Chapter 154
Emily's POV
I didn't know how to respond to that. I didn't have the words to explain what it meant that they had stayed awake, that they had stayed close, that they were all here in the middle of the night just to make sure I was okay. So I did the only thing I could: I pressed back into Ethan's chest, turned my face into Alex's palm, and held on to Mason's hand like it was the only thing keeping me tethered to the earth.
"Thank you," I whispered. It wasn't enough—it was nowhere near enough—but it was all I had.
Alex's thumb brushed across my cheekbone, careful around the bruise. "You don't have to thank us."
"Yes, I do." My voice cracked. "You should all be sleeping. You've been—Ethan, you've been traveling all day. Alex, you have work tomorrow. Mason—"
"We're exactly where we want to be," Ethan cut in, and the certainty in his tone left no room for argument. "Don't worry about us, Em. Just focus on you."
But that was the problem, wasn't it? I couldn't just focus on me. Because focusing on me meant confronting the fact that my father had found me, that he had hurt me, that he was going to keep hurting me until I figured out how to make him stop. It meant facing the terror I'd been burying since the moment I walked through that door. And I wasn't ready. I didn't know if I'd ever be ready.
Ethan seemed to sense the direction of my thoughts, because his arms shifted slightly, pulling me more securely against him. "Do you want to talk about it?"
The question was gentle, but it still made my whole body tense. They knew something had happened. They had seen the bruises, the blood, the state I'd been in when I came home. And Alex—I didn't know how much Alex had seen or guessed or pieced together, but the way he had looked at me earlier, like he was cataloging every injury and calculating exactly how much damage he wanted to inflict in return, told me he knew more than I'd said.
They deserved the truth. They deserved to understand why I'd come home looking like I'd been through a war zone. But the thought of saying it out loud—of naming my father, of admitting he was free and he had found me and I had given him money because I was too terrified to do anything else—made my throat close up all over again.
"You already know," I managed finally. The words tasted like ash. "Don't you? You know who did this."
There was a beat of silence, heavy and charged. Then Alex exhaled slowly, his hand sliding from my face to the back of my neck. "I saw the security footage from the parking lot," he admitted. "And I had him identified."
My blood turned to ice. "You—what?"
"I needed to know who hurt you," Alex said, and his voice was calm but there was something underneath it, something dark and cold and absolutely unyielding. "So I pulled the parking lot footage and had someone run facial recognition. It came back with a name. Jack Grey. Your father."
The name landed like a physical blow. I flinched, and Ethan's arms tightened reflexively, as if he could hold me together through sheer force of will.
"He's supposed to be in prison," Mason said quietly, and I realized he'd been filled in too. Of course he had been. They'd been awake for hours, piecing together the truth I couldn't bring myself to speak. "But he's not, is he?"
"No." The word was barely audible. "He escaped. I don't know when. I don't know how. But he found me, and he—" My voice broke. "He said he needs money. Ten thousand dollars. And if I don't give it to him, he's going to hurt my mom."
The confession spilled out in a rush, and the second it was out I wanted to claw it back. Because now they knew. Now they understood exactly how fucked this situation was, how trapped I was, how there was no good way out of this. I was at my father's mercy, just like I had been when I was a kid, and no amount of distance or independence or new life had changed that fundamental fact.
"Emily." Ethan's voice was low and rough, vibrating against my back. "Look at me."
I didn't want to. I didn't want to see the pity or the anger or whatever else might be written across his face. But his hand came up to gently turn my chin, and I didn't have the energy to resist.
His eyes were burning when they met mine—not with anger, exactly, but with something just as fierce. "You are not at his mercy," he said, each word deliberate and weighted. "You are not alone in this. Do you understand? You have us. All three of us. And we are not going to let him hurt you."
"He already did," I said, and I hated how small my voice sounded. "He already—"
"I know." Ethan's jaw clenched. "And that's on me. I should have been here. I should have—"
"No," Alex interrupted, and his tone was sharp enough to cut. "This is on me. I knew something was wrong earlier. I should have pushed harder. I should have made you tell me."
"It's not—" Mason started, then stopped. He looked down at our joined hands, his brow furrowing. "It's not anyone's fault except his. The guy who did this. Emily's... father." He said the word like it tasted wrong in his mouth. "He's the one who chose violence. Not you. Not any of us."