My heart drops. Where the fuck is my phone? Probably lodged between the cushions of the couch. Nowhere that’s easily reachable. And definitely not in a spot where I could sneak it into my pocket. Billy’s watching me like a hawk, waiting for me to twitch in a manner that he doesn’t like before he pounces.
“What did Barbie tell you?”
“You know I’m hurt,” he cuts in before the words barely finish leaving my mouth. “I raised you, River. Watched you grow into a young woman. Taught you many life lessons. I thought we had a bond.” My heart speeds up when he walks closer. Closer, and closer until a monster is standing directly in front of me.
His eye twitches, the only sign that Billy is angry. I don’t know if he’s on meth right now or not, but Billy can be really good at hiding when he’s riding high on drugs if he needs to be. Ever the professional. Just like Ryan, he always cared about his reputation and image with people. He would never live it down if he looked like some tweaker from the streets.
“Billy, I don’t know what Barbie tol—” The loud slap rings in my ear before the burning sensation fully sets in. I close my eyes against as the fire finally catches up, setting the nerves in my face ablaze. I glue my teeth shut, learning my lesson not to speak.
“Don’t fucking lie to me,” he spits, letting the blank mask slip for a few terrifying seconds, before donning the mask once more. The switch—quickly turning from one person to the next—is unsettling to watch. Calm and collected one second, to raging mad another, and then back to calm as if I hallucinated the anger.
I don’t speak again, not trusting the right words to come out of my mouth. There are no right words. He’s angry and it doesn’t matter what I say. In his eyes, there’s no excusing the fact that I sold him out to the police. To a detective.
“Do you realize how much money it’s going to cost to clear my name?” he asks, tilting his body down to eye level. His breath reeks of spearmint gun, the sharp smell invading my senses. Billy always loved to chew gum. He said it would look unprofessional to kill someone with bad breath.
I shake my head once, tightening my lips into a firm, white line. His hand snaps out, startling me as he grabs a fist full of hair and wrenches my face into his. I jump, a scream loosing from my throat. Dead eyes stare into widened eyes filled with terror.
“You betrayed me, River. Your own father.”
A gasp lodges in my throat. My body freezes and my eyes squeeze shut. From pain. Denial. Absolute rage.
I convinced myself Barbie was lying to me, just to hurt me further. Twist the knife that was already plunged in my heart when Mako found out I was lying to him. I refused to actually consider what she was saying. Refused, refused, refused.
“You’re lying,” I spit through gritted teeth, my body resuming its fight tenfold. Burning rage consumes me. There’s no way Billy is my fucking father. “My father could be anyone.”
Billy’s dark laugh reaches my ears and slithers down into my soul, cracking it just a little bit more.
“I had a paternity test done when you were born,” he admits, shrugging a shoulder as if he isn’t currently tearing my life apart. Tears burn my retinas, those words eliciting a response in me I can’t quite describe. Barbie could never tell me who my father was—at least that’s what she always led me to believe. Any time I asked, she’d scoff at me and ask me how many clients she fucks in a week. I could never give her an answer.
“I don’t look anything like you,” I argue, a last ditch effort to catch him in a lie.
He smiles sardonically. “You’re right. But you got your eyes from my mother.” My eyes narrow, still not ready to believe him.
“You look so much how Barbie did when she was your age. Beautiful. But those eyes, they’re exactly like my mother’s. Always filled with fire and brimstone. And you know what?” He pauses, waiting for my response.
“What?” I grit out.
“I hated my mother.”
Twenty Five
Mako
NEVER IN MY LIFE did I think I’d be sitting here consoling my mother as we bury her son—my brother. Not that I could ever technically call him that. He was never much of a brother and more of an abuser. That’s what he was to many people.
Mom’s head is resting on my shoulders, bawling her sad blue eyes out as we lower Ryan’s casket into the ground on a chilly Saturday morning. An empty casket. Dad’s on the other side of her, barely holding it together as he hugs his wife from the other side, his arm firmly wrapped around her tiny waist. It’s taking everything in me not to lift my arm back and clock him. Doesn’t matter that I hated Ryan, it doesn’t change the fact that he raped a little boy fo
r who knows how many years. Did he ever really stop?
That’s something I’ll never know.
I haven’t told Mom the truth about him, yet. I tried, but it was so hard to do while she’s grieving the death of her son. I’m scared to see how she’ll react when she has to grieve her husband, too.
As many people there are that cared about Ryan, Mom and Dad insisted on a personal funeral. Immediate family only, with the obvious inclusion of his girlfriend.
She’s not fucking here, though. Not sure if it’s because she didn’t think she could handle being able to keep up the pretense of grieving a man that hurt her in so many ways, or if she didn’t come because she didn’t want to face me. Either way, Mom and Dad are upset she didn’t make it, without a word as to why.
And me? I’m just fucking pissed.