Page 75 of The Inquirer

“You think your parents would go to all that trouble just so you won’t badmouth people who lived a couple hundred years ago.”

“More like they’re worried that we can prove they not only know what their ancestors did but that they’re still covering it up, which means they could lose a lot of money,” Nyx said. “Pride is a nice motive by itself, but if you add in money…pretty bad combination if you ask me.”

“It is,” Maury agreed. “I’m guessin’ that means you’re sure it’s your parents behind what happened at the ranch.”

“I’d be surprised if it wasn’t.” I sighed. “But you know as well as I do that it’ll be almost impossible to get enough evidence to arrest them, let alone convict them.”

“And you think I can help you.”

“We want to confront my father, and we need you to help us figure out a way we can do it and use whatever we get in court.”

Maury let out a low whistle. “You’re going to help send your dad to prison?”

“If I have to,” I said. “I’m hopin’ that we can get somethin’ bad enough that he won’t be able to just talk his way out of it. He’ll have to bargain at the very least.”

While Maury thought, I turned my attention to the food on my plate.

I hated that it’d come to this. I’d never thought of my parents as being ‘good people.’ Yeah, they donated to a few worthy causes, like St. Jude’s and the American Red Cross, but they also gave money to the Daughters of the Confederacy, though that was one they tended to keep under the radar.

They gave money to politicians who said all the right things and smiled in all the right places, but who had some of the darkest shit to hide. So, decent had probably been the best I could’ve given either of them. Even after I was disinherited, it hadn’t made me think they were bad.

But I’d never thought they’d cross the line into flat-out actively illegal shit. Covering stuff up was illegal, but it wasn’t violent. Didn’t make it right, but actually sending people out to vandalize and harass innocents? If it’d just been me, I wouldn’t have been as pissed, but Shadae and Brew? Nyx?

Hell no.

It didn’t matter if my parents weren’t actually getting their hands dirty. I was done just digging and sharing. Reaction was done. I was going on the offensive. I’d use my family name as a platform for change.

Starting with making my father accountable for everything he’d done, but it wouldn’t end there. It was time to be proactive.

Thirty-One

Nyx

It’d taken me until after midnight to get the cabin cleaned up since I hadn’t done any of it before Bradyn and I had gone to meet with his cop buddy. At least I knew now that Maury was a good guy. Bradyn wouldn’t have gotten Maury involved in this mess otherwise.

I couldn’t lie. Part of the reason I’d put off cleaning until after we’d gotten back to the ranch was because I’d wanted an excuse to not sleep with Bradyn. He wouldn’t have taken it badly if I’d turned him down, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t strong enough to say no. I didn’t think there was a strong enough word to explain how much I wanted to be with him.

Which meant I needed to take a step back and remind myself that I was a whole person, even without him. I could never let myself become like my mom, needing a man so bad that she’d ignore anything that threatened it.

It had nothing to do with being nervous at what Bradyn and I were trying to do. Nothing at all. It wasn’t as if the last time I’d confronted someone with the shit they’d done, I hadn’t been believed. Nope. Not that at all.

“You don’t have to come with me,” Bradyn said as we got into his truck. “I can do this myself.”

“Not a chance.” I reached over and squeezed his hand. “My case is a big part of why this happened, and I’m not going to let anyone scare me away.”

“I hate that my family’s so deep into this.” He started down the driveway. “Not just the vandalism or even the hiding stuff. It all comes down to that whole ‘the South will rise again’ shit. Did you know there are a lot of schools down here that teach the Civil War had nothing to do with slaves? That all the poor plantation owners wanted was states’ rights?” He shook his head. “Like it doesn’t matter that those ‘rights’ they’re talking about violated basic human rights.”

“You sound like you’ve had this argument before,” I said.

I wasn’t sure it was a good idea for us to be talking about his fucked-up family when we were on our way to meet the fucked-up head of the fucked-up family, but hey, this was harder for Bradyn than it was for me, so I’d talk about almost anything he wanted.

“I’ve had that argument a million times, for all the good it did.” He sighed. “I just get so tired of it, you know? We’re in the twenty-first century. You’d think people were more…I don’t know…enlightened or something.”

“Enlightened. There’s a ten-dollar word,” I teased.

He smiled but didn’t laugh. That, as much as the little lines at the corner of his mouth told me he wouldn’t be finding much funny until all this was done. Or maybe nothing about his family would ever be funny.

Shit.

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