Page 138 of Relapse
Light glistened off the blade’s metal edge as Ned tossed it from one hand to the other. For half a second I thought he wasn’t going to answer me. Then he clicked his tongue and looked up.
“Children are like sponges. They take in the world around them and absorb it into their very being. A parent can turn their child into pretty much anything they want. If they go to church, their children will learn the glory of their religion. Do good unto others and all that. However, if they hate something,” he stopped and rolled his eyes over to Dean’s sleeping form. “Their children will learn to hate that thing too.”
My wrist was starting to burn, so I had to control my tone when I spoke. “So your parents hated the Whitley’s?”
“No.” Ned’s eyes snapped back to mine. “My parents hated The Order.”
What? I knew we had our enemies, but the name Callaghan had never popped up.
“I grew up hearing stories about how the Order Of Ravens and Wolves scorned our family,” he explained. “I didn’t really pay any attention to it until one night, twenty-five years ago.”
What the fuck happened twenty-five years ago?
“Ten is such a fragile age,” he paused to wave at me. “As you know.”
Fucker.
“It’s kind of ironic, when you think about it. Though I wasn’t arrested…”
I couldn’t wait to kill this asshole.
“I was the same age when my world fell apart.”
The smile on his face made me grit my teeth.
“You have no idea what it means to have your world destroyed.” But he was about to find out.
“Oh, but I do.” Ned’s hands slammed down on the chair over my wrists as he brought his face right up to mine. “I had to watch my brother’s murder.”
What? “You don’t have any brothers.”
“Ned Callaghan doesn’t have any brothers.“ He pushed off the chair and shot me a wink. “But Nate Fenton had one.”
Fenton? Why did I know that name?
My eyes widened as I remembered the poster Silas found Star clutching. The same one on Tico’s body that caused all the grandparents to come back from the dead. Niles Fenton. That was the name of the guy who went missing.
“Is that why you killed Tico? Because he found out about your secret identity?”
When I felt the rope tear under my wrist, I concentrated on working the other.
Ned shrugged. “The boy started asking too many questions, and I couldn’t have Harper growing a backbone. Do you have any idea how exhausting it is to groom someone? A father should never have to beat their child. Harper has you to thank for that.”
“Why me?” Dean groaned from in the cell. He was fucked up already, and I didn’t want Ned’s attention detoured back to him.
“When I put my daughter in that book, it was so Parker or Preston would choose her. That would’ve been so much simpler. A quick ‘I’m sorry Dean, your son fell off the bluffs playing with my girl.’ But you picked her.” I could see his jaw twitching. “Not a Whitley, but a fucking Kessler.”
I knew what he meant by that statement. All the families in the Order were powerful, but the Kessler’s were at the top of the food chain. No one messed with my old man. Except for…
“Is that why you teamed up with Ryker?” That was the only thing I could assume. Otherwise, why would Ryker be at his house so often? And itwasoften.
“Oh no, I befriended him long before that. The first trick to taking down an organization is to cause dissension in the ranks. Your father helped with that. All I had to do was make a few comments to Ryker about how he was better fit to lead and he did the rest. You were the only crimp in my plan.”
A few more twists of my wrist and I’d give him a crimp in his fucking plan.
“Oh well,” he sighed. “I suppose it worked out for the best. Actually, it worked out better than I ever could’ve imagined. I made my daughter tell one lie, and I got to sit back and watch you destroy yourself.”
That got me. I felt the punch of his implication deep in my gut. Not because he’d orchestrated everything that led to my downfall, but because I let myself fall. I relied on alcohol and drugs to numb my pain instead of talking to my brother, who I should’ve trusted.
