Safe at Last (Slow Burn #3) (29 page)

“What the hell is going on, son? Why did you ask to meet here, for God’s sake? You should have come to the house. We could have had a beer and caught up. It’s been three years since I saw you. Not even a telephone call in that time. Christmas. Birthdays. Is that any way to treat your old man?”

Zack was seething. It took every ounce of effort he possessed not to lay his father out right then and there.

“I know what you did, you son of a bitch,” Zack bit out. “And don’t you dare fucking stand there, look me in the eye and deny it. Because swear to God, I’ll
beat
the truth out of you, you bastard. I’ll pull out every lie you ever told. Every law you broke and every sin you committed. And when I’m done, you’ll have nothing and you’ll
be
nothing.”

His father’s face flushed with anger. His cheeks mottled with rage, and his eyes bulged outward in clear agitation.

“Goddamn weak-ass pussies,” his father bellowed, spittle forming on his lips. “Which one was it? I bet it was Stuart. I should have known the spineless idiot didn’t have the stomach for it. It’s probably the reason his wife left him a while back. The dumb fuck probably couldn’t live with his conscience and told her everything. What a pathetic excuse for a man.”

Zack stared back at his father in shocked horror and complete incredulity. God, he wasn’t even going to deny it. There was no remorse whatsoever. No guilt. Just anger that he’d been ratted out. And he called Stuart a pathetic excuse for a man? What kind of man engineered the rape of a teenage girl? A girl young enough to be his daughter. The girl his own son was in love with and planned to marry.

Zack felt like he was stuck in some bizarre nightmare he couldn’t rouse from.

“You don’t even
deny
it?” he asked hoarsely. “What kind of a sick, twisted bastard are you? How could you
do
that to just a girl? She was a virgin, for God’s sake, and her initiation was a brutal gang rape that
you
instigated? A grown-ass adult man. A man sworn to uphold the law and protect the people of his town as their chief of police. Or did that protection only extend to those you deemed worthy?”

His father snorted in disbelief, ignoring Zack’s outrage and the issue at hand.

“You expect me to believe you hadn’t gotten in her pants already or that she wasn’t spreading her legs for anyone who looked twice her way? You’re a naïve fool if you believe that bullshit.”

Zack lost it. He laid his father out with one hard punch to his jaw. His father went down with a thump and just lay there rubbing his jaw with an expression of disbelief. As if he couldn’t believe that Zack would be furious or why. Was Zack supposed to thank him for single-handedly ruining the lives of an innocent girl and a boy, his son, whom he was supposed to love?

“You’d honestly
defend
the little slut? What is
wrong
with you? Isn’t it enough that she ruined your career? That even now you could still be playing ball? You could have won a Super Bowl, for God’s sake. You led a shitty-ass team to the playoffs the first
two
years you quarterbacked for them, and then you just walked away. And if you hadn’t been so fucked-up over her and had your head in the game you would have never gotten hurt to begin with.”

Zack’s fury exploded and he hauled his father up and rammed his fist into his gut and then sent him reeling with another blow, this time to his nose. The sickening crunch and the gush of blood indicated it was likely broken but at the moment Zack could kill him and suffer no remorse whatsoever.

He was out of his mind with rage. It boiled and erupted like a volcano and twelve years of worry, grief and anger were suddenly unleashed in a violent tornado of pure hatred for the man who’d fathered him. God, he’d do anything in the world to cleanse himself of his father’s blood and he wished with all his heart that they weren’t biologically related. Never would he be the kind of man his father was. He’d die first.

“I’ll have your ass for this,” his father wheezed as he took a wary, unsteady step away from Zack. “I’ll nail you for assault on a police officer. I don’t give a damn if you’re my son or not.”

“You do that,” Zack spit out. “Just realize that you stand to lose far more than I. I have nothing more to lose because I already lost everything that ever meant anything to me thanks to you.
You
took everything from me. But if I go down, so be it, because I’ll take you down with me and never suffer a single regret. I’ll make damn sure you spend the rest of your life behind bars. Not to mention the entire town will know what a complete sick fuck you are and you can kiss your reputation, your career and your pension goodbye.”

