Hooked (Never After, #1)(59)

The smell of ash is strong in the air, making my nose tingle from the stench. There are fire trucks and ambulances, a few cop cars off to the side. And the JR is gone. Burned to the ground, nothing left but rubble.

My hand reaches up to cover my mouth. “Oh my god. What happened?”

Hook’s face is stoic as he surveys the damage. “Your father, I would presume.”

“No.” My heart jerks, the defense spitting off my tongue before I can even think through the words. “But he was with us tonight, he wouldn’t—”

Hook looks at me then, and my words die out, the memory of this evening replaying in my head. I swallow around the sadness building in my gut and spreading through every limb.

A keening wail comes from down the sidewalk and my head snaps over, the waitress from the JR running up to Hook and throwing her arms around his shoulders.

My chest pulls as I watch them embrace, but I step away, allowing them their moment. What do I care if they provide each other comfort?

Hooks' arms come up slowly, peeling her off him. “Moira.”

“Hook, it was terrible. I don’t know...” she hiccups. “I have no clue what happened. I just—one second everything was fine, and the next...” She covers her mouth, breaking down again in sobs, and I glance around, my stomach sinking, hoping that no one was hurt inside.

But I can’t help feeling relief too, at the fact that if there’s no JR, then there’s no basement with shackles and chains.





We don’t stay at the site for long before Hook has us back in the limo and on his yacht.

Somehow, we ended up lying on his bed, still in full evening wear, not speaking, barely moving at all. My mind replays the past few days, going back and forth over everything, wondering if what Hook says is true.

If my father really is the one responsible for so much damage.

My stomach turns and my heart kicks against its cage. “Are you really going to kill me?” I ask, staring up at the ceiling.

His fingers are locked together, resting on his abdomen, rising and falling with his even breaths. “I haven’t decided yet.”

A heavy knot twists in the center of my chest. “Do you really think my father did it?”

He sighs, his hand rubbing across his forehead, his eyes pinching closed. “Darling, your questions are becoming very tiresome.”

I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood, holding back the words that are dying to spew out. I risk a glance at his face. Sadness sneaks through his features; subtle, but there in the way his eyes turn down, and how the silence sticks to his skin—an aura of melancholy, almost as if he’s mourning.

“I’m sorry about your bar,” I whisper.

“It wasn’t mine.”

My brows raise, surprise flickering in my chest. “Oh, I just assumed—”

“It was Ru’s.”

I chew on my lip, nodding. “And Ru is… where?”

His head turns, hair mussing slightly on his pillow, his gaze sizzling as it sits on my skin. I stay stock-still, hoping that he finds whatever he’s looking for.

His tongue swipes over his bottom lip. “Dead.”

The word—even though I expected it—hits me like a sledgehammer, conversations from the evening slotting together like missing pieces of a puzzle. Ru’s dead. And my father asked where he was with a smirk on his face.

Anger and disbelief war inside me, clashing together in a cataclysmic explosion of grief. Grief for the man who raised me. Grief for the father I’ve lost.

I don’t apologize for Ru’s death. Something tells me Hook wouldn’t appreciate the words, that they’d tip the scale of his anger against me, and the last thing I want to do is upset him even more. Not when we’ve found some weird type of balance; a temporary truce.

“When I was a little girl,” I start. “My dad used to bring me acorns.”

Hook stiffens next to me, and I pause, but when he doesn’t speak, I take the risk and continue.

“It was this… stupid thing, really. I was five and the biggest daddy’s girl in the entire world, even though he was gone most the time.”

My chest pulls tight.

“But, when he’d get back home, he’d come into my room, and brush the hair from my face, leaning down and kissing my forehead good night.” Tears blur my vision and I squeeze my eyes shut, hot, wet trails streaking down my face. “I used to pretend to be asleep, afraid that if he knew I was awake, he’d stop sneaking in.”

A knot lodges in my throat and I hesitate, not sure I’ll be able to get the words out.

“What were the acorns for?” Hook’s voice is low and raspy, his eyes staring straight ahead.

I smile. “I used to have breakdowns whenever he’d leave, worried he’d fly away and never come home. One night, when he was saying goodbye, something fell through my open window, and when I woke up in the morning, he had placed it on my end table with a note, promising he’d return.” I laugh, shaking my head. “It was just a stupid acorn, but… I don’t know.” I shrug, reaching up to wipe away a stray tear. “I was a dumb kid. Put sentimentality on things that probably didn’t deserve it. But from that night on, whenever he’d leave, he’d bring me another one and set it on my table, promising he’d come back.”