Page 167 of Deadfall

“I can’t risk anything happening to you,” he said fervently. “Not when I just got you back.”

“I deserve this just as much as you do,” I ground out through the emotions that threatened to choke me. This felt just like before. Keeping me safe under the guise of control.

“Then I’ll bring him back for you,” he said.

My eyebrows shot up. “Seriously? That’s no guarantee. Besides, I can help. I was trained—”

“Which I want to talk about at some point,” he muttered. “But, my answer is still no.”

The rage surfaced. Great waves of it that had sat and simmered and waited for this moment.

“Fuck you,” I said breathlessly. “You don’t get to tell me what to do after all these years.”

His jaw firmed stubbornly. “I’m still your father.”

“You just said you didn’t know how to be one anymore,” I said and hoped the words cut deep. “Here I thought coming home would mean I get to be included in what is obviously a family business here, but instead it’s just another cage. Yet again.”

“Em—”

No. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stand there and let him do this to me. I turned and stormed toward the stairs, tears blurred my vision. I heard my father call out, but I didn’t turn around. I was furious beyond reason. I took the stairs two at a time and stalked through the house. I didn’t really know where I was going—the house was enormous, and I hadn’t had a chance to walk all of it yet. I found myself in the kitchen, where there were too many people gathered. I wasn’t in the mood to talk and turned right back around and walked out.

I heard Kaelin call after me, but I sped up and yanked open a door to the back patio. Griffin was smoking against a pillar. I glanced at him briefly as I stormed past, and he immediately put out his cigarette and fell into step beside me.

“Who pissed you off?” He growled.

“Who do you think?” I muttered. I was so close to telling him to leave me alone.

He sighed. “Damn, I don’t think I can kill North,” Griffin said.

I looked over at him and saw the twinkle of amusement in his eyes. My lips thinned, because I was still pissed off, but I decided I didn’t mind his company. I headed down a well-kept dirt path toward a stand of pine trees in the distance. We walked along in silence for a bit. Once I'd cooled down to below boiling, I looked at him out of the corner of my eye.

“Don’t you want to know what he said?”

“Probably told you to stay home while we go off to fight Mahoney,” Griffin said dryly.

When I caught his eye again, he chuckled. “You had to know this was going to happen. He just got you back after losing you twice. You think he wants it to happen a third time?”

“Great. So, you’re on his side then?” I exclaimed.

“Easy there, tiger,” Griffin said lightly. “I didn’t say that.”

The trees loomed up ahead, and it wasn’t long before we disappeared between the trunks into the cool shade. I immediately let the smell of the pine and the sounds of the small forest surround me. My shoulders came down an inch.

“It just–it reminds me of before,” I muttered. “Riggs. Like I told you, he was physically and emotionally abusive—controlling—”

Griffin stepped closer, the intensity in his eyes sharpened. “Can you tell me again how you killed him? That was very satisfying.”

I gave him a ghost of a smile and shook my head. “Everytime someone tries to tell me what to do, I get taken right back to that time in my life where he’d reduced me to something small. I don’t want that to happen again.”

Griffin gently brushed a strand of hair from my face and settled his hand on my cheek.

“There is nothing small about you,” he said. “There is nothing incompetent about you either. Your father just needs to see what Seven and I have seen, and then he’ll understand why you need to be included.”

“How do I show him that?”

“Give it time,” Griffin said. “You two just reunited. It’s understandable he doesn’t want to jump straight into a situation where he could lose you again.”

“Again, I feel like you’re taking his side,” I grumbled.