I’d been told dogs had good instincts and Hero was the best of them so it was no surprise he knew my dad didn’t pose a threat to me, only to anyone who would fuck with me.
“You’re beaten down, H.R., your body needs time to recover, but instead’a doin’ that, you shot like a bat outta hell to come back down to Vancouver and attend that fuckin’ piece of fuckin’ shits funeral. Wanna explain’ that to me?”
“Not really.”
“Yeah, baby girl, wasn’t a request.”
I blew a messy lock of blond-streaked hair out of my fair and huffed petulantly. “How ’bout you give me time to get ready for the day and I might feel more like chatting?”
“How ’bout ya brush your teeth and meet me in the kitchen in less than two minutes and I won’t haul your ass outta bed myself and make you answer my questions?” he suggested casually.
“You’re such a bully,” I muttered as I shoved the covers back and slid to the cold floor then stomped over to my bathroom.
He caught me with a gentle hand on my arm as I tried to move by him. “Nah, sweetheart, I’m no bully and I won’t have you sayin’ somethin’ like that again, jokin’ or not. What I am is a father whose worst fuckin’ nightmare came true when he found out someone has been layin’ a hand on his princess, the apple of his fuckin’ eye, for years with ’im none the wiser.”
“Daddy,” I whispered, suddenly a little girl again. I turned into his body and clutched at his favourite AC/DC tee as he wrapped his tree trunk arms around me and squeezed.
“Not mad at you, Harleigh Rose, mad at myself for becomin’ a self-centered bastard.”
“Never,” I swore. “Never have you been that guy, Dad. You’ve had a lot goin’ on the last four years and honest to Christ, I tried everything I could to make sure you didn’t know.”
He made a sound low in his chest like a wounded bear. “Didn’t trust me with it?”
“Didn’t trust myself anymore,” I told him honestly. “I didn’t know how it started happening and I didn’t know why it wasn’t stopping. I,” I sucked in a deep, stabilizing breath, “I tried to stop it, Daddy.”
“Fuck me,” he said into the top of my head. “I’d kill him again if I fuckin’ could. I’d make it the slowest death in the history of man, skin ’im layer’a skin by layer’a skin, carve ’im up inch by fuckin’ inch until he was swine food. I’d have Priest bring ’im back from death time and time again like only he can, just so I could do it all over again.”
I hummed against his hard chest and patted his back soothingly. “Yeah, Daddy, I know.”
“Hate you had to take a life, even though I’d glad as fuck karma got ’im in the end.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, because it was the poeticism of ending my own victimization that made the fact I was a murderer a little more palatable.
“Doesn’t go away, baby girl,” he murmured.
“What?”
“The blood on your hands. But promise you, when it’s done for the right fuckin’ reasons, that shit doesn’t feel like a stain, it feels like a fuckin’ badge.”
“Believe you,” I said, and it was true, I always did.
“That’s my girl. And I want you home, Harleigh Rose, soon as exams are done, you’re back in Entrance, safe and loved.”
“Okay,” I said, because I might rebel against him and the club, but at the end of the day, there was no one I trusted as much as him.
“Good. Now the food’s gonna get cold you don’t get your ass in gear and come eat with me and your family.”
“Be right out,” I said when he gave me a squeeze and let me go.
I smiled when he bent down to give Hero a pat on the head. “Lou’s been wantin’ a dog for a fuckin’ age. Don’t give ’er any ideas, yeah? Think we’ll have enough on our hands with fuckin twins.”
I laughed and rolled my eyes. “Like you wouldn’t give Loulou the world if she asked for it.”
Dad grinned then sobered, swinging an arm out to cup me by the neck and bring me back to his front, his forehead dipped down to meet mine. “You’ll find a man feels the same way ’bout you, who’ll treat ya like the princess you are.”
I swallowed thickly, feeling Hero pressed against my side, feeling the phantom of Danner’s hand wrapped securely around my throat, a necklace of possession I wished I could brand into the skin there.
“Yeah, maybe.” I gave him, even though I wasn’t sure I agreed with him because the only man I’d trust with me wasn’t mine to have.
Later, when I was showered and dressed in my over-sized Hephaestus Auto tee from The Fallen’s garage, I padded into the main living room of my apartment with Hero by my side to see my entire family packed into the small space.