“You can’t prove a goddamn thing,” his father said in a smug tone that only infuriated Zack all the more.

“Can’t I?” Zack asked softly.

The two words and ensuing silence visibly unsettled his father. Worry entered his eyes and he jittered nervously, his earlier bravado fading under the confidence in which Zack spoke.

“The statute of limitations for aggravated rape hasn’t elapsed,” Zack continued. He pulled out the small recording device from his pocket and hit play, Stuart’s confession filling the stillness of the night. “If you don’t think the others will turn on you on a dime, then think again. You blackmailed them into a despicable crime and the DA will be far more interested in taking down a dirty cop than they will three losers who’ve gone nowhere in life. Think what it’ll do for his career. Expose a crooked lawman, the chief of police in a small town. It will be a sensationalistic story and will hit the AP like wildfire. In a matter of days, you won’t be able to show your face anywhere because everyone will know what you did. I’ll make sure of it. If it takes the rest of my life, I’ll make you suffer the way Gracie and I have suffered for the last twelve years. And as God as my witness, you’ll pay, old man,” Zack seethed. “You’ll pay.”

“You’re bluffing,” his father hedged. But it was obvious Zack’s vow was convincing because now his father had lost all his previous bluster and looked scared shitless.

“Oh? You should know me well enough to know that I don’t bluff. But if you don’t think I’m serious,
try
me.”

The challenge in his voice was unmistakable and there was tangible anticipation for his father to disregard the threat he’d issued. And his father quickly recognized it.

“What can I do?” his father asked, panic rising in his voice. “I’ll do whatever you want, but you
can’t
go public with this. It will
ruin
me and I don’t have much left as it is. Just my pension, and if this is exposed, I’ll lose that too and be left with nothing. You can’t do that to me, son.”

Zack’s temper flared. “Don’t you ever call me son. I’m not your son. And I sure as hell don’t claim you as any blood of mine.” And then he laughed, the sound brittle, cracking like ice. “Do you think I give one fuck about you? You’ve certainly never given a shit about me. All I was to you was a ticket to the good life. You were counting on being the father of a pro football player and riding my star, milking me for every dime you could. How it must have pissed you off when I walked away from a multimillion-dollar career, because you saw the life you envisioned for yourself disappear in a flash. But you never gave a damn about the life
I
wanted. What made
me
happy. You destroyed the best thing in my life, and I’ll
never
forgive you for that. Better hope you live a long time, because when you die, I’m going to dance on your grave, and Satan will be there to greet you and usher you personally into the bowels of hell.”

His father blanched and then began pleading. He lost all semblance of control and started blubbering like a baby, begging Zack to have mercy. And all Zack could think about was Gracie begging for the same. For them not to hurt her. And they hurt her anyway. His heart screamed with the need for vengeance, to make every single person involved in her violation hurt as much as she’d hurt, suffer as much as she’d suffered. And for them to never have another day’s peace in their lives.

“You’re going to confess everything while I record it,” Zack said coldly. “Every single sordid detail and why you did it. If you leave so much as one detail out, I’ll nail you to the wall and ruin you. You’ll admit that you knew of Gracie’s ability to read minds and how you manipulated the situation to make it appear that I was behind her rape. And then, I never want to see you, hear your name. Nothing. You are nothing to me. You aren’t my father.”

“W-h-what are y-you going t-to do with the confession,” his father stammered, his eyes frantic and bulging with fear.

“I’m going to give it to Gracie so she knows what a complete, ruthless bastard you are.”

“What if she decides to press charges?”

His father was sweating now, the stench of his fear palpable in the air. And he was whining, which just sickened Zack and made him all the more ashamed that he shared DNA with the worthless piece of shit standing in front of him about to piss his pants.

“That’ll be her decision,” Zack said. “I hope to hell she
does,
but I won’t ever force her to do anything that will cause her further pain, just as I’ll support her one hundred percent if she chooses to seek justice for the crimes you and others committed against her. Because let there be no doubt. You are every bit as guilty and reprehensible—if not more so—as the men who actually raped her. Your fate is now entirely in the hands of a woman you irrevocably damaged and inflicted your sick abuse on and whose only crime was loving me.”

