Page 179 of Deacon

“I came in late last night and crashed on the couch,” he said. “Figured we were gonna need to have that talk today.” He took a slow sip of coffee, enjoying himself now. “What I was not expecting was to get woken up by having to listen to my sister get railed when she should be resting.”

Heat flooded my face so fast it almost hurt more than my ribs. “Oh my God.”

I covered my face with my good hand, then dropped it because Matty looked far too pleased with himself. “This is my home, you know. I have the right to do whatever I want in my own bedroom without thinking I have an audience in the living room.” My glare sharpened. “Jesus.”

Matty looked delighted by my humiliation. “Who knew you were so vocal, sis.”

Jackson, the bastard, smirked right back. “Keep talking to my woman like that and sister or not, I’ll have to punch your lights out.”

They held each other’s stare for a beat before both started chuckling. I looked between them, trying to decide whether pain medication could cause hallucinations. “Have I stepped into the twilight zone?”

The humor faded from Matty first. He set down his mug, and the change in him tightened my stomach before he said a word. “We need to sit down.”

Whatever warmth had survived the walk to the kitchen disappeared as Jackson helped me to the couch without being asked. He disappeared long enough to bring water and the pills Blue had left, then settled beside me with our thighs touching. Matty stayed on his feet, dragging a hand through his hair while he looked everywhere except directly at me. “Just say it,” I told him.

He glanced at Jackson. Something passed between them, old and heavy enough that cold spread through my stomach before Matty faced me again. “Dad’s the one who took Jade.”

For a second I forgot how to breathe. “What?”

“He took her to the cabin.”

My pulse started hammering despite the medication dulling everything else. “Why?”

“Because he wanted to scare you.” Disgust hardened Matty’s face. “He wanted to show you what life with Jackson could look like. Make it seem like Jade had been taken because Jackson was back in your life and danger followed him.”

The meaning landed piece by piece. Dad had lied to Jade. Let me find her missing. Let me believe someone had taken my child. He had watched what that terror did to me and called it a lesson. My hands began shaking in my lap. “That son of a bitch,” I whispered.

Matty’s mouth tightened. “Yeah.”

He looked toward Jackson, and the anger in his face changed direction. “Now it’s time for you to tell her everything.”

I turned slowly toward the man beside me. “Tell me what?”

Jackson dropped his gaze to his clasped hands. “God, Princess. I still don’t want to tell you.” He pulled in a rough breath. “I don’t want to be the one to do this.”

Matty’s patience snapped. “Jesus, man the fuck up. I told you already, this isn’t on you. It’s him. He did this. This is his fault and he’s the one who has to live with it.”

“Someone,” I said, loud enough to stop both men. The room went still around me. “needs to tell me what the hell is going on.”

Jackson looked up and finally told me. He told me about the conversation he overheard when he was twenty. About the Kings of the Fall and my father. Dirty money. Destroyed evidence. Blind spots built on purpose so men trafficking women and children could move without police getting in their way. He told me what happened when he realized too late that someone had seen him listening. Stay and belong to them forever or run before they decided a witness was easier to bury than control.

The part that hurt worse came next. Dad’s money had paid for Mom’s treatments. The experimental trials she had wanted to stop. The procedures that exhausted her while Matty and I believed our father was fighting beside her instead of using dirty money to keep pushing her past the point she had chosen for herself.

Jackson had known enough to understand what exposing Dad would do to us. He had been twenty, scared, cornered, convinced that disappearing was the only way to keep the danger from reaching me and Matty.

I listened until individual details stopped feeling separate. Jackson leaving. Mom getting sicker. Dad condemning the club every chance he got while taking money from one. Every argument about Jackson. Every lecture about danger and character and choosing better men. All of it sat on the same rotten foundation.

When Jackson stopped, I looked at Matty. He gave one slow nod. No comfort. No attempt to soften it. Just confirmation. Something inside me went very quiet.

“He made her do all of that,” I said. My voice sounded distant even to me. “She didn’t want the trials. She didn’t want the treatments. She didn’t want to keep being cut open and poisoned and pushed through everything when she was already tired.” Tears burned behind my eyes, but anger held them there. “And he took dirty money to force her through more of it anyway?”

Neither man answered. They didn’t have to.

I could see Mom near the end, too tired to eat, trying to smile because Matty and I were watching. I had spent years believing Dad’s refusal to give up came from love. Maybe some of it had. That no longer excused what he had done to her, to Jackson, or to Jade. “I’m done with him.”

Matty didn’t blink. “I know.”

“I don’t want him around me. I don’t want him around Jade. I don’t want to see him, hear him, deal with him, explain about him.” My throat tightened, but the certainty didn’t. “I’m done.”