Looking behind me, I saw Grimm leaning against the wall, back of his hand rubbing the corners of his mouth, and I knew he just emptied his stomach. Good because the worst was yet to come as I pushed open the door and walked in on exactly what I knew I would.
Mr. Rothschild was sitting comfortably on the edge of the bed, weight in his hands behind him with his favorite boy on the island shaking between his legs.
I knew him as Iron and that came after a lot of digging into this place—why it's here, why we were sent here, and the ways I could burn it all down.
Apparently, he was nicknamed Iron because of, you guessed it, his iron jaw. Apparently, he never tires or complains. I’m sure that’s how Grimm’s perverted old man prefers it.
Iron was shaking like a leaf, hands on the tops of his own thighs with his mouth buried in his lap.
“Rothschild.” I didn’t even need to rattle that off, he already knew we interrupted and shuffled his pants up. In the process, he pushed Iron out of the way, already was fuming with anger.
“This is a private suite.” His words sounded vicious but it’s hard to take them seriously.
I looked behind me for Grimm when he pushed Khaos out of the way, his eyes not leaving his father’s. He wasn’t in denial because he saw it with his own two eyes, but he was going through something.
Anger?
Regret?
Guilt this island seems to hold for a lot of people?
I didn’t expect a gun to come barreling into the side of my cheek with a hand around my throat to keep me still. I expected this kind of anger to get directed at his pedophile dad.
“What the fuck is this? Is this what you left behind? This is your end game?” His words spit all over me, sizzling like holy water landing on my skin.
I could barely talk with his hand crushing my throat and pushing on my Adam’s apple. Choking out the words, I let him do what he needed. “Your dad is the reason Braeden is dead. The reason I’m fucked up. Ask him, he knows everything.”
His dad pointed towards the door, and Khaos stopped Iron making sure he knew to exit towards the boats if he wanted to survive a fire. We weren’t here to kill anyone not guilty.
I would have to figure out how to save him from the life I led later.
The gun shook in his hand, not steady at all, not like normal. He swung his arm around meeting the eyes of his own father. “What do you mean, you knew?” Grimm’s voice shook just as much as the gun in his hand.
Dirty little secrets have a way of surprising the people you love.
Stepping in, I knew his father would never admit it, still fixing his belt against all the fake remorse. We were just inconveniencing him being serviced by a fourteen-year-old boy with no choice.
His hands were so dirty, I couldn’t tell if he was simply that villainous or if it was his dark as fuck soul showing through. “He was with my brother the night he jumped the cliffs, weren’t you, Grimm? And why is that?”
Grimm’s dad, Jason Rothschild, was a grade A pedophile and I had been keeping it a secret for my entire life.
Every time I looked at Grimm, I saw the bits of his father that I couldn’t stand: the silent contempt for the world, the inability to connect, the way he did what he was told escaping staining his tattooed hands. That was until Abigail and Daisy, now, he was a different person, but Grimm repenting doesn’t make up for the sins of his father.
There’s no punishment bad enough for those sins.
Not unless it’s the death from a bullet and unmarked grave.
“I couldn’t leave him on a plane. He was barely here fifteen minutes; he couldn’t convince your unstable brother not to jump.” The sound of his belt jingled, and he was out of breath easier than I expected being caught red-handed.
I’m sure Grimm was tracing every memory he had for clues if he had been here more than once while his dad enjoyed a quickie.
“That’s why you medicated your son, right? Make him think he’s crazy, make it hard to remember the truth, make it easy to shape a monster out of whatever was left? Couldn’t have any loose ends. He was the only one my brother trusted with the truth and you just got lucky we don’t remember childhood so clearly.”
Grimm’s eyes got darker like a cloudy sky about to rain, when he grabbed my hoodie yanking me closer like a ragdoll still holding the gun at his own dad.
“Why the fuck wouldn’t you tell me?! You soaked up all the fucking malice like a sponge and leaked out sinister all over our lives! I could have remembered… saved him.” I could feel his anger against my porcelain skin trying to crack me.
He was projecting and I let him. I knew better than anyone that no one can change how you feel, not when it’s this strong.
“There was no saving him! Your dad was here to fuck my brother right into suicide! Your dad is the reason he jumped. You were here by accident, caught him before he took a step off the cliff, that’s it. Your dad medicated you enough to forget, to make you crazy, and it spiraled into a fake fucking tumor to keep you from figuring it all out,” I yelled back, finally saying the only truth we didn’t cover.
I had never seen Grimm cry, witnessing the thick tears drop from his lashes felt cruel.
I was convinced he couldn’t even see through all the wetness when he whispered, “There’s
