He holds my gaze. “You’ll be safe. And by signing this, you can keep Bruiser safe. If you don’t, Senior won’t stop until he’s found a way around that clause to secure the mountain property for his line.”
Caleb makes a noise. I don’t look at him. I don’t have to. I know he’s not going to stop me whatever I choose, because he just took that step back and he meant it.
“Then why hasn’t Silas signed it already?” I ask. “I need to speak to my father.”
Something crosses Z’s face. “That’s not possible right now.”
“Why the fuck not?”
He exhales. “Because he got out of prison two days ago and disappeared. We couldn’t track him before he was gone and believe me we tried.”
“Bullshit you couldn’t track him,” I bark. Now my mind’s spinning in a whole different direction. The punches just don’t stop coming, do they?
“Harp, I swear.” Z looks genuinely wrecked by this. “I don’t know where he is.”
Do I believe him?Maybe. Silas Tucker has been three moves ahead of everyone in every room he’s ever been in.
And hewasclose to parole. But the MC had ties in the prison. If they let him out, could he really have slipped through their net? They would have been watching his every move.
I guess if anyone could have snuck past them, it would be Silas.
My whole life he tried to protect me by running the game from somewhere off screen because that’s how he thinks protection works—i.e., keeping me in the dark. He stayed in theshadows of my life all during my growing up, and I only realized later it was how he was trying to keep me safe.
From all this?
I sigh, hating that I get it now.
I would do anything to keep Bruiser safe. Anything.
Jesus, he doesn’t even know Z isn’t his real father yet, and that Calebis. I clearly learned it from Silas, who might’ve learned it from this crazy mountain family. The people who love you the most can sometimes be the most dangerous and ruinous to you.
I am going to have averylong conversation with my father when I find him.
I step close enough that Z can see my face clearly.
“Was it you?” I ask.
He goes still.
“The weed in my locker.” I watch his face. “Silas went back to prison for it. I’ve been carrying that guilt since I was just a teenager, thinking if I just hadn’t pissed McKenzie off, none of this woulda happened.”
My voice doesn’t shake. I’m amazed it doesn’t. “I need to know if it was you.”
Z’s whole body language changes.
Not going defensive. Or calculating. There’s just that specific collapse of a structure that has been holding itself up by sheer stubbornness and finally, finally cannot anymore.
He looks at the ground.
Then his eyes flick back up at me.
His voice, when it comes, is barely a sound.
“Yes.”
One word.
One syllable.