Page 8 of Rampant

“I’ll call you after my meeting ends.” He reached for the door.

“Adam,” I said, sitting up straighter. “Where the fuck is Dad?”

“I don’t think now is the time…” He swallowed hard.

“Just tell me. Is he sick? Out of state on business? What the fuck is going on?”

“Dad passed a year ago.” His voice was so soft and low, it took a few seconds for those words to penetrate. Strength fled my body, and I sank into the pillows. A lump formed in my throat, preventing me from speaking. Something foreign burned behind my eyes. Tears. Grief. I never cried. Crying was a weakness. Crying was for pansies.

Adam dropped his head, one hand on the open door. “Rafe? Did you hear what I said?”

Through my blurry vision, I saw a nurse move past in the hall. “How did it happen?” I didn’t recognize the thick quality of my voice.

“Cancer.”

I thought back to all the years I’d seen a cigarette dangling from Dad’s mouth, all the times Adam and I tried to convince him to give up the habit. “He never quit, did he?”

“He was the definition of stubborn,” Adam said, shaking his head.

“Did he suffer?” I knew it was a ridiculous question, but I had to hear it.

My brother lifted his eyes, so like my own, and the weight of his sorrow crushed me. “You know Dad. He fought with everything he had.”

“Did we get to say goodbye?” The thought of him passing alone was too much, and I swallowed hard before clearing my throat. “Was he at peace with it?”

Again, Adam and Jax traded a glance. My brother nodded. “Yeah.”

Jax scowled. “Don’t lie to him. Not about this.”

“Jax,” he warned.

“No. He deserves the truth, no matter how much it sucks.” Settling into the chair Adam had vacated only moments ago, Jax rubbed a hand down his face. “You weren’t there when your old man died. They denied your request for furlough.”

As I tried to process what he’d said, what they’dbothsaid, my gaze swerved between them.

Furlough.

Cellmate.

Eight years gone.

I wasn’t there for Dad.

Wasn’t there for Dad…

“Somebody start talking.”

The slam of a door sent a shot of adrenaline through my veins, and my heart galloped in time to his steps coming closer in the hall. Rope pulled at my sore wrists, rubbed raw from hours of trying to get free. We’d spent the last three…maybe four days in this room, fucking, fighting, and fucking some more, barely taking time to fuel our bodies with what little canned goods Zach found in the cabin. It was like a nymphomaniac had taken over his being. Now that he had me here to himself, he couldn’t stop thrusting his cock into me.

Or beating me when my body wouldn’t turn to liquid for him.

The bedroom door opened and banged against the wall, and Zach set two paper bags on the dresser. He’d tied me to the bed before leaving to “get supplies.” My stomach grumbled, and I hoped he bought something other than soup, chili, or SpaghettiOs.

As he stumbled toward me, a sheen of sweat broke out on my skin. I recognized that glazed-over expression, the off-kilter sway of his body as he moved. “You’ve been drinking and driving?” As the hours passed, I’d started to wonder if he’d ever return. “What would happen to me if you never came back?”

The mattress depressed under his weight, and the stench of whiskey drifted to my nose as he fumbled with the complex knots keeping me prisoner on the bed. “I can drive just fine.” He cursed under his breath. “The reason it took me so long was because Dad’s being Dad.” His lips tightened as he pulled the rope from my wrists.

“What do you mean?”

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