Chapter Fifteen

Layla

I knew this day would come, but I thought I’d be in my twenties or thirties. And over those years I would gain strength, wisdom and have a life that he would never know of. I knew that, according to his sentence, he would never be walking around a free man again, so really even that fear of him getting out shouldn’t have been there.

And then this happens.

“We can’t stay here, Cyrus!” Mum lit up another cigarette. She was chain-smoking and her stress showing. “If Rex knows where she is, he will come for her.”

Cyrus’s face tightened. “You really think I’d let him take Layla?”

Mum got up abruptly. “You don’t understand! Rex will take her! He cares about one thing in this world and that’s Layla! He doesn’t have feelings for anything else. Just one person. That he loves. That he wants.” Mum inhaled sharply on the cigarette, panicking. “If the police hadn’t caught him that night, Layla would be gone.”

Rex had known he was going to prison the next day and wouldn’t be getting out. He expected a life sentence; actually, he was meant to be getting two life sentences because he killed a whole family. He was facing the charges of four murders.

The only reason he was caught was because he went back in to save the kids. He didn’t know the children were in there. He was told it was just a man, his target. The security was tight at the house, so he’d faked being a plumber and started a gas leak.

It was reported in all the papers.

After he started the gas leak, he expected the man to die that night in his sleep. He thought it was an easy kill; no bullets, no blood and no link back to him. He always made sure there was no link back to him, even when it came back to brutal and bloody murders—there was never a trace back to him.

His kills often made it in the paper, but no one linked them back to one person.

Anyway, when he was going to drive away that night he saw the family van in the driveway. Without thinking about what he was doing—well, I assumed he wasn’t thinking—he broke into the house to get the kids out.

But it was too late.

The neighbors called the police, seeing him break into the house. They thought they were reporting a burglary, not a homicide.

All four died that night.

The night before his trial, he took me from my bed in the middle of the night and said he was going to run away with me.

I don’t remember much of that night, apart from being surrounded by police cars.

Mum woke up, realized what he was doing and we were caught a block away from the airport. Dad was caught with fake passports and a huge amount of cash—he had every intention of taking me that night and I would have grown up with him as a parent and never knowing I was a missing child.

Before he was dragged away by the police, he gave me those words I lived by: judge their actions, not their image. He also said he would be back for me. And he reminded me of that promise every week when I got a letter from him. Every week for twelve years I got a letter, reminding me he was coming for me and begging me to not give up on him.

The letters increased after I stopped visiting when I was ten. I still opened them. I was guilty of that. Over the years, he pleaded with me to write back, as he just wanted to know if I was okay. I ignored it for three years, and then, when I was fourteen, I asked Cyrus if he could tell Rex I was okay.

After that, his letters got more direct. He stopped telling me how much he loved me, how much he missed me, how I was the thing keeping him breathing. His last letter which came last week was made up of five words: I am coming for you.

I didn’t take him seriously. Till now. Till Cyrus was told that Rex was getting early release. An early release we weren’t to know about. Cyrus had Rex being watched by Deadly Dozen members that were in the same prison as him—maximum security—where men went to die and never saw the outside world again.

All the Deadly Dozen members in there were sentenced to life without parole.

And as far as I knew, the last time I checked Rex had the same conditions: life with no parole. Actually, he had two life sentences! So how the hell was he getting released?!

“The only solution is for Layla to go. Leave. Like we planned if this happened.” Mum nervously rocked from foot to foot and looked at me with tears in her eyes. “I don’t want to lose you, Layla, but you won’t have a life if he finds you. He won’t stop till he has ruined everything you’ve become.”

I knew that. I knew Rex would make sure my world was empty and then, when I had nothing left, he would expect me to turn to him.

I think in his twisted mind he wanted me to follow in his footsteps.

He wanted me to care about him, and only him—and be cold to everything else. If he did come into my life, he would turn and twist me till I was as cold as him.

“I’ll put a hit on him. Fuck, I’ll do it myself! Layla isn’t leaving! I’m not losing my daughter!” Cyrus’s voice went up in rage. “He can come here and he can see that Layla wants nothing to do with him! And then if he doesn’t get the message I’ll put a bullet in his head.”

