Page 143 of On the Double

“Do you think this is the way I always was?” He tossed his head back and laughed. “I used to be like you. I used to think I would never raise my hand to a woman or my kid. Well, guess what? Your mother kept pushing and pushing. She just couldn’t keep her fucking mouth shut. She knew one day she would push me too far. She made me the fucking monster I am today!”

I backed away from him, picking up my backpack. “I’ll never fucking be like you. I won’t give myself the opportunity.”

I sucked in a ragged breath, only realizing the room had cleared outwhen I saw Lock staring at me from his seat. Fuck, he saw too much. I didn’t have to say a word. He already knew the shit that was running through my head.

“Don’t do it,” he warned.

“I have to.”

“No, you fucking don’t,” he snapped, getting to his feet. “You could have the life you want.”

“I have the life I want.”

“No, you have the life you think you deserve.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but he was right. I was deliberately holding back from having more with Harper. And it was for good reason.

“Lock, you have no idea what I’m capable of.”

“Yes, I do. I fucking work with you.”

“I’ll only hurt her,” I said, clenching my fist tight as I pushed to my feet. “My old man?—”

“You’re not your old man.”

“He’s in me!” I said, spinning around to face Lock. “What he did—I have that in me!”

“You do not. You could never take a life like he did.”

I leaned back and laughed at the absurdity of it all. “I already did.”

He stilled at my words, shaking his head slightly. “No, I know you.”

“Youthinkyou know me. You think I don’t have the ability to kill someone the way he did.”

For the first time, I saw doubt in Lock’s eyes. He wasn’t entirely sure he was right. Because he wasn’t.

“The night he killed my mom, I fucking bashed in his head.”

Lock’s eyes flicked to the doorway. I already knew nobody was there. He wasn’t concerned about me losing my shit on anyone and he wasn’t afraid of me. He was worried someone might hear me confess my deepest, darkest secrets.

“I walked in on him leaning over my mother after he stabbed her death, and I lost my shit. I didn’t even care. I grabbed the closest thing and I bashed in his head. I watched as blood pooled on the ground,and then…and then I realized what I’d done. And do you know what I did next?”

“Edu—”

“I wiped my prints and ran from the house. I fucking ran.”

“You were protecting?—”

“No one,” I cut in. “She was already dead. There was no one to protect. It wasn’t about her or anyone else. I was just tired of his shit. I didn’t want to be hit anymore, and I didn’t want to let him live to do it to someone else. So, I fucking took him out.”

“You were a kid.”

I scoffed at his attempt at letting me off the hook. “I had already enlisted in the military, Lock. I was old enough to know better.”

He sighed, hanging his head. He wanted to excuse away what I had done, but the truth was, there was nothing anyone could say that would make me feel like I hadn’t lost a piece of myself that day and become more like my father.

“I can’t do it.”

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