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Tahlia’s eyes flicked to mine for instruction.
I was still shocked that my little girl—my fucking daughter—was talking to Tahlia and not me. She knew Tahlia. I was reeling.
“Hey, why don’t we check out your room?” Tahlia asked, waiting for me to approve.
“Yeah, that’s a good idea.”
What the hell else was I supposed to say? I didn’t even know what to do right now. I watched as she headed into the house with Carli, chatting with her as if they talked every fucking day. I ran a hand over my jaw, shaking my head in frustration.
“Baby, why don’t you take Parker into the house,” Jack said to Skylar.
She eyed me, then nodded to her husband. As soon as they got inside, I fucking exploded.
“What the fuck was that?”
“I don’t know, man. I swear to God, I had no idea.”
“Your wife knew I had a kid. My daughter knows Tahlia, but she had no fucking clue who I was,” I snapped.
“I know?—”
“She looked me in the eye every fucking day and said nothing to me! She has a relationship with her that I never got the chance to have!”
“Jason—”
“Don’t you even try to justify this to me,” I hissed at Johnny. “You would be fucking pissed if the situation was reversed.”
“I’m not saying I wouldn’t be. Calm the fuck down,” he snapped.
I was trying to. Fuck, I really was trying to forget about the fact that another person knew my own kid better than me, but there was too much shit going on right now.
“What happened when you got there?” Johnny asked.
It took everything in me to force the image of Leah strapped to the chair to the back of my mind. If I focused on the way she looked, I’d fucking lose it, and I had to keep my shit together.
“They’d tortured her. She was beaten to hell,” I said, my voice cracking as I barely held it together.
“What about Carli?”
“She was in the basement. Knight and Cash found shell casings all over the house. Leah must have seen them coming and locked her down there.” I ran my hand over the back of my neck, feeling like complete shit for not being there, for the fact that she had to go through that alone. For the terror she must have felt. “She never gave up. She protected our little girl until the end. And where was I?”
“Don’t do this,” Jack sighed, clapping a hand on my shoulder. “I’ve been there. Trust me, you’ll kill yourself with guilt.”
“I did this to her,” I admitted. “I told her it would never be more, that I never wanted to see her again. She didn’t tell me about Carli because I fucking made it perfectly clear that I would never return to her.” I glanced at the house. “I can’t even be pissed at Tahlia. She was there for Leah when I wasn’t.”
“She should have told you,” Johnny grumbled. “If I had known?—”
“It’s done,” I said sharply. “We won’t argue over this, and it won’t put a strain on your relationship. She did what she thought she had to do for her friend. I don’t like it, but at least Carli has someone she knows.”
It hit me like a punch to the gut to admit that, but it was the truth. This all laid at my feet. All my fuckups caused this chain of events. “If I had been there for her, she would have been here. She would have been protected, and she never would have had to stash our daughter in the fucking basement to protect her. She never would have?—”
I choked on my words, closing my eyes as I pictured her slumped over in that chair with blood dripping from her hair. I slid my hand over my face and fought back the tears that threatened to consume me. Fuck, I’d lost her. I never even had the chance to make things right. The woman I had fallen for was all alone when they came for her, and it was all my fault. My stupid pride got in the way, and she paid the price for it.
“You said Cash and Knight were there,” Jack said after a few minutes. “Did they say who was after her?”
I shook my head. “Cash told me to stop digging. He said they came after her because OPS wouldn’t stop digging.”
“He’s the owner of OPS,” Jack pointed out.