Page 130 of The Mercenary's Guide to Mishaps and Romance

Leland hesitates. “That’s totally what I was going to do, but now that you sound really sad, I feel like Ihaveto pick you up.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much!”

“Now I feel guilty that I’m taking you off to Murder Island knowing that you have no idea what you’re doing. I bet if I teach you the Murder Song, the fighting spirit of your ancient ancestors from the medieval times will tear through you, and by harnessing their spirit, you will know how to fight.”

I feel quite confident that Leland is confused and just talking to hear himself talk, but that’s fine. “Okay! I’m going to let you go, though. But please don’t forget me.”

“Clench the ass cheeks and call forth your ancient fighting spirit.”

“They’re clenched,” I assure him.

“Perfect.” And with that, he hangs up. I turn to the man whose home I’m currently hiding in. He’s yelling at someone on the phone about not being paid enough for his life to be at risk, and it takes me longer than it should have to realize that it’s likely my father.

I snatch the phone from him as the older man hollers at me. “Dad?”

“Shawn?” he asks, and I find it weird hearing his voice. It’s a voice I longed to hear for so many years and now… now what?

“Were you taking drugs out of evidence?”

Dad ignores my question. “Ellis, you need to get out of all of this. You don’t know how cruel these men can be.”

“And yet my father seems to be just as cruel,” I say. “Don’t talk to me about protecting me or whatever the fuck nonsense you want to go on about… that you want to lie to me about. I want to know what’s going on here. You were taking drugs out of the department? And then what? You were scared you were going to get caught afterward, so you ran off? So you only thought about yourself and never once thought about or cared about anyone else?”

“You don’t understand?—”

“No, Dad, I don’t. I don’t even want to call you my dad anymore. I built you up so fucking much throughout these years. In my mind I painted you as a hero who got caught up in something awful. Got caught up in some… fictitious scheme where you were protecting someone or saving someone that you couldn’t come back from. I knew you’d been killed because there was no other reason you wouldn’t come home. But it was just because you were fucking protecting yourself from bullshit you selfishly got involved in!”

“No! I did it for you guys.”

I can’t believe him. “You didwhat? You fucking started some drug-smuggling bullshit because of us? You’re going to blame that on us?”

“We didn’t have much money?—”

“You and Mom both had full-time jobs. People survive on so much less. We had plenty of money. You just wanted more. You ruined our lives. We had to change our names. We had to change schools. We weren’t allowed to speak to friends we grew up with. We literally had to become new people because they thought someone was after you. Because you made it look like you were the victim, when you were actually the man behind it all. They thought you stepped too deep into something that led to yourdeath and because they were afraid they would come after us, we had to start a whole new life. But no. This whole goddamn time you were hiding from your own mistakes, using money you got from your fucking lies.”

“That’s not true. That’s not true,” Dad says.

“Which part isn’t? How the hell can I believeanythingif I knownothing? All I can do is make up my own assumptions. My own guesses. If you want to start telling the truth, do it right now. Did you take drugs illegally from the department? I don’t know if you took them out of evidence or if you took them off a job… or however the fuck you took them. Did you take them and sell them to Arthur’s daughter, Jasmine?”

Dad’s quiet for a moment before he goes, “Yes.”

“Okay… So you’re admitting all of this… every fucking ounce of this is your fucking fault!”

“It’s not my fault! She tried killing me! She fucking stabbed me in the back when she thought she could cut me out of it and start going elsewhere in the department. And when I threatened to expose her, she tried to kill me. She swore she’d kill my entire family. She would send me pictures of you and Sienna. Pictures of you reading in your room. She’d send me messages she was sending your sister where she was pretending to be some boy who asked her to meet him somewhere, and Sienna was more than eager to. Jasmine was vindictive and a bitch and better off dead.”

I hesitate as I let that sink in. “You killed her?”

“Did you not just hear me? She was going to hurt the two of you.”

“You couldn’t have done something about it?” I ask before realizing that he couldn’t… if he wanted to protect himself. “Oh wait… you couldn’t because if you went to someone in your department and had her arrested, she would have told them where she was getting drugs from. So instead of taking the fall…you killed her? You killed her and pissed Arthur off to the point where you went into hiding and you fucking left us to fend for ourselves?”

Slowly, the rage leaves me and in its place is just disappointment and a hollow feeling. And I find myself thinking… at least Tavish is here. Tavish will help me through this bullshit. As long as Tavish is safe, that is.

“Dad, even now… you know that they’re after me because of you. And yet you still choose yourself. If you actually loved any one of us, you’d go to the police. You’d tell them what you did. And you’d tell them why Arthur is after you.”

“Just… Ellis, I can fix this.”

“You don’twantto fix this. You want to pretend it never existed. I’m not a stupid kid anymore. Now tell me why Arthur is after you now instead of years ago. Why now?”

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