The Complete Irreparable Boxed Set: Irreparable #1-2

by Sam Mariano

  For a moment, he said nothing, then very slowly, he ground out, “Am I to understand that your reasoning… for me not to kill you… is that you have been fucking my daughter—who you raped when she was helpless and in captivity?”

  Ethan swallowed, second guessing the logic of such a move, but all out of other moves. It wasn’t like his world could implode more.

  “Call her. Or I can,” he pleaded. “I wasn’t—I only wanted to help her, I wanted her to know that I was sorry for what happened, but she needed someone to talk to, and…she didn’t feel like anyone who wasn’t there with her could understand. She’s—she’s completely forgiven me, this vengeance—it’s wasted on her at this point. She doesn’t hate me anymore, she understands the position I was in and she knows how sorry I am for hurting her. As much as she’s already lost, would you really want to take something else from her? Please… call her, she’ll tell you exactly what I’m telling you.”

  At least he fucking hoped she would.

  “If I call my daughter right now, she’ll tell me how in love with you she is and how she’ll hate me forever if I take out her rapist?” the older man asked skeptically.

  That sounded much less likely, but since he had already made the claim, Ethan could only nod, his stomach twisting up in knots.

  Antonio nodded his head at one of the men standing behind Ethan, and the man approached the chair Alison was tied to. Ethan didn’t immediately understand what was happening until he saw the gun moving toward his daughter’s head, heard Amanda’s muffled wailing. His whole body tensed and then, without regard for anything else, he prepared to lunge at the man, as useless as that would be in the long run.

  “Ethan,” Antonio snapped.

  The blood was rushing everywhere, surging in his brain, his ears, he could barely concentrate, even as he realized the man with the gun had stopped moving and the gun wasn’t aimed at Alison.

  The threat was there though.

  He stood guard by her chair, gun in one hand, the other hand resting on the back of the chair.

  Alison’s face was so red, her eyes crinkled up as she cried.

  Ethan wanted to die.

  Tears of helplessness and regret burned behind his eyes and he didn’t even want to defend himself anymore. He deserved Antonio’s wrath, he deserved a fucking bullet between his eyes—but his family didn’t.

  Sinking back to his knees, a million different thoughts flashed through his mind—the first time he had ever held Alison in his arms, her little face all red, her tiny hand wrapped around his finger while she slept. Her first day of kindergarten, going into the building nervous, and coming home with a big grin on her face. When she met her little brother for the first time and she was so excited—then in mere days, a little jealous. Amanda, so miserably pregnant with Caleb, but forcing herself to walk through the whole zoo because it was what Alison wanted to do for her birthday. Jackson stealing Alison’s Christmas presents from under the tree when he was barely crawling. Amanda cuddling with him on the couch before they were married, wearing his favorite black dress with her hair all around his face. Seeing Willow for the first time, trussed up and terrified… and then in front of him, with his hands on her.

  Bringing his gaze back to Antonio, he saw the man’s lip curl up as the video briefly began playing again before he quickly cleared it from the screen and brought up the keypad.

  “You better hope you’re right about my daughter’s affection for you.”

  Ethan suddenly wished he wouldn’t have made that call at the grocery store—the one she took as a break-up.

  It hit him right in the gut that he could be making a mistake—even if Willow wasn’t a vengeful person, she had certainly never claimed to love him, and if Antonio didn’t give her any details, she wasn’t likely to make such a claim. How would she know to?

  “Could I call her?” Ethan asked.

  Antonio merely shook his head as he placed the phone to his ear and waited.

  It felt like the phone was ringing for an eternity. The room wasn’t quiet enough to hear through the phone, but eventually the older man ended the call without ever speaking.

  She hadn’t answered the goddamn phone.

  Antonio’s eyebrows shot up. “Too bad.”

  “Let me call her. I just talked to her maybe a half hour ago. She’ll answer if I call.”

  He was making a lot of promises he couldn’t keep, but he couldn’t seem to stop.

