The Dangerous Son (Coalition Collection Book 1)

by Zoe Hill

  “Okay...” I trail off as the next word gets stuck in my throat. Swallowing, I say, “Thanks.”

  His comment about Poppy rattles around my head until the need for an answer overwhelms me. “What’s Poppy been doing in the city?”

  Eli’s shrugs. “The same thing you watched her doing with Seb in the alley. She copes with her damage by turning into a mute nympho. It’s kinda similar to how you hide behind Trigger whenever you need to kill someone. Different copes for different folks.”

  “That’s not how that saying goes.”

  “It is now,” Eli chuckles.

  I can feel him staring at me, but I can’t bring myself to look his way.

  Is there anyone who doesn’t know about that night in the alley?

  “That’s not what I do,” I object louder than necessarily once I have shaken off the worst of my embarrassment. Who does this little shit think he is, anyway? From his gelled hair down to the toe of his designer boots, everything about Eli screams stuck-up manwhore—and I can tell he’s been caught with his pants down more than once. “I won’t need Trigger tonight.”

  “Sure, you will,” he snarks. “Either you’re in a dissociative state already.” Looking over his shoulder, then back at me, he adds, “Or you really enjoy making every motherfucker you meet think you’re about to cut them into teeny pieces. I’ve read your file... so I’m sticking with my initial analysis. You’re in the middle of an episode.”

  “Fuck off.” Once he’s planted the seed, the hunting knife that’s strapped to my calf makes my left-hand itch with the need to grab it. I lean back in the seat and close my eyes to ward off the driving urge to slice Eli’s throat from ear to ear. The tiny amount of Spenser that Trigger can’t force out of my head is all that’s keeping me from carving every person in the van into the human version of fillet mignon. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, he does. We can all see that you’re about to lose control,” my dad interjects. “And we’re worried. I thought Poppy would be the answer, but now I’m not so sure...”

  He trails off when I spin around in the seat to face him. My size knocks Eli onto his ass in the walkway. A smoldering ember comes to life after our accidental contact and flames erupt over my skin. When I slap at the spot that touched him, Dad huffs. His reaction makes my next statement harsher than necessary.

  “Poppy isn’t the problem. You. Are.” Dad recoils from my venomous declaration. The apology that clouds his eyes spurs me on. “Save your crocodile tears... they might have everyone else fooled, but not me. I know the real you. The monster who disfigured me and tortured Stirling. You’re worse than Harrison because you make everyone around you believe that someone else is responsible for your evil deeds.”

  I hold my left hand up and shove it in his face. “You did this... and more. You enjoyed every second of your savagery, so spare me the theatrics. Save your concern for someone who’ll believe your bullshit.”

  Chest heaving as I pant through my rage, I drop back into my seat and keep my attention focused on the road ahead of us. The entire time I was shouting, I could picture myself slashing my father into a hundred ribbons of flesh. I do my best to rationalize it by blaming Trigger. I can’t help how I act when he’s in control.

  Eli retakes his seat next to me. He doesn’t speak and I don’t break my concentration to look at him. I slowly regain control of my emotions until it hits me that it was Spenser addressing Dad just then and I spiral once more.

  Trigger left me to fend for myself.

  The blood on my conscience is getting thicker and I’m running out of ways to blame my alter-ego.

  I press my hand over my left eye as the pain flares again.

  “I did what I had to do to keep you alive,” Dad’s voice is laced with pain as he attempts to justify his viciousness. I screw my eyes shut to block out all light, then clamp my hands over my ears. It doesn’t work, I still hear everything he says next. “It was either me or Roman. I couldn’t let him hurt you, not when I know that he has no limits to his depravity so... I did it myself. It was the least I could do considering I’m the reason he’s in charge of the Coalition.”

  Every conversation in the van falters in the wake of his confession. Three times, I mentally count to twelve. It should help me deal with the headache that’s squeezing my head like a vice, but it doesn’t. The only thing that helps is thinking about Poppy. Dressed like a tiny ninja, determination on her face, ready to avenge her best friend, she is awe-inspiring.

