Page 90 of Karma
“Thank you, Zane.”
“You’re giving her your mom’s stuff?” VP asks with a frown. “Why?”
Her face falls, and she looks at the box in her hands. Zane just shakes his head like VP’s the irrational one in this situation. “They were friends, remember?”
“You think I don’t remember?” he asks, suddenly furious. “Of course, I fucking remember!”
“Then what don’t you get?” Zane asks, stepping forward and getting in VP’s face. “Huh?”
“You don’t have to give up your mother’s stuff to replace—”
“Irreplaceable heirlooms? Yeah, I fucking do. Because I never should have done it in the first place.”
This makes no sense. “Zane, what is going on with you?”
“You lied to everyone about Phillip. He went on a killing spree, and then he planned to kill Lex and me. Almost succeeded with Lex. You claim you didn’t recognize the shop in the photos, and you lied about hearing from me while I was gone.”
“Zane—”
“I look at Maggie, and I realize that having a son or not, I will never let anyone treat her the way you let me treat my sister. As a father, I will die to protect my little girl. It’s why I had to leave. I was a danger to myself, but more importantly, I was a danger to her. I needed to protect her until I came to my fucking senses again.”
Emma’s lip quivers. “Thank you for acknowledging that, Zane.”
“Zane, I was trying to help you. You lost your mother.”
“And Maggie lost hers! That’s not an excuse to act like a shithead. If she did even a fraction of the shit I have, I’d lock her in her fucking room until she snapped out of it.”
“Why can’t you see—”
“You didn’t help anyone but yourself!” he nearly screams. “You hindered me from growing into a well-adjusted human being. I never learned how to cope with loss, and at the end of the day, you did nothing to protect or help any of your children.”
Of course, he blames me. They all blame me. It’s all my fault. World hunger should probably get added to that list, too. I throw out food starving kids would love to have, right?“So,everything I’ve ever done in my life has been nothing but a screw up to the rest of you? I’m just a shit father?”
“Yeah, you are,” Zane says. “You blame everyone else for the shit you do, and you come up with excuses and ways to overlook everything. Worse than that, you did a lot of fucking damage to Lex. Damage I will never cause Maggie.”
“She doesn’t seem that bad to me.”
Winding back, Zane clenches his jaw and lowers his fist. “She heard you, you know. When I destroyed her fifteenth birthday party, she heard you tell Emma she was the lesser child.”
“I never said that!”
“You told her mother that she knew better than to throw her a party for her fucking birthday. What else does that tell a fifteen-year-old girl?”
His stomach twists in knots. He never knew Lex heard him say that. Hell, he barely remembers saying it, but it sounds right. “That’s not how I meant it.”
“Yeah, you did, Nash,” Emma says. “Zane deserved parties, and Lex deserved quiet dinners.”
“You should have done everything you could to protect her and teach me right from wrong,” Zane says. “She never thought she was enough because of how we treated her. We fucked with her view of self-worth, and we have to own that. That’s on us.”
“Mostly Nash,” Emma says.
VP gapes at her. “Zane’s blameless?”
Setting the box on the ground, she moves to stand between the two men, pushing Zane backwards. Her blue eyes glare with pure hatred, and he’s never seen her this angry before. He hates how hot it is.
“He was the child, and you were the parent.”
“Em—”
