Devils & Thieves (Devils & Thieves #1)(46)

“What happened?” I whispered. We were standing in the middle of the field in broad daylight, beneath the midsummer sun, and I still felt a chill run up my back.

“I trapped them all inside the building with a barrier,” he said. “Henry realized we were there—and he had his officers each run to one of the chosen victims. He ordered them to kill, just to keep them from being rescued.”

“You had to stop them.”

“Yeah,” Dad said quietly. “I got a bubble around all but one. I wasn’t fast enough to protect Carlos Cabrera. Kyle Horst—the Deathstalker vice president who was the meanest invictus kindled I ever met, cut his throat. And the kid—he never regained consciousness, so he had no chance to protect himself. Michael couldn’t stand for it. He snapped Kyle’s spine with a mere thought, and then he just kept going. Before I could stop him, the officers were dead and only Henry was left. He tried to run.” Dad bowed his head. “But Michael shouted for my help, and I couldn’t let him down. I bound Henry’s siphoning magic, rendering him powerless, and then I basically delivered him to Michael on a silver platter—I immobilized him with a vault hex. And Michael…” He sighed. “He turned Henry inside out, Jemmie. Literally. He pulled him apart and left ten pieces of him scattered across that warehouse floor, a message to anyone who would ever even think about trying the cruori spell.”

“Pieces?” I said weakly.

“It got out of control, and I couldn’t stop it.” He ran a hand through his hair. “We should have called in the Syndicate, and instead we took the law into our own hands.”

“But Henry was in the process of doing something terrible.”

“That doesn’t mean we had to become like him to take him down.” He raised his head. “That’s why I left, Jemmie. It had nothing to do with you, except that I was too ashamed to look at you afterward, too afraid of what I had turned into. I couldn’t stand to think that I had that much blood on my hands. I had to atone.”

“So you left us,” I said in a dead voice.

He sighed. “I’m not saying I did the right thing. I just did what I had to do to be able to look at myself in the mirror again. It took a long time to feel like I wasn’t staring at a killer. Truth is, I haven’t felt worthy of being your father for years. Haven’t felt worthy of being a husband or a real friend, either.”

In that moment, standing with my father in the middle of that field, I finally realized how alone he had been. “Did you ever talk to Michael after that night?”

“He tried to talk to me. He kept saying he’d done what he had to do.” Dad stared at Crowe’s distant form. “But if you become a monster to kill a monster…” He shifted his attention to me. “Doesn’t change the fact that you’re a monster. And I get the feeling that Crowe is a lot like his father, Jemmie. He’s got more power than he knows what to do with, and more rage than Michael ever did.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “You’re here for him, aren’t you?”

“I’m here to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself.”

“And you think Crowe’s going to kill more Deathstalkers?”

“I think he’s just looking for an excuse. Part of me wouldn’t be surprised if he’s got Alex hiding somewhere.”

“Just to pin the blame on the Stalkers?” I gaped at him in disgust. “Do you have any idea how worried Crowe is about her? He’s sick with it. And you—” I turned and started walking after Crowe. “If you want to make up for whatever you did, and if you want to make sure Crowe doesn’t take matters into his own hands, help him find his sister!”

“I asked for this assignment, Jemmie. I asked because if it hadn’t been me, the Syndicate would have sent others, and they don’t care about this club the way I do. They think the Devils are outlaws and would love to take the entire club down. But I know these people. I grew up with them. I watched some of them, like Hardy and Jackson and Brooke, take their first rides. I don’t want innocents to get hurt, and I don’t want anyone caught in the crossfire, including you.”

“But you don’t give a shit about Michael Medici’s son!” I yelled, my voice cracking. “You’re here, looking for any excuse to bind him and take him in, just to make yourself feel better for what you did!”

“In the last year, Crowe Medici has shown that he’s more than willing to hurt other people to make a point.”

“He was protecting his club.”

“He’s going to take it too far someday, Jemmie. He reminds me so much of Michael.”

“So you’ve already tried him and found him guilty. Sounds fair.” I headed off, needing to put distance between us.

“Wait, Mo, I need you to understand—”

“I think I understand perfectly well,” I shouted back. “If a person can be judged on the basis of who their father is, then I need to get the hell away from you.”

I cut between the Warwick and Flynn family tents, past the kiddie tent, past the beer tent, all the way to the tent of the Rolling Sixes, where I found Crowe and Hardy and a few other Devils facing off with Ronan Niklos and what looked to be half his full-patch members. My throat was instantly coated with a funky mixture of venemon and animalia magic, and my vision clouded with amber-purple haze. A fierce growl drew my eyes to the enormous Doberman hulking at Ronan’s side, teeth bared and eyes fixed on Crowe, as if he’d already been given a target.