“I’m not,” Sev snaps. “I’m giving it to him. So he can talk to our fucking mother and tell her why the Rebel Kings just scooped up Dad and chucked him in the back of a van. Merry Christmas.”
He spins around and storms off. A second later, the front door opens and slams, leaving me with an open line to my mum.
No.
I hang up and scramble from the bed—Jack’sbed—and start after my brother before my heart yanks me back to where Jack is already up and reaching for a t-shirt.
For me.
He pulls it over my head and steers me to the door. “Go. I’m behind you.”
Visceral pain rips my heart in two. It almost buckles me, but somehow I thread my arms into the shirt and chase Sev downstairs and out of the Joker.
He hasn’t gone far. He’s smoking in the back garden, glaring at the sky. “Sorry,” he says as I approach. “I’m just so fucking sick of this.”
“What happened?”
“What I said. Dad snuck out to a card game last night and they caught him on the way back. Probably killed him, eh? Not sure I give a fuck.”
“You don’t mean that.”
Sev grunts and I feel it in every fibre of me that isn’t already charred and broken.
I need to call Lisa back.
But it’s not her I dial as I jab the phone in my hand.
I call Cam O’Brian while Sev smokes.
He doesn’t answer.
So I call River. I call Folk Whitlock. But no one picks up until I reach Saint Malone.
More silence taunts me. I growl as if I’ve morphed into Jack. “Where’s my dad? You fuckingpromisedyou wouldn’t hurt him.”
At that, Sev’s head jerks up. I turn from him only to face Jack as he emerges from the Joker, carrying my boots, a thick jumper, and the same flat expression I left him with.
I told him.
And now my whole being screams at me to reach for him. But rustling on the line turns into a heavy sigh, and then a throaty, feminine voice a world away from any Rebel King man I’ve ever known. “Sol?”
Damn. I know that voice and it’s almost as dangerous as her brother’s. “Orla?”
“The very same. What do you need to know?”
“Where’s my dad?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did they hurt him?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’ll check again for you.” Orla O’Brian says something to whoever she’s with. Then she’s back. “It was an intervention, not an ambush. Dav’s on his way to rehab.”
“Rehab?”