Page 114 of Free to Judge

Jack turns, lips thin. “So, you figured that out?”

I shrug. “Wasn’t hard. Declan mentioned you enjoy using knives. I’m surprised he hasn’t.”

He applauds slowly. “No one put the two together until now. I had to get rid of Tanya, though I let the boys have fun with her body before I sent it back through Uncle Sam’s own postal service.”

I never thought I’d appreciate the cold air in the warehouse, but if it were any warmer, I’d be puking over my grandfather’s confession. Then, soft as a whisper, he says, “You remind me of her—Tanya.”

I don’t respond.

“The last time I saw her, she was hoping Declan would rescue her too. And here you are—doing the same, I bet.”

I force myself to look at him. “She didn’t survive you. I will. When I do, I’ll enjoy testifying at your trial. Then, after I put youaway, I’ll have another thing in common with my AuntCassidy. I’ll have survived you.”

“Oh, if only you’re alive to claim that win, lass.”

A heavy beat passes. Then he admits, “I wasn’t going to hurt you, you know. I planned to let you live your life.”

“What changed your mind?”

“I decided you would be the one to teach them all about loyalty.”

I laugh so hard at the irony that this bastard is going to teach the most loyal people in the world something he has no concept of that I don’t see the blow coming. My face whips to the side when he backhands me a second time. He huffs, “See, Katherine, you strike out at one of ours, we strike back. Even if he is agobshite.”

“Here you are getting all worked up when you don’t consider Declan yours? How does loyalty work for you, Jack?” I counter after spitting out a mouthful of blood.

His eyes dilate wildly as he sputters for an answer. “If you’d just accepted your place, you could have gone on with no repercussions. But that day, you struck out at theByrneswhen you lost your marbles in public.” He thumps his chest. “My family.”

“Ah, so it wasn’t that I struck Declan, per se. It wasyourpeople who were humiliated.”

He’s pleased I appear to grasp what he’s saying. “Exactly.”

I nod before declaring, “It’s official. You’re unhinged.”

I’m not ready for the blow to my already bruised ribs from his cane. He swings it around wildly, narrowly missing my head with a lethal shot. “I amnotcrazy!”

After he regains the narrow grasp he has on control, he leans against a nearby pillar, breath heaving before shouting, “See what you made me do?”

I can’t prevent the wheezing from the renewed pain nor the tears streaming down my face forced out by agony. It takes everything in me to gasp. “Made you do?”

“Tough love, lass.”

“Is—” I gasp. “Is…this how you raised my dad?”

His eyes water in some fucked up sense of love I hope my father never witnesses. “No. I love—loved—my son. It must have been Laura who turned him against me before she died.”

I declare flatly, “You mean before she was murdered.”

He whispers sinisterly, “What?”

“Mildred Lockwood admitted to murdering her. My father blames you for ruining his mother, for abandoning him, but not for her murder. He will,” I pause to try to suck in some more air, “blame you for harming his daughter. Fear that.”

Jack’s warped mind is so wrapped up in his denials of the past he doesn’t hear the small scrape of the warehouse door, but I do. I pray it’s help and not more people to drag me into the depths of darkness my family pulled themselves up from. The steel door in the back groans again.

This time, Jack hears it too.

His gaze snaps to the dark corner. For the first time, I see something in him that isn’t insanity or misplaced power. It’s something delicious—fear.

I smile, even with my face bruised and bloodied. “Calvary’s coming.”