29. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Marcus

A black Chevy SUV speeds down the road and into the driveway of Leighton's and my glass home.

The windows are tinted.

Sand blows around the tires as the brakes screech, covering them momentarily in light brown dust.

Rylan's here.

After she sent me a photo of Dr. Hatchett's bleeding yet alive body being carried away on a gurney, I timed how long it would take her to show up. Leighton refused to eat, but I forced her to before hiding her as well as I could.

Since then, I've been here. On the porch. Anticipating the worst. This long overdue face-to-face with Rylan.

I unfold myself from the wooden chair I set out .

I love her. I'm angry and disappointed with her and myself just the same.

My stern expression is fixed tightly on my face. My arms are crossed over my chest. I am not fucking around.

She has to realize that.

My daughter jumps out of the driver's seat.

The mass of her black hair lies tangled around her shoulders. Her gait is slow and calculating, her lips curved into a smile.

Dark crimson blotches taint her pink T-shirt and her short cutoffs. The parts of them I see, anyway. On top of her clothes, Rylan wears the trench coat I bought her for her fifteenth birthday. She won't get rid of it, despite how tattered it is.

It worked for her today. The garment is huge with lots of pockets. Her knife must be hidden in one of them.

Mine's in the back pocket of my jeans. I could've taken out either of the two guns I have in the safe in the closet. Didn't care for it. I still believe Rylan and I can talk it out. I talk to strangers regularly. I should be able to talk to my goddamn daughter.

The knife was to pacify Leighton. I hope to God she was wrong and I won't have to use it.

"Dad!" Rylan grins wide, her madness evident in the wild glint in her blue eyes.

"Rylan."

She talked to Leighton like trash. She murdered my ex-girlfriends. Cut up my therapist. She's keen on killing anything with a pussy who comes within a ten-mile radius from me .

Yet despite everything she's done, everything she is, I won't hate her. Still want to hug her. Still have the urge to protect and defend her.

She's my firstborn. My only child. She taught me what it means to be a father.

She's also my worst nightmare.

Which is why I don't open my arms up for her, even though it kills me.

Her steps falter. "What's wrong?"

Three feet separate us. The distance is too much. Too fucking little.

I dip my chin, leveling her with a meaningful glare. "We agreed we'd quit this pretend game, didn't we?"

"Ugh, fine, whatever." It takes one sentence to transform her smile into a frown. She places her hands on her hips, her eyebrow arching. "So I used a little violence to get us here. What's the big deal? Can't you hug your only daughter anymore?"

Psychiatry chose me, not the other way around. And it's at this moment that I understand why. Without the years of experience, I would've lost it. Would've screamed my head off at Rylan. Might've even strangled her.

I don't.

With my voice low and gravelly, I answer her demented question, "We'll hug later. Once we've talked this through."

She closes her eyes, pulling her lips in. Rylan sucks in a long, calming breath through her nose. When her eyes open, she's still very much pissed off. I do give her props for trying.

Until she shifts her body to the right to look behind me .

"She's not here," I lie.

"Chickenshit bitch. Just like Milo," Rylan mutters under her breath.

"I heard that."

"He promised me he'd do anything to get you two back." She seethes as if I said nothing, and I let her have at it. Verbally. "Loser."

Sometimes venting helps calm a person down. She and I are alike. But her threats on Leighton have me treading a fine line.

It won't be long before I snap. Before the protective beast has had enough.

Nothing good will come out of it.

Which is why I give her the stage. I hope ranting will calm her down.

"Apparently, anything doesn't include kidnapping. Anything doesn't include violence." Her voice has a lilt to it, rising and falling maniacally. "I finally saw him for what he was. Weak as fuck. I couldn't count on him to kill Leigh when the time came. I guess I found my hard limit, ya know? If a man isn't into kidnapping and torture, then I don't want him. I'll turn him into a nice fertilizer once I'm back home."

Milo is dead.

Milo is the least of my concerns at the moment.

Leighton is right there at the top.

Pressure winds in each and every muscle in my hands. My fingers curl, and I flex them to stop myself from launching forward .

"This will be the first and last time I'll allow you to talk like this, Rylan. We're having an adult conversation. You watch your mouth when you mention Leighton."

Rylan's tongue darts out, licking her upper lip. "Or else?"

Or else I'll fucking strangle you. You won't die, but it'll be close. Enough to neutralize you and appease the monster inside me.

No. I won't strangle her. I've never hit her, and I'm not about to start now.

She wants to kill Leighton. Look at her. She'd do it in a heartbeat. Leighton and maybe the beginning of what would be my second child.

"You can't threaten me with the corpses in our garden." Rylan scans the house behind me, and I take a step forward to block her view. "Dad."

"Can't I?"

