Page 150 of Split You Open

I kick out his leg and he goes down on his knee.

But Anchor’s not vulnerable like this.

He reaches down and pulls the knife from his boot just as I try to bring my knee up to meet his nose. I stumble away before the blade can slam into my thigh. Anchor is on his feet in a fraction of a second.

“What’s wrong?” I ask him. “Don’t like hearing the truth? At least I can own up to my part. Just say it! You were tired of being a parent.”

I twist right, left, back, then to the right again as his blade comes slashing through the air.

I catch his wrist but his fist slams into my gut and the breath is knocked out of me. I make the mistake of letting go of his arm. Leaping out of the way, I narrowly miss my throat getting slashed.

“I never grew tired of having Blair around!” Anchor says as he prowls around me.

I snort in disbelief before launching myself at him. Throwing my shoulder into his gut, I ram him back into a tree. Before he can stab me, literally, in the back, I catch his arm and pinch a nerve, forcing him to drop the blade. Anchor’s knee slams into my junk and I gasp in pain, staggering away from him. He grunts as he glares at me then takes a step forward.

“Never grew tired of her, huh?” I sniff out a dry laugh. “What about that time in the desert? You literally abandoned her—hoping she would fail and starve to death.”

Anchor comes to a halt, his body going rigid.

Oh yeah, he knows exactly what I’m talking about.

“Or how about when you were giving her all those poisons to teach her how to differentiate between them?” I press on. “You had no intention of giving her the antidotes. And then that time you tried to drown her in the fucking lake? You fed her a lie and she loves you so much that she ate that shit up. You know what’s crazy? That time at the lake came up recently and she defended you. Little does she know if I hadn’t shown up, she’d be at the bottom of that fucking lake. Hell, if I hadn’t been there for any of those times, she’d be dead. I’m surprised you didn’t try it whenever I wasn’t around.”

Anchor’s hands tremble at his side—it’s the first time in years that I’ve seen any real emotion leak from his carefully curated mask of indifference.

“All of that,” he growls through clenched teeth. “Is in the past.”

“It still happened so don’t give me some bullshit line that I put her in danger because you’ve done it countless times without hesitation.” I spit on the ground before adding, “At least I can say that what I did led to her happiness. Blair thinks the world of you and I let her because I would hate to destroy her image of her dad. But if she knew what you tried to do to her over and over again, would she still look at you the same way, I wonder?”

“It was better for me to do it than anyone else that was after me at the time!”

I chuckle darkly. “Sure, keep telling yourself that.”

“None of this erases the crime you committed by putting a hit on the both of us,” Anchor assures me.

My dark chuckle slithers around the woods as I give him a half-ass shrug. “I’m not asking for forgiveness, Anchor. I’m just man enough to fess up to my crimes.”

Anchor’s eyes never leave my face.

There’s no missing how still he’s gone.

“Why?” he asks. “Why now?”

“Because I have craved and watched your daughter from afar for years!” I snap, my temper rising. “The only way I could have her was to force her hand. I put the hit out and she ran straight to me—right into my fucking arms, where she’s always been safe!” I laugh as surprise flickers across his face. “I didn’t used to think I was her best choice but between me and you? She’ll always be safest with me.”

It’s only because I know to expect it that I see Anchor reach for his gun. Instinct has me drawing mine at the same time. We stare at one another down the barrel of our guns.

“I trusted you,” he hisses. “I trusted you with her life.”

“And I should’ve never trusted you with hers!” I shake my head with disappointment. “Her life would’ve been so much better if I’d taken her from you from the get-go and dumped her off with CPS. Her life will be much fuller once this is all over, Anchor.”

“She’s coming with me. Once we take care of Dixie, you’ll never see us again.”

As if he’d let me live once Dixie’s gone. I’m not stupid.

“She’s not leaving Gnarly Pines,” I promise him through clenched teeth. “I’m not giving her up and neither will the others.”

At the mention of the guys, Anchor’s face goes blank.