  Our damage is the same, yet she’s able to cope with everything without turning into a giant freak in front of everyone.

  No wonder her brothers are worried I’m going to hurt her.

  Squeezing that admission out of my head before it can properly take root and I decide to tuck and roll my way out of a speeding van to escape it, I invite another image of her face into my mind’s eye.

  Only this time it doesn’t soothe.

  It’s a memory of Poppy’s confusion, and fear, at the change in me back in her dead brother’s room.

  For some reason, Trigger had surfaced of his own accord. One moment, I’d been looking at her face, trying to memorize every beautiful feature, and the next, he’d popped free with nothing but murder on his mind. Usually, it takes effort to make Trigger take control. I must concentrate on hardening myself from the inside out before I consciously build an impenetrable shell around Spenser and force Trigger to take charge.

  I bring him forth to do the dirty work—to do the things that make me feel like a bad person.

  He shouldn’t be near Poppy. He’s dangerous and there’s no way she could ever understand him.

  The beautiful, broken, but functioning, woman touches Spenser. She doesn’t know Trigger. No one knows him.

  A flash of memory enters my head... the first time Trigger surfaced unbidden was the day my father tortured Stirling.

  My brother had been in danger, and my impotent rage at being unable to help him had caused me to black out. When I’d woken up, Trigger was in control and my father was lying on the floor, bleeding from the mouth after I’d knocked him down and kicked him in the head.

  Another bolt of remembrance pierces my mind.

  I’ve never told anyone, but I first felt Trigger coming to life long before that day.

  It happened on a beach, but the details have never been clear in my head.

  Maybe he’s always been inside me?

  Was I always damaged goods?

  My dented psyche is probably why my uncle picked me instead of Stirling.

  The same memory that’s been trying to force its way into my head all week resurfaces. A small girl. A cliff. The number thirteen. Brief yet aggressive in the way it flits around the edges of my consciousness, the ghostly memory makes the pain in my head intensify, and every noise I hear, no matter how innocuous, grates on my nerves. Seeking an escape from it all, I jam the earbuds Eli gave me into my ears and press play on the iPod.

  The first song that plays is “No Love” by Eminem. I turn it up as loud as it will go and slump down in my seat. Concentrating on the rhythm of the song, I allow it to soothe the storm raging in my head. When the lyrics grab hold of me, I can finally separate myself from the memories stalking me, and my headache subsides a little.

  When that track ends and a slower song comes on, I do my best to keep my focus on the music rather than the agony that’s pulsing in my head. It works for a little while until the meaning of the song pushes past the shield I’ve erected, and my eyes begin to burn. As I listen, the words of “I Was Just a Kid” by Nothing But Thieves fashions my past pain into a knife and stabs me straight in the heart with every single detail I’ve tried to avoid remembering. Frozen in place, I let the song play, even though the longer I listen, the harder the blade twists in my chest.

  As the memories flood my mind, the tension gripping my head tightens like a vice. With pain that blinds me pounding against my skull, the pressure builds and builds, in my brain,
behind my eyes, in my soul, until I can’t stand it anymore.

  I blink.

  I blink again.

  My eyes burn and my head aches.

  Holding my eyes open for as long as I can, the throbbing in my head eventually gets the better of me, and I submit. My eyes close one more time, and as I blink, I feel all the hurt and pain I’ve been hiding from erupt from my eyes and stream down my cheeks in toxic rivulets. As I purge every atom in my body of my uncle’s decades-old pollution, the final memory—the one with the girl and the cliff—elbows its way back into my head.

  My headache dissipates in the same instant that this final remembrance becomes clear.

  What my mind’s eye sees next, steals my breath, my heartbeat, and my sanity in one fell swoop.

  “No,” I groan under my breath when I realize what my memory means. “God, please. It can’t be... not her.”

