Page 35 of Vengeful Rotten Casualties

“I want you to invite your father to one of your games,” I say. “What I plan to do then is none of your concern. Plausible deniability. I just need you to be bait. After that, you can close your eyes and pretend you know nothing. If you can get him to your next football game then your role in this will have been served.”

“What makes you think he’d come?” Dash asks. “Whenever he’s showed up in the past, I’ve ignored the fucker.”

I inhale and release a slow breath. “Men like Bennington are all about image,” I remind him, “and about power. If you invite him, he’ll wonder why. He’ll come.” I pause and look at Dean. “To be safe, though, your father should also come. It will serve as an enticement for him.”

Dean nods. “I can make that happen,” he agrees gruffly.

“You don’t have to worry about him,” Abel says to Dash, reaching out. He hovers his hand over his friend’s arm briefly but it isn’t until Rylie reaches out and puts hers on top that he actually touches him. “He won’t get near you once she gets him in place.”

Dash shakes his head. “I don’t know what you’re planning to do,” he says, “but don’t think he’ll be easy for you. He’s a massive fucker and when he gets angry…”

Unfortunately, I’m all too aware of Andrew Bennington’s anger and what happens when it’s unleashed. I move my shoulders restlessly at the memory. I can feel the near white scars against my sides and back stretch and shift as I clench and unclench my muscles.

“You’ll just have to trust me to know what I’m doing, Dash,” I say calmly, forcing myself to stop. “I can assure you that your father is not the first pervert I’ve handled and he won’t be the last. After I’m done, you won’t have anything to worry about.”

“Yeah, right.” Dash snorts.

I settle my elbows on my knees and move to the edge of my seat. “People disappear all the time,” I say quietly. “Every day, strangers go missing and the number of cold cases police have been unable and incapable of solving are too many to name. Andrew Bennington is just a man.”

A man who’d been determined to break every sexual partner he’d ever deemed as less than human. A man who’d fucked me raw and left me bleeding and sobbing into a barren mattress more than once. A man who deserved every righteous revenge I was about to enact on him.

“Fuck you.” Dash’s words aren’t unexpected. They’re a child’s defense mechanism. He spits it and lifts his head to glare at me as he shakes off Rylie and Abel’s hands. Next to me, Luc stiffens. He reaches over and sets his crystal glass on a nearby table, getting ready, no doubt, to jump to my defense if needed.

I put a hand out to stop him and meet Dash’s gaze.

“I know it doesn’t seem that way to you,” I tell him honestly. A parent’s torture is far different from that of a stranger. Andrew had been a client—a mean one. For Dash, though, he’d been a father. Someone who was supposed to protect and teach, not maim and traumatize. “I know you probably told yourself that there was no way he could be your father, that you probably had a paternity test done”—he stiffens at that which only tells me I’m right. Once again he glances at Rylie. I realize he must have asked for her help at some point in the past. She probably knows more than anyone else here aside from him and I.

I ignore his diverted attention and continue. “I bet it doesn’t matter what the results said, you still couldn’t really believe it. I know you probably tried to convince yourself that everything he did to you was somehow because of something you did. That you had done wrong but at the end of the day, there are just some things that happen because we’re in the way. Because we’re innocent and vulnerable and easy targets. You were easy for him to get access to. He never saw you as human, much less as his son. That’s not your fault. That’s on him.”

Dash is quiet as my words sink in. “What are you going to do about him?” he asks.

I don’t lie to him. It wouldn’t be fair and it wouldn’t matter if I did because Dash would see right through it. Anyone in his position would. “I’m going to make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone else ever again,” I tell him. “He’s going to pay for what he did to you and for what he did to me and countless others. And at the end of it all, you’re going to take his place as head of the Bennington family, and you’ll grow up stronger and better than he ever could have been.”

The tension in the room is palpable. The eyes on me are sharp and almost angry. After several beats, Dash replies. “I could have killed him.” The words are barely above a whisper.

I consider them seriously. “Do you want to?”

His answer is several long minutes of silence followed by an even quieter, “No.”

“Okay.” I nod my head. “You don’t have to. All you need to do is know that he won’t be a problem for anyone anymore.”

“How do I know you won’t use this to blackmail me later?” he demands.

It’s a valid question. Children of the elite grow up being taught not to trust anyone. Dean leans forward, though, answering in my stead. “Do you really think we’d let any-fucking-body in here that we didn’t trust?” he asks. “If she even tries, I’ll kill her myself, man.”

Luc stiffens and a low growl erupts from his throat. I reach out and put a hand on his arm. He looks at me and I shake my head. “I promise, Dash,” I say, drawing the attention back to me as his eyes find mine once more. “I want nothing from you aside from help. If it makes you feel better, I’m more culpable of this than you are. I will ensure that your name never even comes up in the death of your father.”

“Death?” he inhales sharply. “You?”

My lips twitch. Oh, how men of all ages underestimate me. “Yes,” I say, “and again, if it makes you feel better, you should know, he’s not my first target and also not my last.”

Dash lowers his head until his expression is completely cut off from my gaze. His elbows rest on his knees and his hands dangle between his legs. His hair flops over the front of his forehead, completely shadowing his face.

My hands tremble with the effort it takes not to reach for him. I want to feel him. Touch him. I want him to know that he’s not alone. Because if anyone understands that even in a group of friends, you can still feel so incredibly fucking desolate, it’s me.

“You’ll kill him then?” The hoarse whisper escapes Dash. Almost as if he’s afraid to say the words themselves. Afraid to hope for them.

I lean forward. “Andrew Bennington is nameless and faceless to me,” I tell him. “He’s nothing but a target on a list for me and that’s all he ever needs to be. Giving him anything more than that gives him power, power he never deserved.”

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