on, Shepherd, why don’t you tell him that you killed his sister.”
The look on Shepherd’s face is like a punch to my gut. I want to say that he couldn’t have because my sister killed herself, but the look on his face… the expression he wears makes me horrified to realize that it’s the truth. And it makes so much more sense. Why would my sister kill herself? It never made sense. It never fit. Instead, it led to my rage that made me determined to make everyone else pay so I didn’t feel so goddamn guilty for her death. That fucking guilt led me to do some truly awful things.
But to find that Shepherd… my Shepherd killed her?
He shakes his head, unable to look me in the eyes.
All this time… all this time, he never told me.
But what was he going to do? Pull me aside and say, “Hey, by the way, I’m the person who murdered your sister”?
“Now, tell me, Killian, do you still want to save him?” Tony asks.
I want to scream or cry or shout or punch someone, but years of living with my father has made me perfect the art of looking like I couldn’t give a shit about anything. About looking like I’m just a husk. An empty fucking husk.
So when I turn to him, my face is empty, completely unreadable, and his smile falls.
“Yes. Now do you want what I’m offering or not?” I ask, voice calm even as a war rages inside my body.
He waves at me as though he wants me to hurry up even though he’s been the one delaying all of it. “Fine, fine. Now tell me.”
“Your daughter came into my life looking for my sister who she must have met through you. Instead of telling me that, she became my friend, lied to me, and used me for over a year. When I finally pinned her down, she told me it was because she was in love with my sister who’d disappeared, and she’d finally tracked her to my house. When I told her my sister was dead, my father heard outside the room, and he said it was time to kill her.”
Tony is watching me, hooked on my every word, but the moment I mention killing her, his face threatens to break. How can this horrible man, the bad guy, care so much for his child when my own father doesn’t give a fuck about either of his? My father only wants to use me.
“So he asked me to kill her. I think to him it was like a rite of passage. Would I finally give up my humanity and become like him or was I too weak? So with the lie of telling Rose that I knew something about my sister, she met me. My father was outside the room, but he gave me a gun which I aimed at her and shot—”
Tony grabs me by the collar, hauling me out of the chair and making it skid out from under me. “You killed my daughter? You fucking murderer!”
“He wouldn’t,” Shepherd says, quiet voice stopping Tony as he drops me to the floor and pulls out a gun. “Killian is such a good person. He wouldn’t.”
“Answer the fucking question!” Tony yells.
I hold his eyes, forcing myself to be defiant. “I missed… on purpose and told her to lie down where I wrapped her in a thick blanket, dumping fake blood on it. I already had everything set up beforehand, prepared to fake her death. I knew the guys who move the bodies, so I paid them off to leave the body somewhere I could deal with it. So after my father checked to make sure it was her, we left. Later I went to her and I took her to where I knew she could hide because my father has eyes everywhere.”
Tony is nearly shaking as he drops to his knees in front of me. “She’s alive?”
“Yes.”
He drops the gun and grabs at my shirt. “Where is she?”
“If my father hears that she’s not dead, he will kill all of us. He has a fucking army of men in uniforms hellbent on destroying us. If you care this much about your daughter, you will take her, and you will fuck off. Do you understand?” I ask. “You may think my father’s been working with you, but he’s been tearing you apart piece by piece. Every person who’s become important to you has died by my father’s