Page 72 of Silent Secrets

Gabe scoffs. “If you really believe that, then you’re even dumber than I thought. You failed. You need to accept that, as well as the consequences of your actions. From what I’ve heard, that girl doesn’t much like you, so I doubt that you’ll be one of her consorts, anyway. I’ll figure something out. Don’t you worry about that. I just won’t rely on my worthless son to get it done.”

With that, he sneers at each of us before slamming the door behind him.

I spin Hunter around by his shoulder so he’s facing me. “What the fuck was that, Hunt? What was your dad talking about?”

Hunter squeezes his eyes closed, shoulders hunched as he shakes his head. When he makes to turn away, I stop him.

“Oh, no, Hunter, you’re not getting away from this without answering me.”

“Seriously, bro,” Caiden adds, “What the actual fuck is going on?”

Hunter’s eyes fly open, glazed with tears and lit up with rage. “I fucked up. Don’t you get it? My father told me to get rid of Hadley by any means necessary and I didn’t. But rather than punish me, it’s my little brother and sister that he’s going to punish. And there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.”

“I don’t understand. Why would he punish them and not you?” I scratch my head as I try to keep up with the conversation. Making a face, I continue, “Though why anyone needs to be punished, I don’t understand. But that’s Gabe for you.”

Hunter scoffs. “It’s not something that you’ll understand. Your parents aren’t like mine. They would never do half the things my father does. He knows that there’s very little that he can do to me now, so instead he holds the twins over my head.”

Hunter shakes his head as he looks away, and his pain is almost palpable. It’s not fair. I don’t understand why Gabe and Kam are both such assholes, or how they could’ve possibly raised the two men that I consider to be two of my best friends—my brothers. How could they have turned out so differently from their fathers?

“I failed them. It’s like I failed everyone. I can’t keep anyone safe.”

I barely hear Hunter’s words, but as soon as they register, I’m moving to him and pulling him in for a hug. He fights me for a moment, but when I don’t let him go, he finally relaxes against me. His shoulders shake and I can feel his tears on my shoulder, but he doesn’t make a noise.

“You haven’t failed anyone, Hunter.”

I meet Caiden’s eyes over his shoulder. I can’t believe that these words are coming from Hunter—I’ve never seen my friend like this before. He’s the quiet, gruff one. The one phased by nothing, who feels nothing—which I’ve always known is a facade—but here he is, falling apart in my arms.

“I have. I failed Yana—I wasn’t there when she needed me and now she’s dead. Now, I’ve failed Caleb and Haven. Their punishment is because of my failures. And if they’re anything like my punishments at their age? I don’t know if they’ll be the same when they come out the other side.

“I’ve sheltered them, tried to protect them the best that I could. I didn’t want them to realize just how evil our father is. For ten years, I’ve protected them and kept them from the worst of him. And now, I’ve failed and they’re the ones who will pay. How could I fail them? They’ll hate me when they find out it’s because of me. They’ll never be the same. It’ll be my fault when they’re broken. My fault.”

“Fuck, Hunt,” Caiden curses as he lays a hand on Hunter’s shoulder. “Why didn’t you ever tell me what the hell was going on?”

Hunter pulls away from me, stepping back so he can look at all three of us at once. “And what the hell would you have done? Stopped my father from beating me before throwing me into a hole in the basement for days at a time? How would you have stopped that? If I couldn’t stop it, then how could you?”

Caiden’s mouth opens and closes for a few moments before Hunter scoffs.

“Exactly. There’s not a damn thing you or anyone else could’ve done for me. The only one who could stop it was me. And I did, eventually. But did that stop him? Of fucking course it didn’t. Now he’s going to break them and that’s on me.”

“We should go get them.”

Hunter turns to Kai with a frown. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Will he head straight back home to punish them now?” Kai asks, eyes wide, and I can see his mind running a mile a minute.

Hunter shakes his head slowly. “No, they’re still with their tutor. He won’t want the punishment to affect their schooling. Because it’s a Friday, he’ll wait until they’re done for the day and he’ll keep them in the basement for the weekend. That way, he can hide what a monster he is.”

“Then we go to Lito and we take them. We bring them somewhere safe—somewhere that he can’t find them. We’ll keep them safe. We might have had no one to keep us safe, but we can keep them safe.”

Kai’s eyes never leave Hunter’s and I see the realization on Hunter’s face that maybe he and Kai have a lot more in common than he’d thought. One would think that after Kam had beat the crap out of Kai and we’d moved in together that he would’ve realized it… but sometimes Hunter takes a little more time to see things how the rest of us do.

He’s not dumb—far from it, no matter what his father says. He just has a tendency to hyper focus on things, and miss a lot of what’s going on if it has nothing to do with what he’s focusing on at that moment.

“We can do this, Hunter,” Caiden tells him.

“Where the hell can we hide them that’s safe from my father?”

I turn back to Kai. It had been his idea, so hopefully he knows of somewhere we can bring them. He shakes his head, dread written all over his face. Shrugging, I try to think of somewhere—anywhere—that they would be safe. I can’t even call my parents and ask them to help, because I can’t be sure that they won’t tell Gabe. I wish I could trust that they would want to help protect innocent children, but I can’t.

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