  The van bounces from side to side as the surface beneath the tire changes and I’m jolted out of the agonizing epiphany that’s dawning. Reopening my eyes, I swipe at the liquid that continues to roll down my cheeks. Sniffing quietly as we race down a dirt road in the dark, I fight through my emotional turmoil. Happiness and a heartache I feel deep in my marrow battle for supremacy as I come to terms with who I am and who she is.

  My head clears, subdued joy winning, and I realize that the lights from the other vehicles are no longer illuminating the interior of the van as they travel behind us. Twisting in my seat, I look out the rear window. When I face forward again, the van slows right down, and the driver turns off all of the lights.

  In the dark, we crawl along a thin, windy road.

  “Where are we?” I ask Eli. With darkness surrounding us, I can barely see him. What I can see is unsettling. He won’t meet my eyes, and he keeps flicking the safety on his handgun on and off. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.”

  I don’t have time to question him because the driver of the van stops short and issues a terse order. “We’re here. Everyone out.”

  One by one, we troop out of the van and into the night. Checking our surroundings, I discover that we’re parked on a deserted beach. The lights of a building can be seen in the distance and the beam from a lighthouse circles the bay. The fine sand beneath my boots is light enough to see in the dark.

  The cliff that rears up out of nowhere isn’t as big as I remember.

  As the childhood memory comes to life before my eyes, I struggle with the urge to punch myself in the head for not seeing the truth before now. No wonder my head’s been hurting since I met her. Redemption has been standing in front of me, wrapped in a tiny, redhaired package that was instantly recognizable to the remaining pieces of my shattered soul, yet I’ve done everything I could to ignore it.

  As usual, I was too obstinate to see what was under my nose the entire time.

  “It’s time to finish this, Spenser,” Dad announces.

  Ignoring him, I look up and down the beach.

  The cloud of despair that I’ve existed under for over twenty years lifts, lighting up my mind’s eye and exposing the truth I’ve hidden from for too long.

  For her, the tiny girl with the strong grip, I was always worthy.

  She trusted me more than anyone else in her life.

  It’s strange to have happy memories in my head.

  Squinting in the dark, I can almost picture us as kids. Me, tall and lanky. Her, petite and cute. I see her as she was back then. Her freckles. Her soft hands. Her unconditional trust. Her easy acceptance of my silence and my quirks. She was the only bright spot in my life back then. It makes sense that she’s my deliverance in the present.

  She was the last person I touched before my uncle stole the ability to connect with other people from me. It’s only right that she’s the first person to touch me since then without the flames of my personal hell burning me alive.

  “It’ll be easier if you don’t fight.” Dad interrupts my wondrous reverie with his curt directive. Moving into my field of vision, he holds his hands out and orders, “Stay still.”

  I roll my eyes. He’s dreaming if I’m going to make this conversation easy for him. Sure, he’s done a good thing for once by pushing me toward her and dropping his little hints along the way to speed up our reconnection, but one decent act doesn’t absolve him of his sins.

  “Son, please—”

  The waves roll and crash, drowning out my father’s next demand. Hearing the water break against the sand would be soothing if I wasn’t beginning to stiffen with alarm as I’m circled by a group of men who are dressed the same as I am. My father steps closer and Eli follows him. After I examine the faces of the men I can see, my nerves ratchet up to eleven. I don’t recognize anyone, except for my dad and Poppy’s brother. This group isn’t part of the mercenaries the Coalition normally hires when they need a show of firepower. They don’t appear to belong to the Samaritan’s Soldiers MC either.

  Betrayal winds its way up my spine.

  This ambush isn’t to talk sense into me about the past—to make me remember who she is to me.

  No, this is the end.

  “Is this it?” Ignoring Eli as he moves forward, I direct my question at my father. Shaking my head when Dad doesn’t answer, I snarl, “This is how it ends? You fucking pussy... can’t even take me down without an army.”

  “It has to be done this way,” Dad replies. “It’s the only way I can stop him.”

