Page 5 of The Silencer

There's a heavy pause."He's taken a girl.Eleven years old.Killed her parents and little brother in the process."

The world tilts sideways.I feel like I'm going to be sick."What?"I choke out.

"We think he's desperate for money and planning to ransom her," Jer continues."But he's drunk, unstable.We need to find her fast."

My mind is reeling.I knew my father was a bastard, but this?This is beyond anything I could have imagined.

"Emmanuel," Jer's voice cuts through my shock, "we need to know if you have any idea where he might be.Any place he'd go to hide out?"

My mind races, trying to process this horror while searching for anything useful."He doesn't have many friends left," I say slowly."He burned most of those bridges years ago.But...There's an old fishing cabin, up in Donegal.We went there a lot when I was little, before things got bad.I don't know if he still has access to it, but it's isolated.It might be a good place to hide out."

He loved that place and would visit often.That was before he became a raging alcoholic.Before he started hitting Ma.Before our family fell apart.

"Good lad," Jer says."Can you get us there?"

I nod, then realize he can't see me."Yeah.Yeah, I can."

"Alright.Be ready in ten minutes.We're coming to get you."

The line goes dead and I'm left staring at my phone, numb with disbelief.An innocent little girl.A family destroyed.Because of him.Because of my father.

I think of the gun hidden in my room and the hours of training with Cole.I thought I was preparing to protect my family from my father.I never imagined I'd be using those skills to save someone else from him.

As I grab my jacket and wait for Jer, a cold certainty settles over me.One way or another, my da’s going to get what’s coming to him.If that means I have to be the one to pull the trigger, so be it.Some men don't deserve to live, and Jacob Dellinger has just proven he's one of them.

True to his word, ten minutes later, there's a car outside waiting for me.

The car ride is tense, filled with a heavy silence as we speed toward Donegal.I'm in the backseat, sandwiched between two of Jer's men, one of which is Stephen, who’s close to Jer and my best friend, Maverick’s, family.He’s quiet—which is normal—but tense and alert, ready and waiting for whatever is going to happen next.Jer himself is up front, barking orders into his phone while Thomas—Patty’s husband—drives.

I pull out my own phone, steeling myself, before searching for news about what my father's done.There are over fifty articles, all of them detailing the horrific things my father has done.My stomach churns as I read the details:

The O’Rourke family.Mother, father, two kids.They lived in a nice neighborhood, the kind of place my ma always dreamed of.The kind of life we could have had if my da wasn't such a useless drunk.

He broke in around midnight.The parents woke up and tried to stop him, but he overpowered them somehow and slit their throats.The father died first, so he probably overpowered him at the beginning.The noise woke the son, who was only seven years old.From the reports, he ran to his parents' room.Da stabbed him too.His ma’s body was found close to his.

Fuck...I swallow hard.This is sick.What the fuck was my father thinking?

I continue to read.Clodagh is eleven years old.From what the reports say, she was dragged from her bed to the waiting car.A neighbor heard the commotion and called the guards.But by then, Da was long gone with Clodagh.

I close my eyes, fighting back tears of rage and shame.How could he do this?How could my own flesh and blood be capable of such evil?

"You alright back there?"Jer's voice cuts through my thoughts.

I look up, meeting his eyes in the rearview mirror."Yeah," I lie."Just...processing."

He nods, understanding in his gaze."Your old man's actions aren't on you, Emmanuel.Remember that."

I nod back, but his words do little to ease the guilt gnawing at me.If I'd had the courage to do something sooner, maybe this wouldn't have happened.Maybe that little girl would still have her family.

As we continue our journey north, I pray that we find him.That little girl has been through hell already.God knows what that bastard is doing to her right now.She needs to come home and he needs to be six feet under.

The weight of the gun at my hip is a constant reminder.I've been training for the past two days for this moment.Now it's time to put that training to use.

God help you, Da, because when I find you, I sure as hell won't.

* * *

The cabin was empty when we arrived.The three-hour drive was completely useless.There was nothing there but dust and cobwebs.No sign of Da or the girl.No one had been there in years.I felt hollow as we drove back, the weight of failure pressing down on me.

---