on?” she asks, ignoring him.
“Nothing,” I answer.
“Cole,” Deke growls my name in warning.
“Shut up, Deke,” I snap.
“Cole, tell me what is going on,” Austin demands.
“It doesn’t concern you.”
“Stop lying, Cole,” Deke says.
“No …”
“What is going on?” Austin shouts.
The room falls silent, and I rub my temples. That migraine getting to the point my vision is blurry.
“We went through the emails,” Deke finally says. “The ones on the hard drive.”
My teeth clench, and I fist my hands. I could punch him, but that would take too much energy. And I already feel too weak from the drinking binge and rough sex. If I hit him, he’d hit me back, and he’d probably knock my ass out.
“And?” she asks.
“And we found emails that indicated the car wreck was not an accident.”
“What do you mean?”
“The emails proved that Jeff was paid to tamper with the brake lines that night …” He stops, and I fall onto the couch.
Placing my elbows on my knees, I lean forward and cup my head. My heart races at hearing his words.
“I don’t understand,” she says softly.
“They prove that he had been talking to your dad. They had a set amount and a plan.” He pauses, and I close my eyes. “Bennett checked the funds and confirmed that your father paid Jeff fifteen thousand dollars to ensure that the brakes would fail on Cole’s car the night Eli, Maddox, and Landen died.”
My muscles tense at his words, and my chest tightens. Bruce fucking tried to kill me, and he succeeded in killing my friends. He paid the scumbag Jeff to do it. When I was about to kill that fucker, he kept bringing up the fact that I killed my friends, but it had been him all along.
“I don’t …” She trails off. “Why would my dad want to hurt Cole?”
I look up at her but remain silent. She stands there next to Becky who silently cries because Deke has already filled her in. Austin has no fucking clue, and I wish he would just shut up. I don’t want her to know. Not this. Not now.
“We don’t know for sure, but we have a guess.” Deke sighs.
“Which is?” she asks.
“Lilly,” Deke answers.
Her frowns deepens, and my heart pounds at the mention of my little sister.
She looks at me. “Why would he want to hurt you because of Lilly?”
Deke runs a hand through his hair and answers. “Because Lilly is Bruce’s daughter.”
AUSTIN
I stare at Deke utterly confused. Lilly is Bruce’s daughter? My father is Lilly’s father? My eyes go to Cole. He sits there on the couch, blue eyes still bloodshot, skin pale. He looks like he’s half dead.
I swallow the knot that forms in my throat. “Your mom and my dad had an affair?” Lilly is six. My dad and Celeste have been married for ten years now.
He fists his hands and his jaw sharpens. “No.”
“Then how do you explain …?”
“Bruce fucking raped her,” he interrupts me.
“What?” I breathe.
Becky sniffs beside me, but I can’t look away from Cole. His eyes look at me with disgust. My father, being the bastard that he is, fucking raped his mother? She had a baby. A baby his dad didn’t want. And Cole takes care of her. He’s raising her.
Tears start to burn my eyes.
“Austin?” Deke gets my attention.
His blue eyes are the softest I’ve ever seen them. It makes me more nervous than I’ve ever been around Deke because he actually looks worried about something. “We now know that Bruce, Jeff, and Jerrold were working together. You need to get out of that house. It’s not safe there.”
“I have nowhere to go—”
“You’ll stay with me,” Becky interrupts me.
“I’m not eighteen yet. I can’t just leave. They’ll know something is up …”
“You don’t have an option,” Deke growls. “We can’t chance Jerrold coming over and seeing you there. If he does, it will only take him seconds to put two and two together, and then once he tells Bruce …”
His voice trails off, and I understand completely. My father would kill me if he found out that I know he paid another man to try to kill Cole.
Becky reaches out and rubs my back gently. I avoid looking at Cole due to the shame. This whole time, he knew that Lilly was my half-sister, and he never once told me. But why would he? Why tell the girl who he only wanted to use?
“I’ll get my stuff,” I say and spin around, running up the stairs.
Tears run down my face