Gabe immediately felt like an ass. Only a few months earlier, he’d been defending the Old Man to Kyle with the same argument, knowing full well what lengths Mac would go to for family after having witnessed his unfaltering devotion to their mother in her illness. He’d sacrificed everything to try to save her life only to fail in the end.
The guilt didn’t end there. Mac had been forced to deplete the boys’ college funds to cover medical bills. Tom and Kyle had managed on scholarships and student loans. Gabe had gone to school part-time, working his way through. But Joe had joined the National Guard, and during one of his deployments, they’d nearly lost him. Gabe knew their father blamed himself to this day, berating himself for not providing better for his family. He saw it in his dad’s eyes every time he caught Mac looking at Joe.
The one time he’d worked up the nerve to ask his dad what was going through his head, he just got a terse, “It’d kill me, losing one of you boys.”
Finally, Gabe heaved a sigh. “Of course not, sir. I’m sorry. I just don’t know what the hell I’m gonna do.”
Mac came around to the front of his desk and sat on the corner, looking so much like a twenty-five-year-older version of Tom, Gabe had to suppress a grin.
Mac narrowed his eyes at Gabe for a long moment, then gave a nod as if coming to some decision. “You’re gonna man up, Gabriel, and keep your head high. And when we clear you of these bullshit charges, you’re gonna bring that son of a bitch down. Is that clear?”
Gabe gave a terse nod that mirrored his father’s. “Yes, sir.”
*
Jeb Monroe led his daughter by the arm, holding her gently, as if she might break. He didn’t miss the way the deputies he passed on the way into the sheriff’s department looked away, as if they might be considered guilty by association.
So the story was already out…
Good. It was the first nail in Deputy Dawson’s coffin. And, by extension, that of his father. The Dawson family was about to feel the fury of his wrath as demanded by the judgment of the Great Almighty himself.
Jeb had realized the night before that it was time to act, time to make his move on the Dawsons and their whore in the prosecutor’s office. And what he had planned would be just the sort of incident that made the papers, galvanized other righteous people like him who prepared for the revolution that was coming. They’d know it was time to act, time to take up arms and declare independence from tyranny.
“I can’t do this.”
He halted abruptly, his daughter’s cowardice snapping him out of his dreams for the future. He sent a quick glance around and jerked her arm, making her whimper and shrink away from him. “You can do this,” he growled. “You will do this. Is that clear? You know what’s at stake.”
Her chin began to tremble. “But it’s wrong.”
He narrowed his eyes at her, his grip on her arm tightening until she cried out. “Is rising up against tyranny ever wrong? Is following the will of God to rid the world of hedonists ever wrong?”
She didn’t reply, merely stood there trembling. And well she should tremble for fear of the world and how Satan had sunk his claws into the godless. She should be very afraid her own soul was at risk. But soon she’d be delivered of the horrors of this world. She would serve as a martyr for the cause and be forever spoken of with reverence among the righteous. It would be his final gift to her. He would save her from turning her back on the cause before her betrayal was known to any others.
But first she had a vital part to play.
Jeremy stood off to the side of the door, hands in his pockets, his head hanging. Jeb had yet to determine what to do about his son. The boy had betrayed him as well, had called him crazy. But weren’t many of the great men of history considered crazy until they were proven right? Jeremy was misguided, led astray by his traitorous mother. But he would soon have him back on the right path.
“Get inside,” Jeb snapped, dragging Sandra forward. “Now both of you remember what I told you. You say exactly what we rehearsed on the ride here.”
When Jeremy nodded, Jeb pulled open the door and strode straight to the front desk. “I’m here to see Sheriff Dawson,” he announced. “You can tell him Jeb Monroe is here with his daughter.”
*
Gabe felt something in the air shift and the hair on the back of his neck prickled. His instincts told him Monroe had arrived even before he turned in his seat to see who his father was glaring daggers at.
“Here we go,” Mac ground out. “You can listen in, in the observation room.”
Gabe nodded and waited until one of the deputies ushered Jeb and his children to the conference room, then squared his shoulders and strode out of his father’s office, not bothering to meet the curious gazes of any of his colleagues. But just as he was entering the observation room, his phone began to buzz.
His heart leaped up into his throat. Expecting it to be Elle finally calling him, he snatched it from his hip and answered without even checking the screen display. “Hey, I’m sorry—”
“Is it true?”
Shit.