His father’s cheeks puffed outward and he exploded in anger. “I only wanted what was best for you! The same as any father wants for his only son.”

“Bullshit! No father has his son’s girlfriend raped and abused and made to think her boyfriend set it all up, you sick bastard! What was best for me was
her
!” Zack shouted. “And what’s best for me
now
is to forget you were ever a part of my life and that in all ways you’re nothing more than a sperm donor. I used to resent my mother for leaving us, but I can’t blame her now that I know what an asshole you really are.”

“So this is it. You’re just going to leave things like this and write me out of your life,” his father said bitterly.

Zack advanced, his finger up in his father’s face. “
You
did that. You did that twelve years ago when you initiated a brutal assault on an innocent young girl for your own selfish gain. I wish to hell you had
never
been part of my life and that it had been
you
who left and not my mother or that she would have taken me with her. Because you were probably the worst thing to ever happen to her life and I
know
you’re the single worst thing that’s ever happened to mine.”

“What the fuck took you so long to check in?” Beau demanded when he answered Zack’s call. “Do you have any idea how worried we’ve been? This shit doesn’t fly, man. You don’t go off half-cocked solo on some vigilante mission.”

Zack sighed. “I know. I get it, okay? But this was something I had to do. And I didn’t want any of y’all involved in my fucked-up situation.”

“That’s bullshit,” Beau said rudely. “I’m your friend, not just your partner. You have to know I would have had your back no matter what.”

“I do know that,” Zack said quietly. “But some things are private, man. And like I said, this was something I had to do. That had to be done.”

There was a long pause.

“And did you get it taken care of?”

Zack sighed wearily. “Yeah. No. Fuck it all. It will never be okay, but I got the answers I wanted. But if Gracie doesn’t accept that or forgive me then it doesn’t mean a goddamn thing.”

“Is there anything I—we—can do?” Beau asked quietly.

“Just keep Gracie safe until I come back home to her,” Zack said in a soft voice. “I can’t lose her, Beau. And I know it looked like a dick move to cut out on her when she was just beaten nearly to death, but this . . . this had to be done or I will never have a chance to get her back.”

“You don’t have to worry about Gracie,” Beau said adamantly. “She has to go back to the doctor so he can check on her recovery and she needs to refill her prescription for her pain medicine. She’s stubborn and has been refusing to take it but Lizzie and Sterling have been leaning on her, making sure she takes what she needs. She’s been in a lot of pain, and hell, who wouldn’t be after the beating she took? So they’re going to make sure she not only gets the medicine but takes it as well.”

Fear squeezed Zack’s insides at the thought of Gracie leaving the confines of the safe house they’d installed her in, even if it was a necessary evil.

“Make damn sure she’s protected. Those bastards are out there, waiting and watching for another opportunity to strike. Hell, they waited months after the shit that went down with Ari. They aren’t going to give up. They’ve proven that much.”

“She’ll have a full security detail,” Beau reassured. “Private clinic. She needs follow-up X-rays and blood work or we would have had the physician come to her.”

Zack swore. “When is her appointment?”

“Tomorrow morning. Before the clinic opens.”

Damn it. There was no way for him to get back in time to go with her. And, well, he didn’t want their first face-to-face meeting after he’d ducked out to be in public or with others present. Nor would he subject her to the devastation of having to listen as the people who’d abused her so callously admitted to such an atrocity.

“I’ll be home tomorrow afternoon. Take care of her for me, man. She’s my entire life.”

“You know I will. You went to the wall for Ari, and I’ll never forget that. I know how you feel. Ari is my life too, and I wouldn’t survive something ever happening to her.”

Zack reluctantly rang off, frustrated by the time it would take to get back to Gracie. He was tempted to just rent a fucking car and drive through the night to get back to her, but he’d still miss her appointment, and he’d be in no mental or physical condition to take her back to hell. Not that he was prepared to brave the bowels of hell either, but one of them had to be strong, and he certainly didn’t expect Gracie to be when she was the one most affected by the events of the past.