Delayed by Nathan Kingsly (the false prince TXT) 📗

pops off. My head jerks to my parent’s front door. The door should be open only a crack, but now it’s wide open. Leaving the stuff on the ground, I charge inside the house. My mother’s screams are like a siren that I follow until I’m met with the scene in the kitchen. My body freezes, my heart encased in ice, not chancing a beat, knowing that if it does, it will break.

My dad lays face first in blood, the pool around him growing. I don’t feel the pain of my knees as they crash to the tiled floor as I crawl to him. His body is warm as my fingers tangle in his shirt. His breath is shallow, and the ice cracks. Flipping him over, my hands hover over him, and my name bubbles up from his throat through a cough. I am putting pressure on the nearest wound in his chest.

“You’re fine; you’ll be okay.” My voice shakes.

Red comes through the seams of my fingers, and I look frantically for a towel to stanch the bleeding. Halfway underneath him is the cloth he used to help dry the dishes. I press it in and look back at him to give him another word of reassurance.

“Dad, you’ll be okay as soon as I can get this to stop bleeding.” His eyes fixed on something behind me. I hear my mom sobbing behind me, but I can’t comfort her right now. “Dad?” I try to get his attention. “Dad ...?” When he doesn’t blink, I realize my words mean nothing because they are no longer for him.

“Dad ...?” His title is stuck in my throat.

“Who the hell are you?” A voice I don't know barks at me.

My head twists. He’s holding my mother’s arm, and with the other hand, his pistol points at me.

Letting my hand drop away, I can still feel the stickiness of my father’s blood on my hands. Twisting my head, Emma’s sad gaze already there.

“I remember thinking that he looked so normal. The frames of his glasses matched his eyes, a deep brown. He’d worn a brown jacket with a pattern close to the hem, which I later realized wasn’t a pattern at all, but evidence from the crime scene. His blue jeans a dark color, but his loafers were the same color as his jacket. Before that night, I wouldn’t have glanced twice at a guy like him, and now I can’t be sure I hadn't seen him. That’s what haunts me, that I could have stopped it before it had a chance to happen.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you and your family, but Liam, you couldn’t have known.” Her voice is as gentle as her touch was earlier.

“I should have known, done something.”

“What ended up happening?”

“He went down easily. I was so angry when I charged, the gun launched out of both of our reach, but a bullet was too good for him anyway.” I clench my fists, the burn from the cuts comforting. “I nearly killed him before the cops showed up. He went to jail, but somehow the justice system found a way for him to get out for good behavior. So, I’m headed home.”

“That’s why Mia's upset. You should go home. Don’t worry about coming to my brother’s wedding with me.”

“That’s not why she’s upset.”

“Then why?”

“When I got out of jail for assaulting that man, I did stay. I stayed until I wasn’t welcome anymore. So I left, and I haven’t been home since. I’ve made promises to visit and never followed through. The one time I got on the plane, she realized what I had known all along, that they are better off without me.” I run my hands through my hair and jerk the ends until my scalp tingles.

“Liam …”

“... You can’t honestly believe that.” She whispers as she places a hand on my shoulder.

“There’s nothing to believe; it’s fact.” I shrug her off and stand. “I’ve let them down one too many times.”

“I don’t know what else you’ve done to make you think that, but that man’s decision isn’t your fault. If he were determined, he would have found a way.”

“I made it easy for him.” Squinting my eyes shut, my shoulders drop.

“Liam, I know it’s hard, but you can’t change what happened.”

My eyes open to slits, and my body grows stiff with every word. She’s like all the rest; if it were that easy to let go, I would have managed it by now.

“I’m taking a shower.” My pace is stiff and rushed. Sometimes the thought of getting revenge is all that motivates me to keep moving from one day to the next. Ger will pay for what he’s done; jail was always too good for him. Someday, we’ll be standing across from one another, and he’ll know who’s ending his life and why. How can anyone, especially Emma know anything about that?

“Liam? Wait--”

Closing the door behind me, shutting out her words, I brace myself on the counter and take one breath at a time. She can’t imagine how hard it was to see. My father, unable to do anything, knowing I had a hand in it. Then, as if I hadn’t been punished enough, he’s not the only one I lost that day. My mom, after she stopped screaming, took her over six months to speak to me.

Her first words broke me and continue to echo no matter the years.

‘Your fault!’

‘Your fault!’

‘Your fault!’

I had to call a nurse to help restrain her from bashing herself in the head with her tiny fists. I’d done that to her, made her into an emotionally damaged shell, and I couldn’t face visiting again.

“Damn it.” The miniature hotel soaps and towels crash against the nearest wall and lands scattered on the floor. My hands shake when they return to the counter, and my eyes reflect back to me in the mirror. Despite my clenched jaw, narrowed slits, and downcast brows, under the façade, my eyes