Page 101 of The Lilac River

“I’m just... going home to pack,” I said, voice scraping up my throat. “I’m going with my mom to visit my grandma.”

He pushed off the post, sauntering toward me with a slow, deliberate gait. The kind of walk that said he had all the time in the world to ruin mine. Each step crunched against the gravel path like punctuation.

“You know, I always wondered,” he said. "What a girl like you was doing here. In a place like this." He circled a finger lazily in the air. “On a ranch like this.”

“I’m sorry.” I gripped my jacket tighter. "I’m not sure I understand."

He smiled. A cruel, pitying one. Like I was a stray someone should’ve shot long ago.

“What my son sees in you is what I mean. The high school football star and the daughter of a single mother.”

My heart caught in my throat, squeezing until my voice came out hoarse. “Nash loves me.”

“Love.” He said it like a curse. “It’s a fragile thing, sweetheart. You think it’ll survive what’s coming?”

The hairs on my arms lifted. My body knew something terrible was coming before my mind could catch up.

"I-I don't know what you mean."

He lowered his voice, making it almost gentle. "Your daddy’s a killer. Am I right?"

My blood iced over.

"H-how did you know? No one knows," I whispered, heart pounding like a snare drum in my chest. "It doesn’t matter anyway because?—"

"It matters," he snapped, all pretense of charm dropping like a mask. "Especially when it hits the papers. When every gossip in this town gets a whiff that Michael Miller’s boy isshacked up with a murderer’s daughter, because I know all about your little scheme to lure him away from Alabama. Did you think the Dean at UA wouldn’t contact me to ask why my son was changing to Ohio State?"

He stepped closer, looming now.

"Of course they did. You think he’ll make it if he doesn’t stick to the plan?”

“That was Nash’s choice, not mine.”

He ignored me and continued his verbal attack. “And if by some chance he does you know that the headlines will be, don’t you? ‘Father of Star quarterback’s girlfriend murdered two for pocket change’."

I shook my head fiercely, the world tilting sideways beneath me. “That’s not how it is,” I protested. “I don’t even see my father. He’s not?—”

“People will make Nash’s life hell because of it. The press will love it.” He shrugged. “Or maybe not. Maybe people will feel sorry for you. Maybe.”

He leaned in, voice low and oily. "What about your Mom, though? You think she’ll survive it if it comes out? You think Ella Jones keeps her job at the hospital once everyone knows her husband was a killer, and she kept it secret?"

Tears pricked my eyes, hot and helpless. "Please, you don’t?—"

"Listen, Lily,” he said, his voice dropping even lower. “I’m not a cruel man, so I’ll give you a choice.”

No, he wasn’t cruel. He was calculated.

"You can go now, this morning. Quietly. Disappear from Nash's life, and I’ll make sure your mom stays protected. No one’s the wiser. Nash will go to UA as planned and will become a star without your secrets holding him back."

He let the pause hang like a trap. "But if you stay?"

He stepped closer, his breath sour with coffee, his eyes glittering.

"If you stay, I'll ruin you both." His tone was calm. Chillingly calm. "No one around here will feel safe around you. I can hear it now, ‘What if she takes after her dad?’ ‘She must have known she was married to a monster.’”

He let it hang in the fog like poison.

As he watched me, waiting for his words to settle like ice in my blood, I tried to catch my breath. Tried to make sense of the nightmare unraveling around me.