Page 96 of Craving Sin

I grab my phone off the coffee table, fingers shaking, breathing unsteady as I go into the app. My anxiety doesn’t go away as the green dot appears.

“Fuck,” Conan says from the background. “I’ll fix it, Rian.”

“You can’t,” I say.

His hand clamps down on my shoulder, trying to offer support, but right now, all it does is twist me up even more. “I’ll fix this. He’ll be fine. I promise.”

I pull away without answering. “I’m going to get him back.”

“Whoa,” Cillian says as I make my way toward the locked room in the back with the firepower I need. “You can’t just storm off without any kind of plan, ready to bust the door down wherever he is and get him back.”

I pause, breathing becoming harder and harder by the second. My chest continues to tighten, head bumping against the wall as I use it to hold me up.

He’s right. I know he is. Running in there half-cocked and on my own isn’t going to accomplish anything.

“You wouldn’t let us do something this dumb when Shai’s mom was kidnapped, and I’m not letting you do it either.”

“I can’t lose him,” I say.

“You won’t. And we’ll do it together.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Abbott

I feel as though there are weights attached to my eyelashes, holding my eyes closed each time I try to open them. My body is heavy, my brain foggy as I try to move, try to pull myself out of the darkness I’ve found myself in.

Where am I?

What happened?

A voice in the background squeezes through the confusion in my head. I can’t make the words out at first, can’t even tell who it is, but after a moment, the mumbling starts to get clearer and the tone more familiar.

It’s my father.

Why is…oh yes. That’s right. He sent me an email, and then I came to see him. After that, everything is a blur.

My eyes finally flutter open a few times, the room around me mostly shadows and fuzziness.

I came to the summer house…he gave me something to drink…and then nothing. I don’t remember anything between then and waking up just a few moments ago.

“He’s my son,” I hear in the background, but no other voice replies. “That was different. How am I supposed to…” His voice trails off again, my vision becoming a little clearer by the second.

My father is standing with his back to me, looking out of a window, his hand to his ear.

On the phone, I guess?

There’s someone outside too. He has his side to the window, standing on the wraparound porch, but the long gun he’s holding in front of his body is impossible to miss.

My brain wants to pull into darkness again, but I fight to keep myself awake, to listen to what he’s saying and figure out what’s going on.

“I understand this makes things difficult. It’s not my fault. I’m doing everything I can.”

What makes things difficult, and what is he doing?

“He was asking too many questions. He would have ruined me if I’d given him the chance—just like she would have!” A pause. “I’m sorry.”

That’s probably the first time in my life I’ve ever heard my father apologize, but I can’t even enjoy it, can’t make sense of it because my head is pounding. It feels like the damn thing will explode, like even trying to listen will fry whatever’s still firing in there.