Sinfully Devoted by Amber Torney
Chapter Twenty-Eight - Logan
I’d been feeling like shit ever since Phee had stormed out on us. I should have stuck to my guns when we were deciding whether or not to tell her. I knew we’d eventually have to come clean, but confronting her like that was the wrong way to go about it. The look of utter betrayal when I’d told her what was going on had absolutely killed me. I’d have done anything in that moment to erase that look, distrust written all over her face. It was what brought me back to my parent’s house, back to where my life had changed.
“Stryker, before we go in, I need you to let me handle this.” I implored him to listen to me as I pulled up to my parents’ house. Killing the engine, I inhaled sharply, the thought of seeing my father had bile rising to my throat, and I felt physically sick. I shook my head, breathing in deeply as I tried to calm myself. I was o vercome with a flood of emotions, but as pissed off and confused as I was I didn't need Stryker going off half cocked.
Rolling his eyes at me, I could tell he was frustrated. He wasn’t the only one, we all were. When Jonah had told us about the reward for information on my cousin's whereabouts, it had placed us all on edge. The whole ordeal had been playing on us. Phee had stormed out after we’d told her about Kyle. The bruises had faded, but that image would be forever imprinted like a roadmap in my brain. That wasn't what bothered me though, it was the emotional turmoil she was holding in, something that none of us were really equipped to handle. She hadn’t fully snapped yet, but when she did, I would be there, standing by her side to bring her back.
“You know they’re bullshitting you, right? Your father has played you for the last four years, Logan,” Stryker bit out. He hated taking the backseat, and between him and Damon it had been a damn pissing contest to see who took control. Frankly, I couldn’t have cared less. This was my family, and I was gonna do this my way.
“I’m not a complete moron. I am fully away that my father will try to placate. You don’t think I haven’t been through this before- fuck man, they’ve done it my entire life.” The myriad of emotions I felt bubbled further to the surface as the memory from the night my parents threw my world into turmoil, the night everything had come crashing down around me, played in my mind like a broken record. “I’m not going in there with the assumption that my parents are innocent, Stryker. Fuck no. But I do know my father, and we need to keep our cards close to our chests. We need to play this safe.”
“Logan, you heard what Kyle said about your old man, and D’ told you what Kyle bragged about to him. You read the shit in that fucking journal.” He said as he ran his hand through his hair. Stryker had been running around on pure unadulterated hatred and holding Kyle captive had only made it worse. Watching the live feeds constantly didn’t help the situation either. “Your own father is just as deep into this as Kyle is.”
I couldn’t deny that, and I couldn’t lie to myself. Just the thought of my father laying a finger on Phee made my skin crawl and made a nauseous feeling settle in my stomach. The more Kyle bloody opened his mouth, the more I realised just how much I didn’t know my own family. What the fuck were they mixed up in? And how much of this did my mother know about?
“I know, Stry, trust me I do. But we can’t go in there with all guns blazing. As much as I know you want to, if we do that, my father is going to clam up.” I needed him to understand, with my father, you had to play the long game. If I’d learned anything since this whole ordeal started- it was to expect the unexpected. “As it is, he is likely going to try deflecting. We can use that.”
His fists clenched and then unclenched by his sides as Stryker’s jaw tightened. When it came to Phee, I didn’t doubt that Stryker would raise the dead if she asked him to. “Let’s get this shit show over with then.”
It looked like he wanted to say more, but had decided to hold back. I couldn’t pinpoint what it was, but something told me my friend was keeping something from me. I knew there was still a long way to go before we had mended the divide between us, but him just being there, even if it was to find answers for himself, was a start. We had already come so far, but there was still that little bit of doubt there.
We made our way up the sandstone pathway. Black was a fitting color for the front door, all things considered. Opening the door, we entered the house. The place that used to hold happy memories, now sent chills down my spine. It was so quiet. The coldness that now enveloped my former home felt like it was trying to consume us. The memories of the last four years were now marred by deception and lies. The living room, where Dad and I would sit, watching the game, eating pizza- all tainted.
