Page 84 of Cruel Lies

A heavy silence fell over our group, and Rowan returned to brooding sullenly. Nash still staunchly ignored the elephant in the room and leaned back, his eyes on the ceiling as he laced his fingers together behind his head.

"Sure seemed that way from the bullshit on the bridge."

Harper refused to even so much as glance in his direction, and I watched as she flinched and folded further in on herself, like a wounded bird.

What happened to the fiery harpy? The fierce lioness who’d been giving my brother shit since the moment she walked in?

I couldn’t tell what had turned her actions in on themselves so rapidly, but I was determined not to let it affect me. In another day, she’d demand to go home to her normal life, and we’d have to let her.

After all, there was no reason for him to want her dead if the time on the inheritance clock ran out.

"Fighting amongst each other isn’t going to solve anything. What we need is a plan?—"

Nash chuckled darkly. "Fuck your plans, and frankly, fuck you, too, Ro. I’m done making plans. Last few times I made plansfor the future, they all went down the drain." He motioned to his face, then at Harper, and finally, around the room. "I planned on having a normal life with a normal girl. Turned out she was a psycho." His eyes were dark and humorless as he pointed out a problem that had never been his failing, turning it into his own fault. "I planned on never seeing Harper again, andsurprise,she’s not really dead." He stuck his nose in the air and rolled his fucking eyes like a child. "And I planned to live out my days somewhere where I didn’t have to worry about my face making me unemployable or ostracized, and now we’re talking about that ending, too. Why the fuck did we even stop her from killing us on the bridge the other day? I shoulda jumped in that fucking water with her seven years ago, for all the good life’s brought me since."

"It’s all Father’s doing," I muttered, but no one was listening to me anymore. Harper stood and marched off toward the kitchen, and I could feel the other two holding their breath in her absence, waiting to see if she’d come back or not.

The sound of our front door slamming sent a chill through me.

The three of us all locked eyes, a mutual understanding passing through us at the realization that she’d left the rooms—unaccompanied, no less—and what that meant for us.

And then Nash sprang into action, bolting from the table to follow her out the door to gods knew where.

Rowan’s eyes held mine for a long moment, and neither of us moved. "Do you think we should follow them?"

"No," I replied, remembering how she flinched at his words, how he looked like he hated them even as they spilled from his lips. "They’ve gotta work their own shit out."

"There’s too much there to work out in a day."

The nod I gave in understanding went unnoticed. For the first time in a long time, my brother seemed . . . distracted. Ihadn’t seen him stare off into space like this since our high school years.

Something was up.

"You look like you’ve got a lot on your mind, Rowan. Feel like sharing with the rest of the class?"

His lips drew into a taut line. "Not in particular, no."

"No to the first half, or no to the sharing bit?"

"Both."

"Fine," I replied loftily, rising from my chair. "I’ll just go find something else to occupy my time with."

One, two, three, four, five . . .

I counted my steps to the door, and just as my hand fell on the handle?—

"Okay, okay, you win. Sit down and we can talk."

He knew me so well.

"So," he began, his hands tightening into fists atop the table, "I paid a visit to our father."

It made sense. After all, where else would he have gone and not returned until the wee hours of the morning without telling us? Rowan didn’t like the idea of either myself or Nash being in the vicinity of that man any more than we wanted to be there. So far, he’d been our front man, heading off our lifelong abuser by standing for all of us when summoned to the manor. But he only hid that from us this time because he had to have known we’d likely insist on going with him. And in Nash’s mental state, there would have been hell to pay for letting us tag along.

"And?"

Sunlight cast a long shadow over his face from the window on the far wall, the setting sun bathing the room in an orange glow around us. "And he’s definitely behind the contract. I told him we had no intention of completing it, and he threatened—well, he made some threats I don’t think are all that empty."

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