Page 82 of Crush
“I think I have too much clarity, actually.”
“I said leave it.” Malcolm lashes out the order like a whip.
I wince, but I can’t stop. Not when I’m so close to the truth—to the reasons I’m in this hospital bed without the future I thought I’d won by coming to Winthorpe. The fucking sacrifices I made. Mom. Dad. “Does Thorne know?”
Malcolm hisses out a breath. “He had the opportunity to speak up for you this evening and chose not to. What does that say?”
That Damion has him by the balls, too. “He wouldn’t have okayed a staged drug overdose. He likes toying with me, not killing me.”
“Christ, Ember! Listen to yourself! Do not defend that boy. He is poison, just like his father. He wants you dead, just like his father. He hates you, just like his father. What more can I say to convince you that the Briars will not stop until they destroy the Weatherby line entirely!”
Malcolm doesn’t yell it. He roars it. I press back against the pillow, taking his speech like a beating. A sob works up my throat, thickening my voice as I force it forward. “Did Damion bring me here? Is he the one who told you that you had a child?”
Malcolm wheezes, scraping his hands through his hair as if grasping for his last remnants of control. “Don’t ask this of me.”
“Is he?”
“Yes!” Malcolm bellows. “I thought it was a setup—another way to cut me off at the knees. But I couldn’t ignore it—ignore you—so I went to the address he gave me. I saw you.” Malcolm’s voice cracks. “It was first thing in the morning. I followed you to school … you had a cup of coffee in your hand and discarded it at the school entrance. I wasn’t going to … I was so fascinated by watching you, the fact I had a daughter, yet you looked nothing like me. But Dash, he was more levelheaded than I. He stepped out of the car and pulled out the empty coffee cup. We had it tested, and the DNA matched. Damion wasn’t lying. As for how long he’s known about you…” Malcolm raises his head, his expression crumbling with anguish. “I fear he’s known the entire time since you were born.”
My stomach pitches. I have trouble breathing. “Has he been watching me my whole life?”
“Likely.” Malcolm strides back to my bed, clutching my hand. “This is his power. He has my wife. He kept you a secret for as long as he wanted until he decided to use you. And Ember, I don’t know why he brought you forward yet. I’ve done everything I can to discover it—doing exactly as he says, keeping my travel itinerary despite bringing you home and searching. Always searching for the reason he revealed your existence to me. Because there is always a vendetta with him.”
“And my initiation into the Virtues?”
“Part of his plan. I brought you here because you’re safer at Weatherby Manor. Either Dash or I can keep watch over you. Sadly, you’re just as headstrong as I was when I was your age. You must stop looking into Damion’s activities if I’m to continue to keep you safe. Let me be the adult and find out a way to bring down the Briars without putting your life on the line. I’m—I’m talking to the FBI.”
I work his information over in my mind. The monitor at my side beeps loud and fast—my heart. “You … what?”
“I’ve been their informant for the last year. These drugs you mention, there’s truth in it, and the possibility that Savannah got mixed up in it. You found that out, didn’t you?”
Slowly, I nod.
“My smart, smart girl.” But Malcolm says it with deep, cutting sadness. “You don’t have to stay in the Societies for me to keep gathering evidence. I will gladly sacrifice crucial information to give to the FBI rather than lose you.”
No matter how hard I try, one possibility keeps blaring in red, like an alarm I can’t silence. “Thorne hates his father. Maybe he can help. You don’t have to do this alone.”
“He won’t.”
“That statement Thorne made about me today, he was probably coerced, the same as you.”
“I said no, Ember.” Malcolm releases my hand.
I curl my empty fingers against the thin cotton of my blanket. “I’m too close to proving the existence of Damion’s underground business. And if he has Savannah, I have a responsibility to find her.”
Aiko’s torn expression comes to my mind. Even as a memory, her angry words slice at my heart. When she comes home only to discover that you’ve told everyone she’s a drug mule, she’s going to hate you. And so will I.
Savannah had a perfect home life. Parents who loved her, and a stepsister who adored her. If it were up to me, I couldn’t leave a family broken like that.
It hurts too damned much.
“You have no such burden.” Malcolm paces to the foot of my bed. “Let the police do their jobs. Allow me to do mine. Be a kid at a prestigious school stressing about GPA and class rank. They’ve taken so much from you. Don’t let them take more.”
“How can I be a normal teenager when the headmistress all but ordered I continue to do the Virtue challenges? To do the Societies’ bidding?”
“We have no choice but to agree to that for the time being.” Malcolm nods, more to himself as he rubs his chin. “After this evening, we can’t raise any more suspicions. I’ll do what I can to continue collecting intel on Damion’s movements. Because, sweet girl, if you think I am willingly handing over my wife and letting Damion use my daughter as a puppet, you are sorely mistaken.”
Malcolm’s stare lands on mine. His haggard, overworked expression disappears, a resolved, determined layer taking its place. His eyes swirl, his lips twist.