“Mom?” I called out. My voice echoed off the foyer walls. I waited for a reply, but got nothing. I wondered where she was. I hadn’t heard much from her since Phee was rescued, but the last few weeks there had been radio silence. She hadn’t even sent a text, but I guess when you’re ignored all the time, you eventually give up.
“Doesn’t look like she’s home, Lo,” Stryker said quietly, as he bumped my shoulder. “That could be a good thing though.”
He was right. This visit had two purposes. The first, to confront my father and get answers, and the second was to grab the rest of my things, so I didn’t have to come back. I had some things up in my room that I needed. The thumb drive with all the videos of the stalker was hidden in my room; I didn’t want my father finding it and using it. From everything I had discovered, I knew he couldn’t be trusted. If he got his hands on that, there would be no telling what he would do with it.
Living with Damon and Phee had become permanent, and once things had settled again, I needed to talk with my Tiny Dancer about the other night. Something changed that night. It felt like the old Phee was back, but she closed off as soon as we finished. I could tell she felt more than she let on, but she was too damn stubborn to admit it. I had to make her see I’d changed, that I was there for her.
The whole house now felt cold and lifeless. The family portraits that hung on the cream walls of the hallway had an ominous feel to them. I saw my family in a whole new light. I looked at one picture in particular- it was taken just after we had returned. I didn’t know what it was about it, but the way that my father was looking down over my mother, his left hand gripping her shoulder almost like a vice grip, the coldness in his eyes, with a hint of evil that matched the sinister smirk that adorned his face, it made me sick. How I had fucking missed that I didn’t know, but I would be keeping my eyes wide open from there on out.
“It all feels like everything I’ve ever known was a lie,” I muttered to myself, as Stryker and I quietly made our way to my father’s study. I was questioning everything. “Was anything ever real?”
“It sucks man, I know, but this needs to be done. Not only for yourself, but for Phee too.” His hand squeezed my shoulder. Stryker had a point. Both Phee and I needed closure, and I wanted to know if everything that Kyle had hinted at was true. “You’ve a lot to atone for Lo, we all do, but this goes part of the way for you.”
Everything he said was true. Lord knows, I had a fuck load to make up for, and I’d spend the rest of my life trying. I just needed her to give me that chance. I nodded my reply as we came to a stop outside the office. Breathing a deep breath, I went to open the study door, only to halt when I heard my father’s voice on the other side of the door.
Opening it slightly, I could see my dad, seated at his desk, surrounded by mountains of files and paperwork. His phone was on loudspeaker, and he was deep in conversation. I put my hand up to stop Stryker from barging in. Whoever he was talking to, it was heated, and it had something to do with Kyle.
“I’m telling you, Alex, I’ve not seen him.” My father sounded pissed. I could tell by the way his shoulders were hunched that he wasn’t enjoying the conversation. “Knowing that son of yours, he probably took off when they busted in. I know I would’ve, given the extent of the girl’s injuries.”
Just by what he was saying, I knew it was about Phoenix. The tone of his voice was heavily laden with hostility at even the slightest notion of her. Every memory I had of D ad around Phee was now brought into contention. How could I have missed his dismissive nature? The veiled demeaning comments? Hindsight was something else. When she’d arrived, I had gone along with the comments Dad made, but now. . . now I knew there had been more behind them.
“Max, I’m telling you my son is missing too. Not only that, but the fucking bunker has been turned upside down,” Uncle Alex yelled down the phone. I understood why there would be worry and anger present as he spoke, but the fear confused me. “He hasn’t touched any of the accounts or shown up at any of the safe houses. They took everything from the bunker, Max, everything. You know what that means, don’t you?”
I could hear the thumping of my blood as it pulsed through my veins. As much as I despised my family, their lack of concern just floored me. Glancing at Stryker, I could tell he knew what they were talking about. We all knew my cousin had a penchant for keeping meticulous records. And from what I could gather, my uncle didn’t want them in the wrong hands.
