BLAKE
THE FOYER WAS eerily quiet as the front door parted from the seam, the light from it shining in a widening ray, highlighting its wrecked state.
He’s gonna kill me.
Everything was still as it was when we had all run out with the gurneys. Beer cans, red cups, napkins, scuff marks. It was a crime scene, so I had called off the cleaning crew and then completely forgot to get them back here.
A can skidded across the kitchen floor, and Victoria’s grip on my hand tightened. I looked at her. “Why don’t you go to your room? Let me talk to him.”
The shimmer in her eyes showed her concern, but I wasn’t afraid. It was time to finally put an end to all this. With a quick nod, she turned and quietly made her way up the stairs.
“I don’t even know what to say about all this.” My father’s voice propelled me back to the moment.
“Father,” I addressed him without meeting his eyes.
A brief pause.
I didn’t turn—just heightened my senses, honing in on the sound of his voice getting closer, the click of his expensive shoes taking one step, then two, in my direction. “Y’know, it’s a good thing I’ve had time to myself here before you came back. When I first walked in, I might’ve killed you on the spot.”
I sucked everything inside of me. Any remaining hurt where he was concerned, any sense of wanting to please him or caring if he was disappointed. I turned, readying myself for the disdain I would see dripping from his eyes, but stopped in my tracks when that familiar sentiment was missing. Something bordering what I imagined was understanding trickled in instead. Or possibly a knowledge of something I wasn’t yet privy to.
Another click of his heel as he stopped in front of me, slipping his hands into the pockets of his overpriced slacks. His expression was so unreadable, years of not wanting to show his hand evident in the smooth curve of his forehead as he lifted his chin to me. “There are cameras all over this house, did you know that?”
All I could do was swallow, my mind banging back and forth between the years of parties we’d had in this house, all the times I’d thought he’d never known.
He smirked. “Never think there’s anything you’ll do that I won’t know about. Anything.” The drive in that last word started a race in my heart, wondering what else he knew.
I looked at the floor, relaxing my posture. “Listen, Dad, I’m sorry about the house. I’ll get it cleaned up, I always—”
“I don’t care about the house.” My father cut me off, making my eyes snap to meet his, which were still a bit rough around the edges. He deflated a fraction. “It’s just a house,” he added, softer, and for the first time in my life, I saw a father standing before me rather than a tyrant.
My knees wobbled, and my nerves weakened from all I had been through in the last couple of days. Years of hurt had trained me to look at him like stone rather than flesh. I wasn’t sure how to approach this new version of him, and I didn’t know if I had the strength left to figure it out.
The tense lines he always held in his hardened exterior melted, the concrete face softening. “I know.”
“You know . . .” The question lingered on my tongue.
“I can see the footage from the cameras anytime I want. Modern technology.” A small smirk danced in the corner of his mouth. I cocked my head to the side at the foreign gesture.
“They record,” he stated.
Like the sun pokes through parting clouds after a storm, a light emerged, slowly illuminating what he was saying. The slant of his lips told me that my father, always good at reading people, must have picked up on my enlightenment. “You have a tape of him assaulting her?” My voice was weak, barely cracking the surface as a prickling of hope bloomed that she finally had proof.
With the clearing of his throat, my dad adjusted his weight. “No, I don’t.”
My shoulders slouched, all of the tension they had been harboring sliding from them to the floor as I dragged my hands through my hair.
“The authorities do.” His sure-of-himself tone, the tone I had always despised, snapped my gaze back to his. I couldn’t remember a time, other than this, that I was happy to hear it or that it was for my benefit.
But as quickly as it came, puffing out my chest and dancing along my prickly skin, it melted into a pool at my feet. “Wait. If you have a video of that, then you have a video of—”
“You?” His tone piqued. He rocked a little on his heels, lowering his gaze for the first time. “I wish I did, son.” He paused before peeking up at me. “I told them the cameras are on timers.” His lip twitched, almost jovial.
“We could see you come into the room, but then Damon reached for something, and it switched out to the foyer.” He shrugged.
Relief knocked into me, sending me on a wave so high I couldn’t stop tears from filling my eyes. “You’ve got to be shitting me.” I raked both of my hands through my hair and fisted them behind my head, looking to the ceiling as I blew out a puff of air.
My father continued. “The cops are on the way to the hospital right now. I’ve already called Damon’s father and told him I have proof that his son is a child rapist.” He cocked his eyebrow. “Needless to say, they won’t be fighting the charges—not unless he wants the video plastered over every major news station and his name in every paper. Which I can assure you someone of his stature does not.” He paused, giving me a chance to absorb all he was saying. “He’ll be pleading guilty. And since I know just about every presiding judge, I’d bank on him doing a good amount of time.”
My knees hit the tile, the sting to them nothing compared to the burst in my heart.
She’ll finally get her justice.
Months of my worry—stomach aches, sleepless nights, broken hearts—barreled into me, knocking me in the chest and then floating away on the thought that she’d finally be free. Once and for all. And all because of . . .
“Thank you,” I whispered, dragging my line of sight to the man before me. Without any other thought, I propelled myself at him, wrapping him in the embrace I had dreamed about since I was a child. With my eyes wet and squished shut, I squeezed, feeling profound satisfaction pumping through my veins. Probably shocked at my affectionate display, my father didn’t react at first, but after the briefest of pauses, his arms circled me as well.
He clapped me on the back. “I told you, I’ll always do what’s best for you. I’m a hard son-of-a-bitch, I know, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you.”
I swiped my hand along my nose. “You’ll never understand what you’ve done for her, and what it means to me.”
“You forget this is what I do. Find justice for the speechless. For the weak. You have that little faith in your old man?” A playfulness was in his tone, and I wondered who this man was. But the relevance of what he had just said wasn’t lost on me.
I finally got it.
“You’re right.” The answers floated together, completing the puzzle and bringing with it the clarity I had always longed for. “You may have had an off-way of showing it, but you were always right. This is what I’m supposed to do. Help the helpless. Give a voice to all of the broken angels out there.”
A smile, so foreign and yet so beautiful, broke out across my father’s face. “There’s my boy.”