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Chapter twenty-three

Ryann

Uncle Pat looks more relaxed than the first time I saw him, but he still looks like he’s going to start yelling at any minute. It’s so familiar that it makes me smirk, which has him cussing me out almost instantly. The guys watch him in various states of shock, while I cackle as I lean on his car. I guess hockey players don’t give their coaches hell.

“All right, inside with you.”

He shoos us inside the house, and once the door’s closed, he turns on Raider. “What are you doing to protect my niece?”

I gape at him. “Hey! I can protect myself.”

They ignore me while I bristle and mentally threaten to stomp precious body parts.

“We’ve changed the locks, secured a trip alarm on every possible entrance to the home. We have emergency personal alarms scattered throughout the house. The house has an alarm that will automatically dial the police, my family, you, and us. And I have my family scanning all her past homes and security footage, searching for anyone who might be the suspect.”

“Good. Very good.”

“Thanks, Coach.”

I pull a face and turn away from the two of them. Raider is clearly wanting to watch me have sex with the pack tonight.

“All right, I went back over the information. I’ve brought it here with me, but I had to have a look because I remembered something. The kid’s name was Rusty Deirnan. He was a troubled alpha, had shitty parents, and just did some strange things, but nothing too bad. However, some omega reported him for peeping, and another beta said he was caught in her house late one night.”

Wren hisses. “So, he has a history? That’s not the name that Mirakill gave us. So who is Eli Thompson?”

“Eli?” My uncle frowns, and then his face clears with comprehension. “Eli died, I checked that out too because the name was so familiar. He went missing the same year, just before my brother died. The police thought Rusty had finally snapped and killed him because Eli used to beat him up pretty badly. But they recovered his body a year ago. James Thompson was arrested six months ago for murdering his son, he’s in prison as we speak.”

“And Rusty is the guy?” Kit asks with a frown in my direction.

I scan all my memories, but I cannot place him.

“Well, yeah, I mean, Dave and I went and confronted him a week before my brother died.” Uncle Patrick’s expression folds into a mask of grief. “It was the last time I saw him, but Dave knew it was him. He was sure.”

I stare at my uncle. Electricity runs through my body. A sense of being trapped one foot in the past and one in the present holds me motionless. “Dad knew?”

“Of course, he knew who it was, Rhee. Your dad was sure he could talk him around and get him to stop, though. He had a soft spot for troubled kids. Dave said Rusty had the opportunity. He was hanging around all the time. Watching, being inappropriate. When Rusty was seventeen, my brother gave him a chance to play hockey. He was really good. Not a little good but really fucking good. He could have gone pro.”

“What happened?”

“The charges. It was enough to ruin him, to scare him. The team scout dropped him, the high school wouldn’t let him finish, his parents kicked him out, the whole community just shut him out. I don’t know that he ever recovered. He loved the game so much and worshiped my brother, but after that day, he was never the same. Dave never believed that Rusty killed Eli, but they were all set to go, to charge him with it.”

I gasp, rearranging pieces of my past until they suddenly make sense. I can’t stop staring at my uncle, wondering why I never heard any of this.

“I was too big. I’d just signed on to take care of the Demons, and my face was too recognisable. Once we decided Rhee should leave, we also decided she should go alone. You were meant to go to Sally’s house and live with her,” he accuses me.

I turn on him hotly. “When I got to Sally’s, she was all freaked out, said she never agreed to it. She shoved the money you gave her into my hand and sent me on.”

My uncle’s mouth drops open. “That fucking bitch! ”

I wince. “It’s fine. It was better. I met a travelling photographer who showed me the ropes, bought my camera with the money, and was able to work my way around.”

They’re all staring at me. I shift from foot to foot and click my tongue. The pity is so thick in the room I feel like I’m going to choke on it.

“Stop it! It was fine, and I enjoyed living and working with Danyal.”

“Is Danyal the boyfriend?” Raider asks with a touch of menace.

“No, he’s not!” I spit back hotly. “Danyal is my mentor and forty years older than me. So, knock it off.”