  For a moment, the older man merely stared at Ethan, then he finally nodded his head. “Reach for the phone slowly—don’t try anything stupid.”

  “I won’t,” Ethan promised, fumbling for the phone in his pocket. His hands shook as he unlocked the screen, his fingers unsteadily tapping in his passcode, and then he dialed her number, praying she would pick up the phone.

  “Put it on speaker,” Antonio commanded.

  Ethan pressed the speaker button and waited one ring, then two.

  “Hey,” she answered, her tone warm.

  For the first time since he walked in the door, he felt like he could actually breathe.

  “Willow,” he said, although it sounded almost like a groan to his own ears. “Thank God you answered the phone.”

  She laughed. “Miss me already, friend?”

  “Willow, your dad is in my living room—”

  “No specifics,” Antonio barked, his eyes burning irritably.

  “What?” she demanded, clearly confused. “What are you talking about? Am I on speaker?”

  “Hi, honey,” Antonio called.

  “Dad?” she asked, disbelievingly. “Oh my God, what are you doing?”

  “I need you to answer a question for me,” Antonio called loudly, as if she couldn’t hear him through the cell phone.

  “Is someone crying?” she demanded.

  Alison was still crying, and one glance toward the girls was incapacitating—Amanda’s face was red, tears streaming down her cheeks, and she was looking at him with a kind of loathing he had never seen on anybody’s face before.

  Not that he could blame her.

  Even if he made it out alive, what was going to be left of his life?

  “I was just paying your buddy a little visit—”

  “Who’s crying?” she interrupted, her voice wavering as it rose. “What have you done?”

  “Nothing. Calm down,” Antonio replied, his tone that of a man clearly used to being in charge.

  Willow took an audible breath. “Ethan?”

  “I’m here,” he replied tensely. “Willow, I need you to—”

  Antonio cut him off. “Your friend here, he the same guy that raped you?”

  The only immediate response was dead silence.

  After a moment, he replied, “That sounds like a yes.”

  “It—how did you—? It’s not that simple—I don’t know who told you what, but he didn’t… he didn’t….”

  “I saw a video,” Antonio stated.

  “What?” she whispered raggedly.

  Antonio’s lips pressed together, the fury on his face growing as he looked at Ethan.

  “He didn’t—I don’t want to talk about that. You need to leave, right now, Dad.”

  “Is this the guy or not?” Antonio pressed.

  She hesitated. “Yes, technically, but it’s complicated and I’m not angry at him anymore and I do not want you to be at his house, do you understand me? Leave him alone.”

  “Do you love this asshole?”

  Her breath caught. Instead of answering, she took on a warning tone. “Dad, please leave him alone.”

  Antonio shrugged at Ethan, as if mildly disappointed. “All right, baby. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

  The man did not look appeased, not at all, and although Willow was telling her father to leave him alone, Ethan was increasingly aware that she had not backed up his presumptuous claims—not at all.

  “Willow,” he said, his voice rising a bit.

  “Do you hear me, Dad?” she demanded, he
r voice rising in response to his. “Dad?”

  “Yeah, I heard you. I have some things to take care of.”

  “Yes,” she blurted. “Yes, to all of it, goddammit. You don’t know the whole story, you don’t know what’s been going on—you never even called to check on me, so I definitely don’t need you out seeking vengeance on my behalf. If you hurt Ethan, I swear to God, I’ll turn this conversation over to the police.”

  Eyebrows quirking, Antonio said, “Huh. Already he’s more important to you than family, huh?”

  “Ethan is my family,” she stated, so immediately and so immovably that it gave even Ethan pause.

  “I see,” the other man said lowly. Then, eyebrows knitting together, he said, “Did he knock you up?”

  She sighed heavily. “No, I don’t mean… no, but I do love him and if anything happens to him…”

  Whether it was a threat or a statement, he didn’t know, because she didn’t finish the thought.

  “I see,” Antonio said again.

  Ethan waited with bated breath to see how the older man would respond that time, but he seemed to be taking his time mulling it over.

