Thrive (Addicted, #4)(93)

“I’m not trying to lay into her,” he retorts. “You do realize that she’s moving into my apartment complex when she graduates in May?” Oh yeah. Ryke proposed the idea since Daisy doesn’t want to go to college, and our mom has been scheming to extend Daisy’s stay at her house for an extra two or three years. Which means more plate grabbing and general hovering.

Lo, surprisingly, has trusted Ryke with this idea, but it comes with some suspicions. How much of what Ryke is doing because he cares for Daisy as a friend? And how much of it is because he wants to have sex with her now that she’s legal?

I want to think better of Ryke, but his track record with women points big neon arrows to the latter.

“So?” Lo says. “Does that mean you can be a dick to her?”

“I’m a dick to everyone,” Ryke states, extending his arms again.

“Loren!” Jonathan Hale’s rough voice echoes against the glass ceiling and walls. One hand in his charcoal slacks, the other clutching a crystal goblet of scotch, filled to the brim. “Come here, son.” He practically chugs three-fourths of his drink, standing tensely next to a hanging fern and pool bar.

“Don’t,” Ryke says under his breath to Lo.

Jonathan’s eyes pulse with something familiar, something inhuman and soulless, like he’s ready to slaughter any man in his wake, like he’s ready to verbally tear through his son. My heart sputters in panic.

“It’s fine.” He picks me up off his lap and stands with me at the same time, the chair scraping back. Then he forces me in the seat and gives me one deadly look that says: Don’t follow me.

“Lo—” I start.

“It’s probably just Halway Comics,” he cuts me off. “I haven’t talked to him about my company in a while. I’ll be right back.”

This seems so much larger than that.





{ 43 }

1 year : 06 months

February





LOREN HALE


On the short trek to my father, I look back at Ryke once. He shakes his head at me like I’m going in the wrong direction, facing the wrong man. But I’m not filled with false bravado. This is a person I’ve faced my entire life.

He’s my future if I’m not careful.

And he’s Ryke’s biggest demon that he’s buried.

I’m not even five feet from my father before he starts talking, out of hearing distance from everyone else. “How tough are you?”

My face contorts in malignant irritation. He did not call me over here for this shit. “Tough enough to not roll my eyes at you.” I don’t have a chance to flash a dry smile.

When a foot separates us, he clamps a hand on my shoulder, his fingers digging in. I hear little shit on his tongue, but he swallows that insult down with his drink. “How fucking tough are you, Loren?” he asks, the bar behind him.

I grit my teeth. “Is there a fucking level? Scale one through ten? A numerical system? What do you want from me?”

He breathes heavily, his nose flaring. “In a few weeks, we’re going to see what kind of man you really are. You can sell me down the river, son.” He sets his glass too forcefully on the bar, and a fissure snakes through the crystal.

“What are you talking about?” My pulse kicks up a notch.

“You’re going to be hearing some things soon,” my dad says with a curled lip. He’s drunk. Wasted. I can see it in his glazed, pained eyes. “Maybe it’s punishment, on my part. For thinking that I could raise a bastard as anything more than what you are.” His tongue runs over his teeth in distaste. No guilt flashes. No fucking remorse.

His words slice straight into me. My jaw locks, my muscles burning as they tighten. I’m just a bastard then. “Tell me what’s going on,” I sneer. “Is it about Lily?” I hate the desperation in my voice.

“Don’t whine like a little girl,” he says with a grimace. His hand lifts off my shoulder and clutches the side of my face. I can see Ryke stand up from his chair in my peripheral.

He can’t get in the middle of this. I need fucking answers. I try to give my brother a look that says: don’t come near me. But my father forces my face towards his.

“Look at me,” he growls.

I have no other choice. Our foreheads almost fucking touch we’re so close. I smell the alcohol on his breath, and it grips my stomach in new, horrifying ways. His hand drifts to the back of my head. “Are you tough, son?” he repeats, drunk out of his fucking mind, upset about something he heard.

“Just tell me,” I say lowly. “Why can’t you fucking tell me?” He has all the answers. He’s always had the answers, and he keeps them from me. He always does.

He opens his mouth like he may let it out, but anger just warps his hard, coarse features. And then he says, “We’re going to burn, you and me.”

I search his eyes, and all I see is blackness. Mine begin to cloud. “What could be worse than what I’ve already been through?”

“You have no idea.”

I stifle a scream that tries to reach my throat. “I deserve answers.”

“You deserve nothing,” he says. “I’ve given you everything, Loren, including your life. You realize that, don’t you?”