  “As usual, your pathetic excuses make no sense.” I spit on his boots once he’s in front of me. The burn beneath my skin flares as he gets too close. Rather than acknowledge me himself, he looks over my shoulder and inclines his head once.

  “Fuck you—”

  My curse is abruptly cut off when I’m bashed over the head from behind. After I sink to my knees on the sand, someone places their boot between my shoulder blades and shoves me onto my stomach. I suck grains of sand up my nose. Turning my head to the side, I cough. Before I regain my breath, my arms are dragged behind my back, and my wrists are bound together with a zip tie.

  Visions of Stirling and my cat invade my head. The sound of Poppy giggling at the movie we watched last night rings in my ears. I’m struck on the head again, and this time, the impact steals my consciousness until the last thing I see as the world grows black, is the treacherous snake that I’m unlucky enough to call Dad kneeling down to stroke my cheek.

  His gentle touch is followed by a sharp pinch in my neck.

  “It’s almost over, son.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” ~Søren Kierkegaard~

  POPPY

  “Jesus Christ, Poppy!” Bella yells at me when we come into view. She screams when one of Harrison’s henchmen twists her obviously broken arm. Dropping to her knees, she pleads, “Turn around. Go.”

  Shaking my head, I blink away the tears well as I catalog the injuries I can see. They’ve beaten the shit out her because she’s one of us. A lust for revenge infiltrates my blood and I raise my eyes from my battered best friend to meet the gaze of the man who’s lived inside my nightmares for twenty years. Harrison grins wide when he sees me. My legs wobble, but I manage to remain upright as I swallow my pride and silently beg my knees not to give out. Spenser’s mom must notice how unsteady I am because she threads her arm through mine and pulls me against her.

  “Let her go,” Sophia demands. Her voice echoes off the walls of the old church. The sound sends a shiver through me. I can’t believe that I’m back here. “We’ve honored our side of the deal. Sabella is free.”

  Holding his hand in the air to silence her, Harrison snaps, “No. One of them is missing.”

  “Where’s Spenser,” I whisper to my mom who stands on the other side of me. It a question that’s been plaguing me since we arrived at the designated exchange point, and I noticed that one of the vans in our convoy was missing. “Has he changed his mind?”

  Mom doesn’t reply and neithe
r does Sophia. They don’t have to since the sound of something heavy brushing against the floor of the chapel has us all turning around to face the double doors. As the group of men clustered behind us part, I realized that the noise I’m hearing is from a man’s knees dragging against the concrete floor as he’s carried inside.

  As they come into view, I bite down on my lip.

  It’s Spenser.

  I can’t stop the strangled cry that leaves my throat when I discover he’s unconscious. Blood runs down his face. Searching him, I decide that it’s coming from the wound above his right ear. Inspecting him as closely as I can, I allow myself to breathe again when I can’t see any other injuries.

  As they proceed toward us, Spenser’s chin bounces off his chest. The knees of his black pants are dusty and sand sticks to the front of his shirt. The strength that normally radiates from him is gone. All I can see is the little boy he was before his life was sent shattered by the hands of his uncle.

  I curse under my breath when I see that my brother, Eli, and Spenser’s dad are the ones carrying him. They haul him over to the guard’s standing at Harrison’s side, then drag him over to Harrison after the guard has checked him for weapons. Spenser’s uncle touches his forehead, lifting his dark locks of his sweaty brow, as his nephew sags in the grasp of the evil men who work for him. I slump forward at the waist, pain spearing me in the chest when I see Harrison’s fingers brushing against Spenser’s pale skin.

  “Make him stop,” I plead with Zoran when he comes to stand in front of me.

  “It won’t be for long,” Spenser’s father leans close and whispers in my ear. When he brushes against my arm, I jerk away from his touch, unable to keep my feelings about him from surfacing. The harsh intake of breath I hear catch in his throat lifts my flagging belief in this convoluted plot. He’s affected by what he’s witnessing, he simply hides it better than me. “I’ve done my best to avoid it, but my boy will need your help if he wakes up before we can get you back.”