the story than what he gave me the night I kicked him out of my house, to think there’s more pain I have yet to suffer. Why not just tell me everything? Rip the full bandage off while he was ripping my heart out?
“What more can there be? He killed my dad. Made it look like a suicide.”
Lincoln rolls his eyes, shifts his posture and breathes out. “That’s what I thought. Ari is never the best at giving the full story. Your dad did kill himself, kid. But he couldn’t pull the trigger. He needed help. I don’t think he could do that to you, but the pain was too fucking much. At first, he approached me to do it, but I refused. I knew he was messed up from the death of your mom, but I refused to be the man that pulled the trigger and left you alone.”
My brows tug together. “What?”
Resting his forearms on his bent knees, Lincoln looks me in the eye, his expression soft, stare assessing.
“You’re strong enough to accept this now. A strength I’m proud to see, by the way. I wanted to kill you several times when you were younger just to make my life a little easier.”
I laugh at that, and he lifts his brows to silently tell me he’s serious.
“Oh. Well, sorry.”
A crooked grin. “It’s fine, seeing where you’ve ended up makes it worth it.”
You know, it’s strange when I stop to think of it. I’m sitting in the middle of the woods outside my house because I have to avoid secret cameras inside my house, and I’m talking to a man who kills people for a living, yet all I can feel is warmth for the pride in his eyes and the genuine praise he’s giving me.
If you’d have told me years ago I would end up like this, I would have told you to lay off the crack pipe because it was getting to your head.
Lincoln scrubs a hand down his face, blows out another breath.
“What Ari didn’t tell you is that your dad ordered the hit on himself. In fact, he’s the reason Ari and I know each other. We worked for him. I was the first guy your dad hired to take care of problems, but after Ari started at his firm, like recognizes like, you know? We both could tell Ari was a cold son of a bitch who would be excellent at this job. So, he was brought into the fold.”
“Wait,” my mind struggles to process this. “You’re saying my dad-“
“Used hired killers to get ahead in life, yes. You’ve met me before. You were just a kid and probably don’t remember, but I’ve known you since you were ten or eleven. Your dad had me to the house a few times, and I watched you dance around the living room in a tutu, driving both of us crazy.”
Unsure how I feel about this information, I realize it doesn’t surprise me. My father wasn’t exactly the huggy-feely type of person. He’s was a softy when it came to me and mom, but a hardass on everybody else. I can’t count the number of times I’d overheard him in his office chewing someone out.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“So you’ll forgive our boy. He did what he was paid to do, and he didn’t see you until that night. I have a feeling if he’d known you ahead of time, he would have refused. Your dad got to him before I could. Ari did the job and regretted it immediately. It’s the only one he’s regretted. And I think it played a huge role in why he set out to watch over you. He was paying penance. He just happened to fall in love at the same time.”
Letting all of that information absorb, I tried to make sense of it. Sadly, I wasn’t sure that any of it mattered. Not anymore. What’s done is done. Ari more than made up for it.
“I forgave him already,” I admit. “My dad was fucked up after my mom died, I get that. None of this surprises me. I just wish Ari would have told me the entire story the night I kicked him out. I wouldn’t have hated him so much.”
Shrugging, Lincoln casts his gaze over the expanse. “He needed you to hate him. It was the only way to ensure you’d let him go and learn to rebuild your life on your own.”