“Of course I fucking know what that means, Alex, I’m not a fucking moron.” Through the slit in the door, I watched as Dad launched the silver pyramid we’d brought back from Vegas across the room. It hit the last family portrait of us and stuck out of the wall. What the hell was on those files that had caused him to react like that? “In case you’ve forgotten, I told you both on numerous occasions to build that damn facility somewhere else. I warned the both of you weeks ago that those guys were on to you, and I even fucking offered to take the whore off your hands, but no, you wouldn’t listen.”
“It wasn’t my choice, Max, you know that.” My uncle tried to argue with him, but my father wasn’t having any of it.
“And now, no thanks to your fucking son, she will only be good for the damn pleasure houses. You understand what we’ve lost here, don’t you? Girls like Phoenix could have been used as a negotiation chip with the right people. A night with an unmarked girl, especially one like her, could have worked in our favour, but that was before your psychotic son touched her.”
“That’s not gonna be what costs us, Max. Losing those files will cost us so much more.” My uncle seemed more worried than angry, like he had when we’d first started listening. “We need to get those files back. I don’t give a fuck about the girl, there’s always other pussy out there to earn a dollar from, but those files, if we don’t retrieve them soon, they could ruin us.”
That was interesting. Stryker, Jonah, and Damon had spent the last few weeks running back and forth from the warehouse, but nothing had been said about files, or what was on them. I’d been assuming they had been going there because of Kyle, but judging by the look on Stryker’s face, there was more to it, and when we left there tonight he had some explaining to do.
“We’ll talk about this later,” I whispered under my breath, eyeballing him, before I kicked the door open. This time I didn’t give a fuck if I’d interrupted his damn call. I’d heard enough. Storming up to his desk, I leaned over it and ended his call. “We need to talk.”
“I thought we’d already spoken about this Logan. You can’t just storm into my office and demand my attention, no matter how important you may think it is.” To say Dad was a little more than pissed would have been an understatement. Given half the shit I’d just heard, he was lucky I hadn’t come in swinging.
“Yeah, you did, but the give-a-fuck factor is zero, old man. I’ve got some questions that you are going to answer.” Ignoring my father was never a great option, the last time I’d done that I had had bruises for weeks afterward, but unfortunately for him, I had someone watching my back this time .
“What makes you think I’d answer anything you ask after the way you stormed in here, son?” Leaning back in his chair, his hands perched together on the desk, he gave me a smirk that only served to reinforce what I had come to know. My dad was more involved than he let on. “You haven’t been home in weeks, not since you found Phoenix. You’ve been acting like a petulant child, and I’m sorry, son, but that type of behavior[3] is not rewarded.”
He had to be off his rocker if he thought I was gonna stay there. There hadn’t been one ounce of remorse after I’d found out that both he and Mom had been keeping secrets. I’d told them both that night that I’d be leaving. Rolling my eyes at him, I tried to keep my temper under wraps. I couldn’t let him think he had me where he wanted. It wasn’t his game anymore, it was mine. I was no longer his pawn .
“Why didn’t you tell me that Kyle was still alive?” I watched as my father’s body language changed when I asked the question, as realisation adorned his face as he realised just how much I knew. “You had the chance to tell me that night, so why didn’t you?”
“Logan, this isn’t the type of conversation we should be having around outsiders.” He looked over at Stryker, who had taken position by the bookshelves, absently flicking through some book he had found. “Why don’t you ask Mr. Lennox to leave, and then we can talk about your cousin.”
“Yeah, not happening, Max, but nice try,” Stryker scoffed, as he placed the book back on the shelf and casually made his way over to the desk, taking a seat and kicking up his feet, a move that irritated my father. “I think you can guess we know a little more than you give us credit for. Why don’t we start with an easier question for you—tell us about the bunker you were instrumental in designing. You know the one, it’s where your fucked up nephew kept my girl prisoner for a week?”
“I fucking told him to take her out of state,” Dad mumbled under his breath.
“What was that?” I asked. I hadn’t missed it, but I wanted him to repeat what he had said, because it was confirmation that he’d known all along.
“What? Nothing,” he replied quickly as he swallowed, before turning back to Stryker. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. What bunker?”
