Page 18 of In the Midst of Chaos

“Finley—” he started to say even though I knew it cost him to talk.

“I wasn’t going to hurt my own daughter,” my dad spat. He looked at me and threw a knife by my feet. “Make sure he doesn’t bleed out.”

And at that moment, I knew he let Nash get bit so he could teach him a lesson. My dad walked out without looking back, the dogs following behind him. Meanwhile, I finished letting myself loose with the knife.

Nash was on the floor, shirtless, when I turned to look at him. He had his shirt wrapped around his arm, blood everywhere.

“Here, let me tie it,” I said as I grabbed the blindfold and tied it where I had seen the bite.

Nash gave me a small smile, and he still had it in him to tease me. “Are you going to kiss my booboo?”

I glared at him. When I was four, I hated to see him get hurt, so every time he had scrapes, I would kiss them thinking I was magically healing him.

“God, Nash,” I whispered, freaked out of my mind because of all the blood. “Why did you do that?”

Nash looked at me, and I could see he was offended by my question. His eyebrows rose, and his eyes flashed.

He didn’t hang around me and Hux that much anymore because he was a teenager now or whatever that meant. Mom said it was because he wasn’t into kiddie games anymore. I couldn’t say Huxley and I were into those things either.

“Because you’re—”

But before he could finish his sentence, he passed out.

* * *

I always wonderedwhat he was going to say. It wasn’t the first time Nash tried to protect me, but it was the last time he looked at me so unguarded.

“Shit, Finnegan, I don’t know how the hell you can stand to sit up here,” Duncan said as he held on to the frame and climbed out of my window.

There was a bit of a flat space before the roof formed a cone.

“I don’t think about the fall, and that makes it easier.”

He looked at me like I was crazy.

“Your dad fucked you up,” he mumbled.

I cut him with a glare.

“Like Axton didn’t do the same.”

“Yeah, but your dad took it too far.”

Duncan was agitating me, as did Huxley, whenever they talked about my father. They made it seem like he’d mistreated me.

I hugged my knees to my chest and continued to stare at the horizon.

“My dad didn’t raise me to be a damsel. He raised me to run our empire.”

Duncan didn’t speak more, and I was okay with it. We had the board meeting today, and I was a little worried about how the vote would go. Since Riley didn’t show her face here this morning, I imagined she would make a grand entrance. So like her to want attention.

“Get out,” I told Duncan after we climbed back into my room. “I got to get ready.”

He smirked at me. “Is that an invite?”

“Can-Can, who held your hand after Axton spanked the shit out of you because you threw a brick of coke in the lake?”

He walked backward, flicking me off with both hands until he got to the door. I smiled warmly at him.

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