Martin Scott was dead meat. He deserved to rot in an unmarked grave in the middle of the woods where he’d be alone and forgotten.
The hell he put Emmy through...
I was angry and disappointed with her, and I’d never look at her again, but as much as I hated to admit it…maybe I understood how she thought she didn’t have any other choice.
Her only unforgivable mistake was the years of silence since.
She should’ve stepped up and sought us out. How did anyone live like that?
I didn’t want to make her suffer anymore. I just wanted her out of my life for good. It was obvious now that we weren’t right and that she wasn’t one of us.
I was ready to live.
A knock sounded on the door, and I tensed, hearing it immediately open behind me.
“Hey,” Misha said, and I heard the door close.
I drew in a deep breath and exhaled, his presence making me feel like the walls were closing in. We were always close, despite the age difference, but I hated that he’d gotten tangled up in this. He never liked drama, and he hated my friends.
And I’d been without him a long time. Too long.
I turned and studied him, seeing the tail of a tattoo drift over his collarbone and his lip ring gleam in the small light.
He shifted on his feet. “I’m sorry it took us so long to find you,” he said.
I crossed my arms over my chest and headed back to the desk, folding up the notes I’d taken from my calls and slipping the paper into my back pocket. “I wasn’t waiting for a rescue or expecting one.”
“Your fucking parents,” he mumured. “They just…”
“They didn’t send me there,” I told him.
My parents would never do that. They were at their wits ends, trying to figure out what to do with me, and they hid it from the rest of the family pretty well, but they wouldn’t give up on me like that.
“Grandpa?” Misha guessed.
“It doesn’t matter.”
I wasn’t ready to talk about Blackchurch and how I came to be there until I was sure my plan would work. I wasn’t in the clear yet, and I didn’t want to come clean until I was.
Misha stood there like they all stood there, because shit had changed, and it would be a while before we got back to normal. If ever.
He chuckled lightly. “I seem to remember your advice about not getting tattoos anywhere visible while wearing a suit?” he teased.
I met his eyes, seeing his gaze on my hands and the dark ink I’d added over the past year while I was gone.
I stood by my advice, but fuck it. I’d been bored there.
He approached, but I kept my gaze averted. “You were there for me—or tried to be as much as I would allow—when Annie died. I’m so sorry it took us so long.”
His hands shook a little, and I could hear the sorrow in his voice.
It took a moment to get the words out. “I was always coming home,” I assured him. “Don’t worry about it.”
He was going to be pissed when he found out who was really to blame. I didn’t want him carrying any guilt.
“You’re different,” he said.
I nodded. “Yeah, I grew up.”