“Don’t play us for fucking fools, Dad. The one thing Kyle did extremely well was keep meticulous records of who did what for him. You know that journal? The same one that I found out about the rape in, yeah? Well, it also told us about the bunker.” I needed to play this coolly as I could feel the anger bubbling under my skin, threatening to consume me each time my father opened his fucking mouth. “So, tell us, Dad, what was its purpose?”
“I don’t know, son. Your uncle just wanted help with designing horse stables.” The fucking lie rolled off his forked tongue like the snake he was. Horse stables was laughable, Damon said they called the girls ponies, so the euphemism wasn't lost on me. “I had no idea what he was going to use them for.”
“So, you’re telling us the call you were just on wasn’t about Phee, or Kyle going missing?” He went from cocky and confident, to angry, fast. He could have been a stunt driver on Gone in 60 Seconds. I watched as he realised we'd heard most of his conversation. “Yeah, Dad, we heard everything you said. I especially loved the part where you called my Tiny Dancer, what was the word, Stryker?”
Stryker looked from me to my father, then back down to his fingers, as if he were bored. “I think the word you’re looking for is ‘whore.’”
“Yes, that’s right, I especially loved the part where you called her a whore, Dad.” I gave him a shit-eating grin before I continued. “So, again, you wanna tell me how you had no idea? Or maybe you’d like to start telling the truth now?”
“Well, what else would you call her, son?” he spat out; his whole-body language changed in an instant. He was acting like a caged animal, striking out at anyone and anything that he felt threatened by. Looking from Stryker, who was still sitting so calmly, taking it all in, to myself, as I struggled to keep my own composure. “The girl has been nothing but trouble since the day she waltzed back into our lives.”
“That whore, as you so spitefully refer to her, has been through so fucking much because of this family.” Unable to hold it in any longer, I decided it was time to point out a few home truths, because it was fast becoming abundantly clear that I truly didn’t know who the hell my father was.
The person that stood in front of me had no sense of remorse. I’d go as far as to say that he barely had a shred of human decency left inside him. “Tell me, Father, what did she ever do to deserve this? To deserve any of this? That monster you call your nephew, he raped her multiple times. The last time almost killed her.”
He just stood there mutely as I rattled off my questions. My father refused to answer every one of them. But the joke was on him, because whether he admitted to anything or not, I had already come to the conclusion that after all this ended, they would be dead to me.
“Logan, your father doesn’t fucking care. We’re wasting our time here,” Stryker stated coolly as he continued to watch my father. It confirmed he knew more than he was letting on, because there’d be no way in hell he’d let it go otherwise.
“Listen to your friend, son,” my father sniggered as he shifted his gaze back and forth between the two of us. “Logan, word of advice, don’t go chasing answers for questions you don’t want answers to. There is more at play here.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s more like you don’t want me to find out,” I countered back; he didn’t have anyone fooled. The way he’d fought to keep her away, how he had acted around her, and his reaction when he’d learned that she had been found. “So, answer me this, why’d you try to buy her from Kyle?”
“For you and your mother.” His answer came hard and fast, almost like it was rehearsed. Just like every other lie that rolled off his tongue.
“Bullshit,” Stryker coughed as he sat forward in his chair. He was starting to get antsy. “What about the Lords of Salem, Max? What can you tell me about them?”
Just like a chess master, Stryker had seemingly checkmated my father with one not so random question. But it wasn’t the question that had the hairs standing up on my neck, it was my father’s reaction. He visibly paled, and I could hear his brain ticking as he tried desperately to think quickly on his feet.
“I’m sorry, boys, I’d like to stay and answer more of your inane questions, but I have a business meeting in half an hour, and I need to get ready.” My father evaded the question as he checked his watch, like the last hour hadn’t even happened. Looking back at the both of us, he continued. “I think it’s time you both leave.”
Stryker chuckled to himself, and as he got up, he leaned over the desk and grabbed my father by his tie, pulling him close. “Max, I suggest you start sleeping with one eye open, because I know— I know everything.”
He didn’t know it yet, as I hauled Stryker out of the room, my mind running a million miles a minute, but my Dad had signed his own death warrant that night