Sweet Liar (Candy #2)(83)

He approached us. “I can take her to the local hospital.”

I gripped my father’s arm. “I’m not going without Jonah.”

Again he glanced at my leg. The material of my jeans was soaked with blood. “Five more minutes. Then you go either way.”

I said nothing, but I silently disagreed. I wasn’t taking a step out of this house without Jonah by my side. The five minutes was nearly up when he finally came down the hallway, pushing his hands through his hair as he stared down at the place where his father’s body had been.

“I’ll run them both over to the hospital,” the bearded man said.

That woke Jonah up from the haze he’d been lost in. He looked at me and his expression tightened. “I’ll drive us.” He turned to my father. “Can you get a ride with them?”

My father assessed him. “Are you sure you’re up to driving?”

Jonah nodded. “I wouldn’t take Candy in the car with me if I wasn’t.”

Jonah and my father looked at each other and something passed between them, some sort of understanding.

“I’ll meet you there,” my father said. Then he looked at me one more time, hesitating for a moment before he pulled me into a tight embrace. I lost it then and broke down, crying as I pushed my face into the old sweatshirt he wore, a shirt I knew he would never have chosen for himself. He looked terrible. What had happened to him while he was gone? I doubted he’d ever tell me.

We released each other, and he reached down with his thumb to brush a tear off my cheek.

“Go with Jonah now,” he said. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

I only turned away from him reluctantly, afraid something else could happen and I wouldn’t see him again. It wasn’t until Jonah took my hand and tugged gently that I finally agreed to leave.

“Where’s your coat?” Jonah asked as we walked outside.

I stared at the Christmas trees in the front yard, looking like dark, uneven ripples on a white ocean of snow. “Back at Lea’s.”

“We can get it tomorrow. I’ll turn up the heat for you.”

Jonah’s voice sounded so normal. After what had happened, he shouldn’t sound so completely normal, and it worried me.

The Jeep was parked on the street. As always, he opened the passenger side first and waited for me to get inside.

“My phone is out here somewhere,” I said as I looked around on the ground.

Jonah pulled out his phone and tapped the screen. A moment later, “The Vengeful One” blared in the quiet night from somewhere beneath the branches. Before I could move, Jonah walked past me and pulled it from beneath the trees.

“Thanks,” I said when he handed it to me. “Nice ringtone, by the way.”

He shot me a smile that never reached his eyes. I wished I would have heard it ring earlier when we could have laughed about it together.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was going to get your father,” he said as he settled into the seat beside me. “I didn’t know for sure if they were going to release him until I got there, and I didn’t want you to be disappointed.”

“It’s okay. I don’t understand, though. How did they make it happen so fast?”

“It wasn’t fast. There were people inside working on getting him out since my father had him locked up.” Jonah looked at me. “Turns out, your father is very well-respected, much more than mine is. Like I told you, the organization doesn’t like messes. Since there was no proof, they preferred to let your father go along with mine. They just wanted the situation to go away. But I didn’t find out my father was out until it was too late. I’m sorry, Candy. I never should have left you at that party.”

His words were as stilted and stiff as his body language. It was as if he was purposely trying not to feel anything.

“None of this was your fault,” I said. He shouldn’t have been apologizing to me. His father was gone, and I played no small part in that.

His throat worked as he swallowed, but he said nothing.

“What about the secrets my father leaked? Shouldn’t the organization care about that?”

“If they believed it. He covered his tracks. Heather’s parents couldn’t find my father’s mysterious contact, and they suspect he never existed. Other than my father, there wasn’t a single person who believed the rumors about Sebastian could be true.”

“They were true, though.”

“Yes. They were, and if your father’s lucky, no one who knows that will ever say a word.”

Besides us, the Hoyts knew and so did Lorraine. With Victor gone, I doubted the Hoyts would want to tell anyone and risk implicating themselves.

Moonlight shone into the car, emphasizing the swelling around Jonah’s eye. It was his scarred eye, and I wondered if more damage had been done to it. His lip was also swollen and he’d tried to wash off the blood, but there was some left behind below his nose and lips.

“I’m so sorry about your father.”

The muscles in his face tensed.

I reached out and laid my hand on his arm. “It’s okay to feel whatever you’re feeling right now. No matter what he did, he was still your father.”

Jonah exhaled heavily and turned his face away from me. His breathing hitched, and when he wiped at his face I knew he was crying. I smoothed my hand over his arm, letting him know I was here, but he kept his face turned away, not wanting me to see him fall apart. Even so, I never took my hand off his arm, and after a few moments he leaned into it, pressing toward me. Eventually, he took my hand and just held it until he’d pulled himself together again.