Page 104 of Cruel Lies

Hell, I could even start to see the black roots of Angel’s bleached-blonde hair poking through.

Fuck you, asshole. I thought we were a team.

He’d done his best to distance himself from the two of us,and Nash, well, he was the same as always—drinking himself stupid every night, smoking like a train every day when he got up. The whole place stunk of stale smoke and desperation. Nothing would bring it out. Not unless we all changed drastically.

And our only reason to change was gone forever.

My phone rang again, and I was surprised to see my father’s name on the screen for a change. I almost didn’t answer it, but a small part of me wanted to lord it over him that he’d lost. That he’d never get Harper’s mom’s money. That he’d tried to beat me and lost.

"The fuck could you possibly want from me, old man?"

His low chuckle echoed on the other end of the line, and it sent a shiver down my spine. I knew that laugh. It was the same one he let loose every time he took off his belt to beat the shit out of one of us. It usually preceded pain.

And I’d had enough of pain to last a lifetime.

"Rowan, boy, is that any way to greet the man who holds your whole life in his hands?"

I wasn’t in the mood to banter back and forth in some fucked up power game with him. "What the fuck do you want, Father?"

"Well, I was hoping I could talk to you and your . . . brothers . . . in person. All at once. I’d like to give you a little gift, as it were. I did make a promise, and I intend to deliver." He paused as I mulled it over, letting out a little clicking noise as he sucked the inside of his cheek. "Not a lot of time to decide, Rowan. It’s either all of you or none of you. I’m not budging on that."

I winced as I debated whether or not to drag the other two into this. "I’m not subjecting my brothers to your torment."

"Now, Rowan, I wouldn’t expect you to trust me, but I will keep things civil where your brothers are concerned. But I don’t think you’ll wanna miss this meeting. There’s someone very important at the center of it."

Harper.

"I swear to all that’s holy, and all that’s not, I will kill you where you stand if you’ve hurt her."

"Oh, come on, Rowan. I’m despicable, but I’m not a murderer."

"No. You’re not. You’ve always had other people do your dirty work where that’s concerned."

"I have not harmed a hair on Harper’s fucking head yet. Happy?"

I frowned at his vague and empty words. There was more behind them than I could parse out over the phone. I needed to see him in person to tell what he had up his sleeve.

There was no other choice.

"When and where?"

"My house. Thirty minutes."

The line went dead, leaving me scrambling to convince the others to face their abuser with me.

We arrivedat his house in slightly better shape than we’d been up to now, looking more like half-asleep, overworked men than strung-out street people. I considered that a win.

Father’s crew met us at the gate with grins as wide as the fucking desert, and that concerned me more than it should. These fuckers never smiled, not in all the years I’d known them.

Something was up, and I didn’t like it.

Immediately I was on high alert, mapping out the grounds as we parked the Torino by the door, careful to leave the doors unlocked in case we needed to get away from here fast. I shared a silent look with the others, none of us needing words to know that this was a lion’s den, and we were walking in basically unarmed.

Scratch that. Completely unarmed.The men at the door waved their little metal-detecting wands over us and removedour weapons, the simple knives we carried with us everywhere, with unbridled glee.

Father sat behind his desk, his lips curled into a smile I remembered from the times he thought he’d won a battle with us as teenagers.

"Ah, look, if it isn’t the three greatest failures of my life. The ruiners of my best-laid, longest-running plans. Idiots who couldn’t even kill a single girl."

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