I'm aware I can't. It'll make me an accomplice. I only use this approach to throw her off her game and crack her confidence. She'll be more open to discussion this way. More open to accepting Leighton and me.

Then again, this is Rylan.

"Uh, duh." She rolls her eyes, then fixes them on me. "Miss Alexa and Miss Sylvia have been there for way too long. I'll say your precious Leighton knew they were there. That I told her and she helped me cover up the murders."

"She couldn't have known about Dr. Hatchett, though," I spit back at Rylan. "I have a photo proving it was all you."

She's cornered. The understanding dawns on her face and her chin wobbles.

Here comes the waterworks .

Three…two…one…

"Do I mean absolutely nothing to you?" Rylan throws herself at me, her hands interlacing around my neck. "You won't even invite me in. Why do you hate me, Dad?"

Her tears stain my T-shirt. Her sobs tear my heart into pieces.

I don't budge.

"I don't hate you, Rylan." I'm not sure I believe her sobs. I hope at least some of her pain is real, though. There's hope in case it's there.

"Then why won't you"— sniff, sniff —"let me in?"

Sneaky, sneaky girl. She's my daughter, after all.

"Come, sit." I disentangle myself from her grasp, pulling up the second chair I had set up for her. "Please."

Behind the tears brimming in her eyes, something sinister flashes. "She's here. That's why you won't let me in."

"Sit. Down." My tone broaches no argument. "Sweetheart."

She groans, but she does as I say. "What?"

"You accused me of underestimating you." I take the seat next to her, lacing my fingers on my lap. "I don't, nor have I ever, underestimated you. Which is why I'm going to give it to you straight. Leighton and I are together. I wasn't exaggerating when I said I'd marry her. Whether she likes it or not, I will."

Rylan snorts, her fingers leaving red marks on her thighs where she's scratched them.

"Listen to me carefully, Ry." Anger gets the better of me, and I grip her chin. "I'm aware this isn't easy for you to hear. You're going to hear me out, nonetheless. Leighton will be my wife. She'll have my children—your half-brothers and sisters."

Rylan's face contorts as if I set a flame to her entire nervous system. She's part smiling, part frowning, her laugh mixing with a cry.

Jesus Christ, what kind of a crap father am I to have missed this?

She's worked hard to keep this side of her hidden. Still, I'm a goddamn psychiatrist. An esteemed one at that.

At least I've considered myself as one.

The scene unfurling in front of me makes me question everything.

"Hey." I soften my voice and my grip alike. "We'll get through this together. I'll get you the help you need, okay?"

"Can we go inside?"

This again.

"No." Even though I release her, I don't kick back in my chair. Letting my guard down for a second could end up with Leighton being dead. Never. "You'll see her if and when you've been to therapy. In the hospital you'll be admitted to. It might take weeks. Might take months. I'm not giving up on you. But don't delude yourself into thinking it means I won't protect Leighton with everything I have."

"She's gotten to you." Rylan snarls first, then her voice slowly rises to a scream. "You're going to lock me up in an institution and forget I ever existed, and it's all because of her."

At this volume, Leighton must be hearing this. "Keep your voice down. "

"Watch your mouth, keep your voice down, go to the hospital." Rylan mimics my stern tone. "You're gonna ask me to kill myself too? That'll solve allll your problems, won't it?"

"I would never." My jaw clenches, fingers clawing at the arms of my chair. "I love you. I'm doing this for you just as much as I'm doing this for Leighton."

"Liar," Rylan wails, pulling at her hair. "You want to kill me! You want to kill me!"

She goes on and on, repeating the same sentence, her body shaking violently. Suddenly, she gets up. The sharp movement causes the chair she sat on to tumble backward and fall to the floor with a loud thwack .

"I don't want to kill you." Mirroring her movements, I stand up. I grab her shoulders, searching her eyes. I find nothing. "Listen to me, Rylan Kingston, I do not want to kill you."

"You want to kill me! You want to kill…"

I hear the sound of the front door open over the repetitive screams.

"Don't," I growl. My gaze remains fixated on Rylan, hoping she thinks the command was meant for her.

"…Want to kill me! You want to…"

"Rylan, please."

My daughter's psychotic break stops in an instant. Her muscles tense beneath my hands, her head whipping to the woman behind me.

"There she is." She grins, her chest heaving. "There's the whore. "

"Shut up," I warn her. "Look at me, Rylan, not at her. At me."

"You look…" Rylan continues to eye Leighton, even when I grab her chin and tilt her head to me. "How should I say it? Freshly fucked? Yes. So very fucked. Whore."

"Rylan, please," Leighton repeats. "It doesn't have to be this way. We're still best friends."

"Yes." Rylan's lips stretch into her predatorial smile. "We are. Want to hug on it, bestie?"