Kit chuckles and moves between us. “So, what happened to Rusty?”

“No one knows. After my brother and his wife died, Rusty disappeared. He was supposed to be charged, but the charges were dropped a few weeks later, but, by then, he was in the wind. There was no one to care what happened to him. I guess no one noticed because we were all mourning Dave and Shirly. But he snuck off one day, and no one has seen him since.”

My uncle runs his hands over his face. He ages before my eyes.

“I mean that literally, Rusty Diernan disappeared off the face of the planet. I’ve searched. I’ve hired people who have searched. He’s just gone.”

“Are you sure it’s him?” Wren asks and sits down on the couch.

“Who else could it be?” Uncle Pat says almost hysterically.

“I hate to be the one to ask this, but how did Ryann’s parents die?” Callan asks. “Was it…?”

I knew it was going to come up. I knew someone was going to ask. I’m not prepared. Nothing can ever prepare me for that question.

“They’d put extra locks on the doors to keep him out.”

My uncle’s words bring the guilt right back to the forefront. My parents did everything they could to protect me, and it took their lives.

“The cameras Dave set up to try to get some evidence showed them trying to get out. He wasn’t a big shot hockey coach, he just taught kids. We didn’t have much money. The circuit breaker sparked. That’s what the fire inspector said. Accident due to an overloaded circuit, probably all the extra things they were running to catch this kid. They couldn’t get out because they couldn’t remember in their panic where the keys were.”

I push a hand against my chest. The ache feels like it will never heal. The silence is thick, heavy, filled with grief and horror as the words echo in my brain.

My fault. But for me, my parents would be alive. But for my fear, they wouldn’t have burned to death locked in their own home. If I didn’t need to be safe, they would have had the keys. They wouldn’t have overloaded the circuit breaker.

But for me .

“It wasn’t your damn fault!” My uncle shouts, spit flies, and his face turns red. “It was his fault. This little, cowardly little shit. It wasn’t your fault!”

I stumble back, startled by how unhinged my uncle looks.

Callan crosses the few feet between us and takes my shoulder. “Are you listening to your uncle? It’s not your fault!”

“I wasn’t home.”

“What?”

“I wasn’t home. Look, just listen, I wasn’t even home. I’d snuck out to go and skate. I was supposed to meet up with a friend, but they didn’t show. Just for an hour. I needed to be away from the house, but I fell over and hurt myself, and I just lay there crying. And a couple of hours passed before I got up and walked home.”

“It’s not your fault!”

“If I’d walked faster, if I’d have stayed at home-”

“Then you’d have been dead, too!”

I don’t say the words that I’ve said a thousand times, that maybe it would have been better if I died, too, because, right now, staring at them, I don’t think I’d mean them. And that makes me feel even guiltier. I should want my parents back more than anything, right?

“The police implied I set the fire. They implied that it was my fault. They outright accused me. The police thought I made everything up and was mentally ill and needed therapy.”

Wren growls in sync with Kit.

The sound is both scary and soothing.

“We know it’s not your fault. We don’t care about anyone else’s opinion.”

“So he didn’t have anything to do with the fire?”

“No, it was an accident. As far as I know, he’s never hurt anyone,” My uncle says solemnly

The guys exchange a look.

“What?”

“That was before you started having a relationship that looks permanent,” Kit murmurs. “Things could be different now.”

“Very,” Callan agrees.

The thoughts have crossed my mind. He went to such extremes to end my previous relationships. He’d do the same with this one, maybe worse.

It sends a bolt of such unbridled terror through me that I don’t hear what Wren says.

Uncle Pat leaves, but I barely register it. The guys show him out and come and sit with me on the couch .

It’s not until Kit’s hand comes down on my thigh and squeezes that I remember where I am. I jerk hard and glance his way. Kit is calm, with confidence and self-assurance that steadies me. He’s got no fear on his face, there’s no cowing or panic. His steadiness bleeds into me, soothing the fear.

This alpha is something remarkable.

“It’s going to be okay,” he murmurs, and, to my surprise, I believe him, and I’m not in the habit of believing people.