Cyrus would do that. To protect me. I knew that. Mum knew that. We all knew Cyrus was being serious right now, but Cyrus was missing one fact. And as I looked at Mum, she and I both knew what it was.

“Cyrus, he will make sure we’re dead before he even makes a move on Layla.” Mum sat back in her chair. “For Layla’s safety and ours, and we have to consider Alfie, we have to split up.”

I frowned. “Split up? What do you mean split up?” I questioned Mum. She wasn’t saying what I thought she was saying, was she?

She looked me in the eye. “If I’m not with Cyrus, there is a larger chance Rex will leave Cyrus and Alfie breathing. If he finds us, and it is just the two of us, then he is likely to take us back as a family.”

Mum knew Rex better than anyone. She knew his darker points, his finer points and the things that made Rex who he was.

“You aren’t getting back together with him,” I said firmly. That was the last thing I wanted. Mum being forced back into a relationship with him. “I am not going to pretend we are some happy family!”

“Layla, I know your father.”

“Yeah and I know how he treated you!” Nope. It wasn’t happening. She was not getting back together with him. She couldn’t leave the love her life to go be with a man that didn’t have a heart!

“Layla, I’m going to tell you something that I never wanted to tell you. But I think you need to know, in order for my actions to make sense,” she said calmly, waiting for me to calm down.

When I could take a steady breath, I nodded for her to continue.

“Rex loves you so much that he would rather kill you than let you live a life without him. He wants you and, if you don’t go willingly, he will kill you because that is the type of man he is. He doesn’t understand love. But he would kill the only person he loves if he thought that his chance of being in your life was hopeless.” Mum looked at Cyrus and sighed. “And after he kills her, he will kill us if not the other way around.”

“Rex won’t kill me.” I might not know my dad that well but I knew he didn’t have it in him to kill me. Because there was a day where he could have, hell, he tried. Mum didn’t know about it. It was the day that followed the night of the charges that had been laid against him. He knew he wasn’t getting off them.

It was a sunny day, we were at a river bed and he told me how much he loved me. I didn’t understand why and then he asked me not to fight him. Again, I didn’t understand why. I saw him pull the gun from his holster and put it on the ground. I still didn’t understand what was happening as he held me under the water and I fought to get air.

Now, as I look back, he had every intention on that day to kill me and then himself.

I think I nearly blacked out. I was so close to death’s door when he pulled me from the water. He literally breathed air back into my lungs.

I still remember the words that he said to me when I was awake and he was wrapping his jacket around me.

He said, “No one is ever going to hurt you, not even me. I promise you that, Layla”. And then he kissed my forehead like that sealed his promise.

His plan of killing us failed because he couldn’t go through with it. I didn’t know that when I was six. I didn’t know he tried to kill me. I realized when I was older.

His second plan kicked into gear then, which was escaping with me overseas.

It nearly worked, too.

I knew I should run. I knew I should head overseas. I knew for my own safety and my family’s that I was better off far far away from them.

From everyone that knew me.

I knew that the fake passports and licenses in my fake name should start being used. I should move to another town, another country—start my life undercover and hide from my blood father.

But there was one thing stopping me.

And I knew then in this moment, I couldn’t run. Even though it was the only logical thing to do. As much as Mum was encouraging it and willing to put her life on the line for me.

I couldn’t go.

I might be signing my own death warrant by not doing it, by not running and hiding.

But I had made a promise to someone. Someone who I had grown to love.

And that was to Hannah. I wasn’t leaving her to face breast cancer by herself. I didn’t care if that meant Rex would find me and possibly kill me.

I wouldn’t turn my back on Hannah. Not even the threat of Rex would make me break my promise to her.

“I can’t go,” I said firmly and sat up in my chair. “With the threat of Rex or not, I’m not leaving.”

Cyrus’s and Mum’s head snapped to look at me in disbelief.

“But you always said if it happened you were gone.” Cyrus reminded me of something I had said once when I was having nightmares about Rex getting out.

“And you said we don’t run from nightmares, we create them.” I repeated the words he said to me back to him and a slight smile spread across his face.

“You really are my daughter,” he said proudly. “Regardless, I’m putting a hit on his head.”

