Tirone (The Night Skulls MC #2)(21)
I knew all of that. Sometimes the hard way. I wished I could have told him what I’d meant, the kind of trauma I was referring to; watching the woman he obsessively believed was only his to touch being forced under another man, one he loathed. Again, I opted for some truth, not the whole. “You’re his dad. It’s different. Especially when he’s…that attached to…his mother.”
“Yeah, I fucked up, all right? I’ll find a way to fix it.” He exhaled a long breath, shaking his head. “I don’t know how yet. He thinks I’m a monster.”
“Then prove him wrong, not right.” Blame laced my tone against my intention.
“I never laid a hand on him or his mother like she’s been telling him all his life,” he said in both anger and pain. Ty had told me so many stories about his dead monster of a dad. Supposedly, Laius used to beat him when he was only a toddler. Then he’d hurt his mother severely that she was hospitalized when he was almost four. His brave—as I’d thought back then—mother filed charges that put the man in prison, left her abusive husband and changed her life around for her and Ty. It turned out it was all bullshit Delilah had made up and fed him for years. It looked like his creative skills came from her. “I wouldn’t have touched him if he hadn’t taken a swing on me. You saw the whole thing. He came in to beat me, his old man.”
“No child should become physical with their parents. He deserved a kind of punishment. No question about that. But do you not think that was a little extreme?”
“Didn’t you see how he was? He was fucking possessed by a demon. I had to do something to stop him. When I told you he was fucked up, I meant it. I’m not in the dark. I know he goes batshit crazy when he gets angry. He got in trouble before for it. He got locked up for six months in one of those hospitals.”
“You mean a psychiatric hospital?”
“For the criminally fucking insane hospital.”
That was news to me. Ty had never told me about it. It was surprising yet in a way expected. Did I want to know what Ty did to earn it? Probably not.
Laius shook his head. In disapproval? “It was better than prison. I paid a lot of money to get him that deal, put him in a fancy ass hospital and got his record expunged. I thought the doctors might help a little, but somehow he got worse when he came out. I’d never seen him like that. You said you did? How? When?”
“I taught him for a year. You think episodes like that just sprout all of a sudden out of nowhere?” I said way too defensively. “He…he had a similar one at school. If you don’t believe me, call Delilah to check.”
“Jo, baby, don’t be like that. Not now.”
“And while you’re at it, check the story of Mark Chadwick, too.” I ignored his demand, remembering how mad I was at him before Ty came crashing down on us. “But I swear to God, if you hurt an innocent boy based on a fucking rumor, we’re done, Furore. I don’t care if you threaten me or fuck me into subordination. I don’t care how much I love you or how much you love me. If you hurt that poor boy, we’re fucking done.”
He reached out an arm, but I spun and walked toward the banister. “Oh, and by the way, I decided the idea of teaching here was good after all. It’s a great motivation for your son to go back to school and stay away from violence.”
CHAPTER 13
Jo
My wig had bangs to cover the bump on my forehead. I put on the only pencil skirt and formal jacket I’d packed with me. I was hanging by a thread. Too distraught to be around either Laius or Ty to throw a casual good morning, let alone let them take me shopping for a new interview outfit.
How was I supposed to process and deal with the facts I clashed against in the past three days? One, my life was in more danger than it’d ever been since I was rescued by Michele when I was eight. I had ten more days to find a way around Mario Lanza’s birthday party or on the eleventh day, I’d be forced to go and most likely never come back. Laius had sent his men everywhere to gather enough support, and they were doing their best—they were barely here, out all day and night to bring allies to what seemed to be an inevitable war—but the look on Laius’s face wasn’t promising.
Two, Ty didn’t wrong me as much as I thought he had when he left. He was protecting me, not abandoning me. As sweet and noble as that was, it messed me up. Despite how toxic and dangerous Ty was, despite how my feelings had changed for him after I’d fallen for his dad, Ty’s chivalrous act jumbled my feelings. It made me feel guilty and ashamed of my love for his father, and it rekindled something I had for Ty I should never have again. It was wrong on so many levels, too much for the rebels of my conscience, and I was the teacher who slept with a minor student of hers. I wished I hadn’t known the truth. It ruined everything so much I couldn’t see either of them the same ever again. It left me with a disturbing question desperate for an answer. One I slapped every time it pulsed against my skull because I wasn’t ready for the answer, whatever it was.
Three, my phone was missing. None of Texas, Hook or the prospect had found it. Laius wasn’t lying about not having it. It meant one thing. Someone took it. That someone was Michele. Who else could have? My call had gone through, and he must have heard the altercation. Which meant another thing. Michele must have believed I was in danger, and he had to be out there looking for me. Yes, another war was coming. The people I loved were in more danger than they thought they were.