Page 97 of Where Angels Fall

The rope cuts deeper into my wrists as I twist weakly against it, as if maybe I can crawl out of my own skin. I feel something inside me splitting clean down the centre. Not heartbreak this time. Not the desperate ache of a daughter begging to be loved.

This is something colder.

Something final.

All those nights I stayed late at the office trying to prove myself. Trying to earn approval. Trying to be enough.

Enough for what?

For a man who used my face and my smile to sanitise the blood on his hands?

Another wave of nausea hits, but I swallow it down, trembling.

“You don’t have the nerve,” my father snaps. “If you release that information, you bury yourself.”

Zeke gives a soft laugh. “You still think I’m involved? I never touched your operation. I simply watched and made you feel as if I were there beside you. For a businessman like yourself, all I needed to do was pick at that ego of yours.”

Delight flashes in Zeke’s eyes, as if he’s proud of himself.

“You’ve been blackmailing me,” my father breathes.

Zeke crouches in front of me, and for a second, I think he’s going to touch me, but he doesn’t. He just studies my face, eyes flicking over the tears, the swelling, the wreckage.

“I’m bored with this conversation,” he mutters into the phone, dark eyes pinned on mine. “You know where to send the money.”

And with that, he ends the call. Taking away the voice of the person I hate the most.

My inhales are rough as I glare back at him, teeth grinding together. Nails bite into my skin as I ball my hands on the armrests of the chair, my body trembling. The pain from my wounds is distant now, anger and disgust at the forefront of my mind.

“Oh, darling,” Zeke murmurs, almost pitying. “Don’t cry for him.” He lifts a tattooed hand, his thumb skating across my cheek to capture a tear. When he brings it back, he studies it, rubbing the moisture between his fingers as if it were a rarity. His eyes flick back to mine, turning hard and dark. “However bad you think he might be... he’s worse. Much, much worse.”

And with that, he stands, leaving the room without a single glance back.

Zeke’s footsteps fade down the corridor, the sound swallowed by concrete and distance until the room is left with nothing but the low buzz of the light overhead and the ragged rhythm of my breathing. The silence he leaves behind is worse than his voice. His presence was poison, but at least it was something I could focus on... an enemy I could hate. Now there are only my thoughts, which are dark and disturbing and downright furious.

I swallow, and it feels like my body is trying to reject itself. My stomach clenches again, but there’s nothing left inside me. Just bile and humiliation and the sickening, unstoppable realisation that my father might just be the worst person I have ever met. And I’ve been hanging out with gang members.

My vision flicks to the two knives still embedded in my thigh, following the dripping blood down to where I’d been sick, the mess pooling by the feet of the chair I’m tied to. My vision swims, and the room tilts slightly. I blink hard, trying to force myself back into my body. I’m here. I’m still here. I’m still...

A sound breaks the silence.

Not Zeke.

Kai.

A strained exhale mixed with the faint clink of his chains. The tiniest shift of his weight against restraints that have been cutting into him for too long.

“Maddison,” he says quietly.

My eyes fall shut at the sound of his voice. The sound of my friend. It sounds like a hand reaching into cold water and grabbing hold.

I don’t answer. I can’t. My mouth opens, but nothing comes out . The grief is lodged too deep. Behind my eyelids, I see him.

Ash.

A man who has committed so much crime, yet none of it is as horrific as what my father has committed. His messy dark hair, his inked fingers gripping his motorcycle handlebars. Those blue eyes that showed me everything he was feeling, when his lips couldn’t.

I feel a laugh build in my chest, sharp and hysterical, and it dies before it escapes. There’s nothing funny here... not really. Maybe the fact that I can feel myself dying, and I can’t tell the man that I love how I feel about him?