"Leave her alone." I walk Rylan and I forward. As away as fucking possible from Leighton. "You're talking to me, Rylan. Whatever you have to say, you say it to me. Your father."

"Okay."

She's lying. I know she's lying.

Leighton's hand on my shoulder steals my focus. A mistake.

A terrible, terrible mistake.

In that split, horrible second, Rylan wrenches herself out of my hold. I watch in slow motion how she reaches into one of the pockets of her trench coat. How this isn't a knife she's pulling out.

It's a gun.

"No!" I shout. My instincts kick in, and I start fighting with her over the gun. "Drop it now, Rylan. Drop the gun right fucking now."

"I won't," she shrieks, shaking and twisting in an attempt to break free .

She's crying and slobbering, and I hate it for her. I can't blame anyone but myself for what's happening to my daughter. Not even Leighton for wanting to help me get her friend back.

"I will never be okay with this." Rylan pulls harder on the gun. Thankfully, Leighton doesn't touch me anymore or say anything to the out-of-control girl who is my daughter. "Never. I'm going to kill you, Leighton, I'm going to fucking murder you, you slut."

"Over my dead body," I snarl.

Fate has a grim sense of humor. The worst kind.

Because as soon as the words leave my mouth, Rylan's gun fires.

I hear it first. Time stands still as my body goes into shock.

Everything's frozen, including Rylan's gaped expression. Leighton's scream seems to stretch on forever.

Then the pain finally hits me. What a big, ugly motherfucking pain it is.

The burn to the lower left of my stomach tears through me. The area where the bullet hit incinerates me as if a bomb blew up inside me.

"Dad?" Rylan's voice is distant. Her face is blurry. The world spins around me. "Dad? Are you okay?"

"Not your fault," I whisper. It really isn't. I'm to blame. I'm the one who's been enabling her.

I could've sent her somewhere safe. They would've treated her, stabled her…

I…

"My…fault." My hands fall to the sides. I stumble back, about to collapse to the floor .

Two hands grasp at my back. They're not strong enough to hold me up, either. They do help me lower safely to the floor.

It shouldn't be this cold out here. It shouldn't. Yet, it is.

"Marcus." Tears drop on my face. Blue eyes surrounded by waves of pink are everything I see. And it's so pretty. So beautiful . My Leighton. My woman. "Marcus, don't die. Please, stay with me."

"Trying." I want to stroke her cheek. Want to tell her everything will be all right.

Can't.

"Dad?" Rylan's crying too. She's away, somewhere behind the most gorgeous blue eyes I've ever seen.

Please, don't cry. It's my fault , I think. The words don't come out, though.

Too weak. Tongue's too heavy. I can't…

Click .

I'm on the verge of passing out, and the damned sound sneaks in anyway.

A gun is being cocked.

My blood gushes out of the gunshot wound. I feel it flowing. Feel Leighton's hands pressing where it hurts the most.

"Rylan," I breathe. I hardly hear myself. "Run, Leighton. Run."

My eyes flutter shut. I need them to open. If only they weren't so heavy.

"Dad, I'm so sorry." Rylan cries and cries. "I'm so sorry."

"Marcus." A slap on my face .

"Rylan." I'd rather warn Leighton than look at her. I'm so weak, my body forces me to choose between them, and I do. Leighton has to be warned. For her. For our baby. "G-gun."

"What?"

"G-gu…" I'm not dying. It's too soon. I want to be a father again. To spend decades with Leighton. With Rylan.

I'm fading into unconsciousness, and fast.

Boom.

Leighton!

The godawful sound forces me back into the world. I look at her.

She's there. Hovering over me, crying and shaking.

It's an effort, but my gaze slides across her body, nonetheless. There's blood on her hands where she's pressing her shirt to my abdomen. She's topless, I notice just now. Topless and beautiful.

Other than the laceration on her collarbone, she's unharmed. She's okay.

Leighton is okay.

What about my daughter?

"Rylan?"

Sirens blare from the distance, coming nearer. Getting louder.

Leighton's head shoots up. "Thank God." She's crying with deep, gut-wrenching sobs. "Marcus, the ambulance is here. Stay with me. A few more seconds and help is here."

I need to tell Leighton to cover herself up. That her body is mine, even if I die soon .

I need to make sure she's safe. And to know. I have to know. "Ry?"

"We'll be okay, Marcus." Leighton's eyebrows scrunch together. "Focus on staying alive. On being that mean, psycho bastard who kidnapped me—"

"Took."

Her laughter is choked by her tears. "Took me. Be that man and stay alive for a little while longer. Can you do that for me?"

"Yes." I'll do anything for her.

Even if that means climbing back from hell, I'll do that.

For her. My Leighton.