Page 63 of Black Hearts
My father? I’d only turned on him because of his lies. Because he was a sick, twisted man who had done nothing but lie to me my whole life. A serial killer. A man who wanted me to take the place of my own mother. You didn’t get much more disturbed than that.
But if my father wasn’t that man, if he wasn’t a killer and still fed me lies… I couldn’t say that I would’ve turned against him. I’d still blindly follow him wherever he led me, as sad as it was.
So, yeah, as much as I hurt to think about that day, I understood why Markus didn’t immediately go against his father. He needed some time to work up to it. Thankfully, he wasn’t alone in this fight. He had Jaxon, Will, Bennet, and Theo, and they’d all done their best to help by saving me. Markus wasn’t in this alone. If he was, I’d be dead.
Theo was quiet for a while after that, but the next time the silence was broken, he did it by asking: “You’re aware one of the Scotts is chasing after your father? He’s on his trail. From what I hear, your father is acting very erratic and unpredictable, making him harder to track.”
Plus he had a head start. Couldn’t forget that. He’d stabbed me, left me to die, and ran.
“I know” was all I could say.
“You know what will happen if he’s caught, don’t you?”
I shut my eyes, picturing that basement, those cold, sterile tiles. The chairs that sat in the center of each cell block. Those big, square windows that allowed anyone in the hall to see inside. How the air was so cold, no matter how hard you tried to warm yourself up. That basement was a terror, a nightmare I wouldn’t wish upon anyone, and yet…
That’s what would happen to my father, to the man I used to revere above all else.
Again, all I could whisper was, “I know.”
“Are you all right with that?”
I hugged myself closer to the side of Theo’s body. Honestly, I didn’t know if I would ever be all right with any of this. The fact that this family was a family of killers—it was easier for me to not think about it too much. I wasn’t like them. I would never be like them. Killing was wrong; I knew that in my soul.
That didn’t stop me from loving them, though.
Could I ever say, confidently, that I would be okay with them killing my father? Odds were they’d take their time in hurting him, first, torturing him before finally ending his life in that cold, bleak basement. The old me wanted to say that I wouldn’t stand idly by and let them, that I wasn’t okay with that, but my silence spoke volumes.
Though the old me hadn’t completely disappeared, I wasn’t that girl anymore. The things I’d seen, what I’d learned, what I’d been forced to live through—nearly dying at the hands of my father, the man I thought loved me more than anything in this world…
“I think,” I started, and then I paused. “I don’t know what I think. If it wasn’t for Jaxon and Will and Bennet, I’d be dead. He would’ve killed me. It’s hard to not want him to meet the same fate.” My stomach churned at the thought. “Does that make me a bad person if I just don’t care?” I angled my head up to look at Theo’s face.
“No.” There was no ounce of hesitation in him, and he went on, “It doesn’t make you a bad person, Juliet. It makes you human. It’s natural for us to want the ones who hurt us to hurt. Sometimes it’s hard to admit that this world would be better off without certain individuals in it. But then… if Fred didn’t exist, neither would you.”
I knew what he meant, but still. All those other girls who’d lost their lives to my father; my life wasn’t worth the added sum of theirs. If I had to choose between being born and my father never existing, I’d choose the latter if it meant all those girls, including my mother, would be alive.
“I don’t want to be like him,” I whispered against his shirt. Really, I didn’t want to be like any of them. Not Markus, not Jaxon, not Will or Bennet. That was an integral part of me I refused to give up. I hoped, when things calmed down, when we got into a routine, that the guys didn’t try to push me on it.
I would never be a killer.
“You won’t,” Theo reassured me, and his other arm draped over his chest so his other hand could get to me. The one tracing circles on my back held onto me, while the other weaved through my hair. “I always knew you were stronger than anyone gave you credit for. Choosing to remain true to yourself is sometimes one of the hardest things about living.”
There might’ve been a time when I would’ve laughed at him or asked him what he meant, but after everything, I knew precisely what he meant. The things life threw at you… sometimes they weren’t pleasant. Sometimes you were knocked off your feet. Stabbed and left for dead by your own father, and there was nothing you could do to stop or change it. The only thing you could control was how you reacted, what kind of life you lived after the dust settled.
I’d changed, yes. I wasn’t the same frightened little girl I was at the start of this. But I wouldn’t change who I was. I would still be me.
I didn’t know how long Theo and I lay like that, but it was a while. Neither of us dared to move, drowning in the steady, warm comfort the other brought. I never wanted to move, but eventually, we’d be forced to. One of us would have to use the bathroom, or it would be lunchtime.
Although, frankly, I’d eaten breakfast, but lunch? Not sure if I could stomach eating so close to our return to the house. Confronting Markus’s father. I didn’t know how that would go, but I knew better than to have expectations.
Jaxon walked into the room after a while, wiping his face with a towel. He wore only his workout shorts, meaning he’d worked out this whole time, and the dampness on his body and in his hair was probably sweat. His green eyes took Theo and me in. “Look at you two, all cozy.” He went to sit on the edge of the bed, running the towel through his hair.
“Do you want something, Jaxon?” Theo asked, not moving a muscle. The arm he had around my back remained, same with the hand tangled in my hair. I didn’t want to move, either. I liked being nestled against him.
“No, no. Just checking on my girl.” He grinned, his eyes falling to me. “Or, I guess, our girl. Still feels weird saying that. I mean, I grew up seeing Ed, Lincoln, and Killian with Stella, but I never thought—”
Right then, Bennet walked into the room, asking, “What about Travis? He’s always shared his girls from what I hear. Still does.” He also had a towel; he and Jaxon must’ve just finished working out. Unlike Jaxon, though, he wore a shirt, and it clung to his muscular, tattooed body with the added sweat. Not bad to look at. “And even Vaughn.” He meandered around the bed, sitting at the foot of it, on the opposite side Jaxon sat on.
Jaxon thought about it. “You’re right. This shit runs in the family. I blame you guys.”
