Page 37 of Abduction
I was going through the motions of my work whenever I turned up for it at all, all of it more robotic to me than anything else. None of it stuck the way it had before, none of it really falling into place the way I knew it needed to if I was going to be able to handle myself. I hated how useless I felt, but more than anything, I hated how I was still obliged to go through with this.
What other choice did I have? My father had made it so my brother and I were both basically dependent on him, and if I tried to cut myself out of our family, I would have been sailed down shit creek without so much as a fucking boat. I couldn’t risk putting so much space between us, I would have lost too much, and I didn’t want to risk letting anything else slip through my fingers.
So what was I left with? Playing the enforcer for my father’s criminal empire, or risking being cast out on the street? That seemed to be it, the only choices I had in this sick little game. The more I pondered it, the more trapped I felt, as though the walls were closing in on me and I would never find a way out.
None of this would have happened if it wasn’t for Amber. I knew it was unfair to blame her, but if I had never met her, never been drawn in to her the way I had been, I would have been able to keep my nose a hell of a lot cleaner. She had made it impossible to focus on what I knew I actually needed to take care of, and I couldn’t do anything but curse myself internally for getting so lost to my feelings.
I just wanted to help her. Some part of her was trapped in much the same way I was—relying on the people around us, even as we strived to become more independent and sure of ourselves. No matter how much we tried to get away, this would always catch up with us, a dependence on those we wanted to love and trust but weren’t sure if we could.
I wondered if she had made amends with her fiancé yet. Had she told him about us? Probably not. Nothing to tell, apart from the kiss, which hardly counted for anything. I could still remember it, though, burned into my brain: the feel of her soft lips on mine, the brush of her tongue against my mouth...
Fuck it. I shoved the memory away like it was toxic, radiating fumes I couldn’t deal with right now. I had a job to focus on, and I wasn’t going to throw it all away again the way I had before just because I was thinking of her.
I hoped she was okay. It was the best I could do for the time being. I had been itching to go back down to the law department, see if she was doing okay, but I got the feeling she would have turned me right around and sent me out of there. She’d have been right to. I was getting in the way of her normal life, and she couldn’t risk letting some piece of shit like me wreck what she had going on.
If I could meet her man, just once, I knew I could make her see how much better off she would be with me, but it didn’t go that easy. She was committed to him now, and a decent enough person not to run around cheating on him. Better than I was, that was for sure, though sometimes I wished she had a little less moral fortitude than she did. Came with the job, I figured. No way she could be a lawyer if she was stabbing the person she was supposed to love most in the back. Unless she turned into the kind of lawyer my father worked with, I guessed.
The car rolled to a halt, and I forced myself back to the here and now. I needed to focus. I needed to get her as far as I could out of my head and deal with what was right in front of me.
I felt anxiety stir in the pit of my stomach, and I shoved it down again. I needed to stay in control. I had never been more anxious in my life than I had been for the last few days, but it wasn’t going to turn into my father’s problem. He had been watching me like a hawk since I had screwed up last week, and any chance he got to show me just what he thought of me, I knew he would take it. I didn’t much like the idea of giving him the pleasure of ensuring he had been correct all along, because I was certain he would do everything he could to show me just what he thought of me.
Had Tommy talked to him about what he had done? I doubted it. I was sure my father had threatened him with the same thing somewhen down the line. Maybe it was why Tommy approached all of this with the commitment he did, because he knew what was coming his way if he didn’t.
And I did now, too. But instead of using it to focus in on my place in the family, I was finding it making me spiteful, angry. I hated this. I hated myself for giving in to all of it so easily. Why couldn’t I just get out, if I hated working with my family as much as I did? Why couldn’t I just stop?
I could feel those walls again, threatening to drag me in and close me up for good. I couldn’t let this get to me, I couldn’t let it get under my skin. I had made a commitment to this family when I continued to rely on them as an adult, and if I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain, there would be hell to pay. I wasn’t going to risk it. No point in making my life any harder than it had to be.
No, if I wanted to start feeling better, then I would need to take all of this into my own hands. It might have been tough, and I might have wished there was a solution to it all outside of myself, but it was all on me. I had to take a long, hard look at myself and figure out just what I intended to do from here on out.
Beyond this night, of course, because there was something I had to take care of before I could go home. I had been staying with my father for a while, though it killed me to get up every day and see him at breakfast while he and Mom and Tommy played happy families. They could pretend there was nothing going on, but I wasn’t stupid. They knew. And they knew how close I was to the edge of calling it out, as well.
Kieran looked at me in the rearview mirror. I peered toward the house, which looked like any of the others that lined the street. I wondered if this guy had a family. Did he treat them as badly as my father did his? If his gambling addiction was bad enough to have gotten him involved with us, it wouldn’t have surprised me.
“Are you ready?” Kieran asked expectantly. He was a big guy, bigger than me, and I wondered if he had been sent here to make sure I didn’t do anything I shouldn’t have. Not many of my dad’s drivers could have held me back, but he was one of them.
I sighed. I wanted this over. I knew I needed time to think about what I had done and what the hell my next move would be after this.
I nodded. Better get this over with. I would deal with this guy, and then it was one more thing my father was going to have to thank me for tomorrow. I smirked at the thought—I could tell it killed him to give me a single bit of credit for anything I’d done, but I would make sure I got it delivered from him. If there was one thing he had passed down to me, without a doubt, it was the stubborn asshole gene, the willingness to do anything we could to prove ourselves to the people around us.
Nothing was going to stop me. And whoever this Ronald guy was, he was going to pay for what he had done.
