Page 99 of Serpentine
Now, it’s Miles who squeezes my hand in silent strength.
“It doesn’t matter how I know them, Dad.”
“We know you had something to do with her disappearance,” Braxton says, trying to sit up. I know after what we just did, he’s in a lot of pain. He needs to lie down. So he doesn’t hurt himself further.
Dad closes his eyes, pain pinching at the crow’s feet on either side of them. “I will never harm a hair on Susan’s head.”
Something strikes through me—a feeling.
He’s speaking in the present tense.
He knows more than he’s letting on, and I know the instant Miles shakes again that he’s heard it, too.
“Then what happened to her, hm?” I ask, stepping away from Miles and towards my father, standing at the end of the bed where I just had the most thrilling moment with these two men.
“I don’t know,” he says, and my stomach twists. He’s lying. But why?
“You need to leave,” Braxton says. “We told you at her funeral that we didn’t want to see you again, Walter. We fucking meant it,” he adds.
I bristle slightly at how he’s spoken to the man my DNA belongs to, but I don’t know him. Not truly.
I come to the side of the bed and sit next to Braxton, grabbing his hand.
Now, Dad’s brows raise. He looks at the three of us, sussing out what he can from the moment, but says nothing.
“Aella, might I speak with you in the hall?” he asks, and Brax grasps my hand harder. I look over, pleading with him with a look that says I’ll be fine.
“Keep it brief,” Miles says, looking at me next. “I’ll be just inside the door if you need me.”
Dad scoffs but doesn’t say another word.
The Cobras already have him in their crosshairs. Continuing to press them wouldn’t be smart.
I lean over and kiss Braxton, hovering for a moment. “I’ll be right back.”
He nods, breathing me in for strength.
When the door closes behind me, Dad crosses his arms. “What are you doing with those two? Do you know who or what you’re mixed up with?”
“Oh, now you care about my life and what I choose to do with it? Or is this show of fatherly love all because if the press finds me out, it’ll reflect badly on you?”
He rolls his eyes and turns his back to me, scrubbing his hands through his hair and mussing it up. Something I’ve never seen him do. He’s always the picture of perfection, the calm inside the storm.
“Aella, you need to…”
I cut him off with my hand held high. “Did you kill their mother?”
He takes a step backward to look at me in a new light. “Of course, I didn’t,” he rushes out.
My stomach doesn’t twist. “Did you have anything to do with her death? Did you have a hand in why she’s missing?”
He closes his eyes against the weight of the questions. “I need you to stop. It would be best if you left it alone, Aella. You don’t know what you’re stepping into. And, what, you’re with both of them? What the hell? Carter didn’t love you that much? He dismissed you so much that you’re that needy for attention?”
Rage becomes too much to handle. I step into him quicker than I can think and slap him across his face hard. His head turns, and he pauses, letting the sting wash through him. The moment is so fucking much to process.
I went from not knowing my father at all to never seeing him to him being in front of me, throwing accusations at me. As if he fucking knows me.
“You don’t have the right to speak to me like that. What I do with my life is my business. Fuck you, and fuck your standards.” The words set between us, and I realized a nurse behind the nurses’ station glared at us like we were her entertainment for the evening shift she was pulling.