Page 8 of Broken Bonds

Not that I thought I’d be able to. I mean, I’m the youngest son of Randolph Sterling. What pack in their right mind would want someone like me settling down amongst them to potentially draw his deadly attention?

But… I have to start somewhere. And I was an idiot and spent my own money, nearly everything I had, over the past couple of months because I refused to take money from him.

Including a new laptop and tablet. Because while I love Mom I wasn’t sure if her buying them was a deeper trick by my father. My pride and principles bit me in the ass, all right.

I’d been pocketing extra cash but I wiped out that precious reserve with the supplies I bought right before I left. There’s still a couple of hundred in my account, but I left it there when Mom gave me the money, because I hoped it’d slow my father down if he saw it still there. No sudden cash withdrawals or crazy purchases showing up on my bank statement to clue him in that I was prepping to bolt.

Yes, I’m paranoid that he has a way to access my account. I wouldn’t put it past him.

I manage to wait three hours before I can’t take it anymore. I grab the tablet and head out into the night with my sweatshirt hood pulled up. I keep my head down and don’t walk like I’m in a hurry or being pursued. Casual, like a local. There’s a fast-food restaurant six blocks away with free wi-fi. I head there, on alert for any signs of shifters.

I walk into the restaurant, order a meal to go, and note the wi-fi password from the sign posted on the counter. Once I have my food, I head to the far back of the restaurant, take the last table, and start to eat with the tablet propped in my lap and hidden by the table.

I use incognito mode on the browser and log in to the e-mail account.

Relief fills me when I see a response.

Bushville City, Florida.

I immediately delete the e-mail, clear the trash, and delete the account. For good measure, I run a factory reset on the tablet to completely wipe it. I never registered it with my regular e-mail or app account, and never used it with our home wi-fi, so hopefully Dad can’t track it.

The person I e-mailed was a contact I discovered not long after I graduated from high school. I’d heard about them from someone else.

Hell, I wasn’t even sure if they were a real person or if it’d turn out to be a false lead.

I guess even then I had it in the back of my mind I might need to escape one day. I’d hoped to avoid completely disappearing for a reason such as this. I’d foolishly believed back then that if I proved I could make it on my own without my father’s help, or “embarrassing him,” he would let me live my life, let me earn an honest living, and relegate me to an ignored non-entity he could easily pretend didn’t exist.

Guess that’s too much for a malignant narcissist to bear.

Once the tablet is wiped and I finish eating I use the burner phone to tap into the wi-fi and look up a map of Florida. I don’t find the place at first, and start to panic until I find out it’s not an incorporated town. Hell, it’s barely a four-way stop sign in a rural area not far north of Brooksville, a couple of hours north of Tampa and closer to the coast than to the middle of the state.

That’s a damned long bike ride.

I throw away my trash and head out again, this time to a bar five blocks from the restaurant. There aren’t any shifters here as far as I can tell. I order a soda so they don’t card me, pay the bartender with a five and tell her to keep the change, and note their wi-fi password. I take a seat in the back and pull up a larger map on the tablet.

In a straight line it’s nearly 400 miles. By car, only a few hours south on I-75.

Except I can’t do that. I can’t even risk hitchhiking along the interstate. It’s too open, too exposed.

The first place my father or his men will likely try to track me.

I spend twenty minutes planning my route. Back roads south to the state line and, if I run across the opportunity to catch a ride with someone, like a farmer, I’ll take it. Otherwise, I’ll bike it. Another of my purchases, along with the backpack, was a small one-person tent and a lightweight sleeping bag. It’s not cold right now so I’ll be fine. I also bought a quality set of rain gear, and the backpack is waterproof. For insurance, I bought waterproof bags in which my clothes and other belongings are packed.

My hope is Dad wastes time thinking I’m camping for a few days, sulking. Because I played terrified—not difficult because I was terrified—and told him I would comply.

It took me four days to prepare for my departure, doing my best to avoid my father at home. Even buying and “accidentally” leaving a couple of wedding magazines on the coffee table with a few pages notated with sticky notes, and brochures from three upscale bakeries.

Like I’m silently giving in.

Since he doesn’t say anything to me or demand specifics, experience tells me he thinks he’s won so he’s “magnanimously” leaving me alone to lick my wounds. In the past, the gloating would happen once I followed through with whatever the “thing” was.

In this way, at least, he’s predictable. Yet I know my window is quickly closing. He believes I’m scared—I am—and that this time he’s finally put his paw on my throat in such a way I can’t escape.

Only Mom was home when I packed the car to leave that morning after my father left for work. She froze when she saw me in the garage. I’d backed in and parked in a blind spot, because the security camera inside the garage pointed at the side door, not at this side closest to the utility room. It also didn’t have sound, one of the few cameras Dad hadn’t upgraded.

I was loading all my shit in the trunk as Mom came in with groceries.

I hated the pain in her gaze. “Going…camping?” The way she asked tells me she knew that was not the truth. Like she knew I’d run.