“No man that values life will take that hit.” Mum shook her head and looked at me. “You sure you want to stay? I’m sure he has tracks on Cyrus and knows where we are.”

I was going to face my biggest nightmare. The nightmare that would have me too scared to sleep.

I swallowed sharply. “If he comes, then I’ll tell him face to face he isn’t my father.” I looked at Cyrus. “He never was.”

And that was the truth. Because a man like Rex didn’t know love. If anything, he was the walking devil on earth. A heartless cold beast. If he loved me, he would have stopped killing. If he really loved me, he would have ended that side of his life when I was born.

Because surely he knew that that type of life—killing people for sport—would cost him me.

He picked killing strangers over being there for his daughter. And he thought he loved me! I would always feel bitterness and the familiar pain of disappointment when I thought about his actions.

If he really loved me, he would have stopped living that life. Then again, how could I expect a man to change who he is, regardless of whether he loved me or not?

And some people think they have problems... I picked up my phone and stood up.

“I’m going to get some more sleep. This is settled, right?” I asked Mum and Cyrus.

“You know I won’t let him hurt you. Not while I’m breathing,” Cyrus said, looking at me with a deadly serious expression. “The day I stop protecting you is the day I stop breathing. And even then you will be protected by the brotherhood, I’ll make sure of it.” Cyrus stood up. “If that means you have to live under the brotherhood’s protection to keep him away, then you will do it, right Layla?”

Cyrus was actually expecting his brotherhood, the club he lives and breathes, to protect me? Why would men who I didn’t know or know me put their life on the line for me? I didn’t even expect the members who did know and care somewhat for me to protect me.

“I don’t expect you or the club to protect me. At the end of the day, it’s my problem.” I paused in the dining room. “I love you, Dad, but Rex is my problem.”

“That’s where you are wrong, sweetheart. He is my problem. If you are staying, then you let me handle him. Don’t do something stupid by going to him to protect us from him or something, Layla. I mean it.” Cyrus looked at me, more determined. “If it reaches a stage where I can’t keep him away from you, then I will have you boarded and bound at our mother charter back in our home state where he won’t even be able to get in the city without getting fired at.”

I was taken aback by that. “What, you expect me to live the rest of my life at a clubhouse in another state?” Surely he couldn’t be serious.

“I want my daughter breathing and protected. So, yes.”

My mouth dropped open. “Cyrus, that is no way to live a life!”

“Well then, you better start praying that I am enough to keep him away. Cause as soon as I think he’s getting around me, you’re going to be shipped off.” Cyrus showed me the side he normally only showed his members: authority. “I will keep you breathing, Layla. That I promise you.”

I didn’t know what to say. Do I thank him? But at the same time, I’ve never wanted to live a life like that! Bound and locked up from the world! I think I’d rather be dead than shut off from the world because at least in death you’re at peace. Not trapped.

“I guess we will discuss it when the day comes,” I said and I knew then when that day came I wouldn’t be going to the mother charter. I would, however, run. I’d be running from Cyrus’s idea of what my life would look like, and what Rex wanted.

I thought about it. Hopefully when that time came, Hannah would be okay by herself. By that point, we would have faced the breast cancer and we would have won. Rex didn’t have a date yet, so I knew I still had months.

By time the appeal happened and all that, I would still have time.

Which meant I could keep my promise to Hannah, and if Rex did get released before Hannah recovered, well, he would have to kill me to separate me from her. I wasn’t leaving Hannah to face this alone, especially when she was more determined than ever to not let her family know.

I think she’d rather die in palliative care by herself than have her family knowing. In fact, some days I think that was exactly what she was thinking. Like she’d lose this fight and she’d never let her family know that she was fighting a battle to begin with until she had lost it.

Some days she really scared me. The situation we were facing really scared me. But then I would pick myself back up and not let her see the fear I felt. Because if she thought I thought we were losing, how was that going to give her faith?

At the end of the day, Hannah came first. My promise to her came first, which meant, with a threat of Rex or not, I would not be leaving town.

I would support her. I would be there for every appointment. And I’d be there when she finally received the good news or bad news in seven weeks. No matter what.