“Where did they send him?”
“No one would ever tell me,” Raine said with a shrug. “That was part of the lawsuit. I didn’t care about the money; I just wanted to know what happened to my dad.”
“So what happened to him?”
“Well, from what I could get out of the testimony that was made public, he was executed.”
My stomach muscles tightened up in my gut, and I felt a shiver run down my back.
“Who executed him?”
“It was a crime lord,” Raine said. “Dad was just a small-town cop – he never should have been wherever he was. He had no idea what he was walking into.”
“What did he walk into?”
“They wouldn’t tell me,” Raine said. “There was someone who was there – someone from the organization who offered up his testimony to keep from going to jail, but it was all closed courtroom. They wouldn’t even let me in, and all the transcripts were classified. They said it was all too confidential and the investigation was still going on and all these other lines. I didn’t know what to believe. I think they gave me all the money just to keep the lawyers from making it more public. My lawyer was happy with the money and told me I should just take it. No one else would touch the case, so I did. It wasn’t what I wanted, so I never spent any of the money before this trip.”
I didn’t even hear the last part of what she said. I tried to swallow but I couldn’t get anything through my throat. Various thoughts gathered around in my head like a rugby scrum, and the final conclusion made me want to vomit.
“Raine…” I said softly, finally getting my mouth to form some sort of actual, intelligible word. “Raine Gayle?”
“Yeah, how did you…?”
“Henry Gayle’s daughter,” I interrupted. It wasn’t a question; I knew it was true.
I remembered her name from the trial. One of the lawyers said the daughter of the cop was trying to get access to the courtroom. Landon used his influence to make sure that didn’t happen. I looked down at my hands, waiting for them to start shaking, but I think even my limbs were in too much shock to do anything.
“Daniel, how do you know my father’s name?”
“It’s not Daniel.” As soon as I said it, I regretted it.
“Sorry – I forgot. Bastian…” Raine paused and then repeated my name. “Bastian?”
Ah, shit. I really, really needed a drink now.
“Sebastian?”
She looked up at me, blinked twice, and then looked away. Her head snapped back to me, and her eyes went wide.
“Sebastian Stark.”
My mouth wouldn’t respond to any mental commands, so I went with a nod instead.
“You were there.”
I nodded my head again.
“You’re the one who testified against the man who killed him.”
Another nod.
“You…you watched him die?” Her voice broke on the last word, making it sound like a question. I could no longer move my head.
I guess I didn’t need all that anonymity after all.
Chapter 7 – Hurt
All my muscles were tensed and ready, as if they perceived a threat similar to the beginning of a tournament. There was something different in the feeling, and when I realized my muscles were tensed for flight, not fight, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. My natural reaction had always been fight – I had never run from anything in my life. What was it about this miniscule little girl that scared the shit out of me? Once she understood everything, she was going to hate me, and the thought was extremely unnerving. I didn’t want her to hate me.
I waited in silence and watched Raine warily. I couldn’t even name all the emotions passing over her face as she put the little puzzle pieces in their proper places and realized how big a dick I really was. Her mouth kept opening up a little like she was going to say something, but then she’d stop and look away from me.
I’d been there when her father was killed. I heard him beg for the mercy of death as they tortured him. I heard him cry for his daughter. I heard him beg for his life before I watched the barrel of a gun point at his head. It didn’t matter at that point – he couldn’t have survived what they had done to him. Regardless, I just sat in my seat and didn’t move when the trigger was pulled and his brains splattered on the wall behind him. I never moved. I never protested. I just watched it happen. Three of them had died before I had managed to stand and move towards them. At that point, John Paul had grabbed one of my arms and Landon the other, keeping me from going forward. I still didn’t speak, didn’t tell them to stop. Gayle and his partner were tortured the worst because they were cops, but they all died.
One by one, they all died while I stood there and watched.
My memories were interrupted by a deafening roar as Raine suddenly threw herself at me. Her little fists were pounding on my chest while tears rolled down her face.