashed across the screen. I frowned.

  “I can’t talk right now,” I said. I tried to keep my voice as calm and nonchalant as possible. She didn’t need to know what was happening just yet. Learning that her father had murdered her mother would be a massive shock to the system. I wanted to wait until the right time and place to fill her in.

  But it wasn’t Paris. “I think you need to make some time for me,” said an unexpected voice. I halted in my tracks. I felt Zeke look at me. He knew me well enough to see that something was very, very wrong.

  “Tristan,” I said in a dry rasp. “What are you doing?”

  “I want to talk to you, Micah. You’ve been very nosy. I think that if you had questions, you should have just come ask me yourself.”

  “The only thing I’m coming to do is chop your fucking head off, you son of a bitch.”

  “You could try to do that, if you wanted. Hell, you might even succeed. But, just a little bit of advice for you, since I am your father-in-law and all. I wouldn’t try to do that.”

  “Oh? Why not?”

  “You wouldn’t want Paris to get hurt, would you?”

  My heart plummeted. I knew it even before he said anything, but I asked the question he wanted me to ask. “What did you do?”

  “She’s with me, Micah. Why don’t you come join us for dinner?”

  The line went dead.

  The room was completely silent as I walked over to the table, my eyes gazing into nothingness, and gently laid my phone on the surface. No one said a word for a long time. The fight and fire that had been raging in my chest was completely evaporated now, replaced by a cold, sucking void.

  “What happened, boss?” Bolt asked after a while.

  I could hear my pulse hammering in my ears. “He’s got Paris,” I replied. I blinked. “I have to go get her.”

  # # #

  The address in the text from Paris’s phone matched the one on the mailbox out front of the house. It was a small, dusty bungalow a few miles outside of town, with plenty of acreage separating it from its distant neighbors. The afternoon was giving way to evening as I pulled up and parked my motorcycle. A man stood up from a lawn chair as I climbed off. He kept his gun pointed directly at my gut.

  I held my hands in the air. “I’ve got nothing on me,” I said.

  He grunted and pointed for me to come stand beside him. “Hands on the fence,” he barked. I leaned against it, palms flat. “Spread your legs.” He patted me down roughly and thoroughly before whipping me back around to face him and nodded. “You’re clean. Go inside. They’re waiting for you.”

  I turned my gaze to the doorway. Such an innocent little house. I wondered if anyone knew what kind of a sick fuck was lingering inside. With my wife. My child’s mother. I swallowed the hard knot of anger building in my throat.

  I crossed the yard, took the two steps onto the porch, and paused just outside the door. Taking a deep breath to steady myself, I raised a hand and knocked.

  “Come in,” came Tristan’s voice. I twisted the doorknob and entered.

  My heart quickened the second I stepped into the room. Paris sat at the table with her back to me. She turned and looked at me over her shoulder. “Paris, you—” I started to say, but she cut me off.

  “No. You’re a liar, Micah. Don’t ever say my name again.” Her eyes were fiery and enraged. She looked like she was surprised to see me but that she was ready to slice my throat if given the chance.

  What was she talking about? When had I lied? I looked around the room, bewildered. It was empty except for the three of us. I turned to stare at Tristan. He pointed at the empty seat between the two of them.

  “Come, Micah. Take a seat.”

  Cautiously, I stepped over and settled down. My whole body was tensed like a coiled spring, ready to explode at any minute. Tristan noticed.

  “Relax,” he said soothingly. “No one is going to hurt you. We are family, aren’t we?” He smiled as he looked back and forth between Paris and me.

  I unclenched my fists, but stayed tense. I didn’t trust the bastard as far as I could throw him. He folded his hands in his lap and leaned back to get a good look at me before he began talking.

  “Now, Micah, my dear son-in-law, there are a few things we need to discuss. Let’s start with the oldest business, shall we? You took quite a bit of money from me.”

  I didn’t blink as I stared back at him. While we locked eyes, I tried to take in as much of the room as I could in my peripheral vision. I didn’t see any armed guards, nor did it look like Tristan was holding any weapons. Maybe I could just strangle him with my bare hands. He was a big motherfucker, but I had enough adrenaline coursing through my veins to fight a goddamn whale. He would be no match for my anger.

  “Well?” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Are you not even going to own up to what you did?”

  “You don’t even know if that was us,” I said.

  He chortled. “Micah, come on. Do you think I’m an idiot? I’ve been in this business for a very long time. It was a sloppy theft. I knew it was you the day after it happened. I’ll admit, you took me by surprise, but you got away with it because I let you.”

  “Why?”

  With a shrug, he said, “It was better to let you think you had the upper hand for a while. It kept you complacent. Feed a rat a bite of cracker and he stops hunting so hard for the real cheese, if you follow what I’m saying.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I don’t give a damn if you believe me or not,” he said curtly. “I’m telling you the facts. I knew it was you; I let it go. For that, you are welcome. But, things have changed a bit.”

  “Stop talking bullshit, Tristan. Tell me what you want.”

  “I’m getting there. In due time, young buck, in due time. You don’t need to be in such a rush everywhere you go. Some things are done better with patience.”

  I flexed my fists. “I ought to kill you right here and now,” I said.

  “Just like you killed my mother?” Paris blurted.

  I whirled to face her. My jaw hung open. “Just like what?” I exclaimed.

  “You heard me,” she said. Her
whole face was lit up with hatred, directed straight at me.

  “Paris, what are you talking about?”

  “She spoke very directly, Micah,” Tristan admonished. “I think you understood her perfectly.”

  “Paris, baby—”

  “Shut up,” she interrupted. “Don’t ever call me that again.”

  “Paris, I didn’t kill your mother. Are you insane? What has he been telling you?”

  “You’re a liar, Micah. You killed her and you took me just to mock my family. Wasn’t killing my mom enough? You had to ruin my life, too?” Her eyes were filled with hot tears, but it wasn’t the willowy crying of someone ready to admit defeat. It was pure flame. She really wanted to stab me, to make me bleed.

  “Listen to me, Paris. I didn’t kill your mother. It was him.” I jabbed a finger at Tristan. “He did it.” Turning to address him, I continued, “I know it was you, you son of a bitch. I found Boris Turner. Remember him? He saw everything. He told me what happened. James Porter, Boris Turner—they know you’re the one who killed her. And Anton. And now I know you did it, too. I’m here to make you pay for the lives you took.”