The Fearless King (The Kings #2)(63)
Samara watched her closely. “Beckett said it was serious, but he doesn’t know as much as he wants to about what’s going on.”
No, he wouldn’t. Her siblings and their cousin had been kept apart from birth by virtue of their parents’ vendetta against each other. Beckett had hardly grown up with an idyllic childhood, but he didn’t know the dirty details about what went down in Journey’s household those first ten years.
No one did.
Journey smoothed her hair back. “Just give me fifteen minutes to jump in the shower.”
“Take your time.” Samara started typing on her phone.
Journey knew herself well enough to know that if she waited too long, she’d chicken out and she might never gather up the courage to take this flying leap again. So she washed up as quickly as she could, pulled on a pair of faded jeans and her favorite tank top, threw her hair into a ponytail, and walked back out into the main living area of the apartment.
Samara sat at the kitchen island, her dark brows drawn as she read something on her phone, an array of takeout food in front of her. She looked good. Her black hair fell in thick waves around her shoulders—a style she’d rarely worn when she worked for Kingdom Corp—and her brown skin had a healthy glow that only seemed to come alongside true happiness. Being in love obviously agreed with her.
She looked up when Journey approached, and gave a soft smile. “Feel better?”
“As good as can be expected.” She took the seat next to Samara and pressed her hands flat to the marble countertop. “My father abused me as a kid—he abused all of us, though Eliza was young enough to be spared the worst of it.” The words felt like stones dropped into the still silence of the room. She took a slow breath, but the sky didn’t come falling down around her, and Samara didn’t jump to her feet and flee the room. That made it easier to keep going. “I don’t really know when it started. I was that young. It was just the way things were. He stayed home with us while Lydia traveled and spent most of her time in the office, and so he had free rein. He was ruler in our fucked-up little kingdom, and he got off on the power he held over us. There was…” She shook her head. “I don’t know what was worse—the mind games where he had us convinced that we were the ones forcing him to take these measures, and then playing one of us against the others to get us to do what he wanted. Or the punishments that we invariably earned by not being good enough.”
Next to her, Samara had gone so still, Journey wasn’t sure she drew breath. “I’m so sorry, Jo.”
“My mother caught him in the midst of one of the punishments when I was ten. I…” She stared hard at her hands. “I know Lydia is a monster. I’m not an idiot. What she did to Beckett and Nathaniel was fucked up beyond all reason. But she saved us, Samara. She ran him out of the house, out of the damn city, and she ensured that he didn’t come back. I don’t know what would have happened if he’d stayed. Maybe he would have killed one of us eventually. I just don’t know.
“I went to therapy. Lots of therapy. I was…I was muddling along just fine, but he’s back and he’s setting me up to get fired on account of being unfit to hold the COO position.” It was as if the past had been a festering wound inside her and last night with Frank had lanced it. The words weren’t easy—never that—but she could actually give them voice. “I went to Frank for help.” She let loose a hoarse laugh. “Which, in hindsight, seems like a weird choice.”
That should have been the end of it, the worst of the dark secrets she’d been carrying inside her for far too long. But Journey found herself continuing. “He’s more than helping me. It was supposed to be a pretend relationship, a way to get him near the family without anyone suspecting anything. But it’s turned into something that might be real if we could get out of each other’s way long enough to see if it’s possible.” She shook her head. “That might be the craziest part of this.”
“Journey.” Samara reached over and covered her hand. “Thank you for telling me.”
She knew that tone, the gentleness covering a fury that rode far too close to the surface. She’d felt it on Samara’s behalf more than once over the years, and she knew what would happen if she didn’t defuse it right at that moment. She turned her hand over and laced her fingers with Samara’s. Sure enough, her friend’s hand vibrated with little shakes, betraying how deeply affected she was. “I can’t let anyone else stand between me and this mess. Not Anderson. Not Frank. Not even you, Samara.”
Finally, her friend sighed, and it was as if the tension left her body. “You’re sure?”
She wasn’t. All evidence pointed to this blowing up in her face, but between her suspicions about Eliza and what Elliott threatened to do to Frank, Journey wasn’t willing to risk anyone else getting hurt. “I’m sure. I’m done letting other people fight my battles. It never felt like I had the courage or strength to stand on my own, but I’m going to jump and figure my way out on the way down.”
*
Frank walked out of the bright Houston sun and into the dimness that was the Salty Chihuahua. The little bar had been a favorite of his and Beck’s since they were old enough to drink, and it always felt a little like coming home. The vintage pinup posters on the walls and the stylized table legs that looked like women’s legs were just the icing on the cake to the strangeness here. Nothing had changed in the last thirteen years, and he imagined he could walk through those doors thirty years from now and it would be like entering a time warp.