  “I’m serious, Dad. Leave him alone, okay? Please?”

  “All right.” Nodding at Ethan, he said, “You can hang up now.”

  “Should I come over?” Willow asked uncertainly.

  “No,” Antonio answered, before Ethan could. “You stay home, we’re going to clear out of here. Does your mom know about this?”

  “N-no. And I would like to keep it that way. Not a hair on his head, Dad.”

  “I got it, Willow.” He looked at Ethan a little more harshly.

  “Thanks,” Ethan murmured, before ending the call.

  Thanks seemed a little insufficient, but what else could he say?

  Lifting one bushy eyebrow, the older man said, “She just saved your ass.”

  “Not for the first time,” Ethan muttered.

  Relief washed over him as the man next to Alison’s chair began untying her while another untied Amanda. Antonio moved so that he was standing in front of Amanda, his figure imposing as he ripped the tape off her mouth.

  “I expect that all of you are smart enough not to say anything about this little meeting?”

  Amanda nodded vigorously, scrubbing her wet cheeks with the heels of her hands.

  Once freed from the restraints, Alison flung herself at him, crying, “Daddy!”

  Ethan squeezed her as tightly as he could without hurting her, closing his eyes as she buried her face in the crook of his neck. “I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.”

  He just kept murmuring it, over and over, as he rocked back and forth with her.

  Ethan expected Antonio to have something more to say to him, perhaps along the lines of, “If you hurt my daughter, I’m going to empty a clip into your face” but instead, the man simply rounded up his minions and left as suddenly as he had appeared.

  Before they even made it to their cars, which he now realized were parked on the street (something he should have noticed, but he’d been too busy thinking about the phone call to Willow), Amanda was flying past him and up the stairs.

  He tried to reassure Alison, to convince her it had only been a game that they would never play again, but he couldn’t get past the fear he had felt moments earlier himself, so he wasn’t sure how he could expect her to.

  When she finally calmed down a little, he asked if they could go upstairs to check on Mommy.

  Upon entering their bedroom, he was hit with relief at the sight of his two sons, safe and seemingly unaware that there had been any danger.

  Amanda had a suitcase thrown open and was shoving clothing into every crevice.

  “Amanda…”

  “Don’t,” she said, shaking her head, not looking at him.

  Alison was holding onto his hand, but he loosened her grip and bent down. “Can you take your brothers into the other room to play for a few minutes?”

  Ever the dutiful sister, she nodded her head and wrangled Jackson into the other room. Ethan picked up Caleb and took him in, placing him on his play mat and closing the door behind him so no one escaped.

  With no small amount of dread, he went back to the bedroom to face Amanda.

  “I honestly don’t want to talk to you right now,” she stated.

  “I know that what you heard down there…was—”

  “Was it true?” she interrupted, still not looking at him.

  He paused for a few seconds. “It’s complicated.”

  “It’s not complicated,” she said, looking up at him sharply before looking away again. “It’s the easiest fucking thing in the world—did you rape a girl? Most people can pretty easily answer this question without having to think about it.”

  Ethan sighed, brushing a hand through his hair. “I didn’t have a choice, Amanda—not really. If they realized I wasn’t who they thought I was, I would have put all of us in danger. I might never have come home. They could’ve killed me. It’s not like I did it because I wanted to.”

  “Didn’t you, on some level?” she shot back.

  “That’s fucked up, Amanda.”

  “You’re right, it is fucked up, Ethan, but you’re fucking her now, aren’t you?”

  He averted his gaze, and Amanda nodded.

  “You’re unbelievable. I honestly don’t even know who you are anymore.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Something between a sob and a laugh shot out of her. “That is so far from being a good enough response, Ethan.”

  “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

  “Please, feed me another generic line.” She punctuated the sentence by ripping her cell phone charger out of the wall and throwing it in her suit case.

  “Please don’t leave,” he said quietly.

  “I don’t see that I have a choice. If you think I’m sleeping in this bed next to you tonight, you’re more delusional than you sound right now.”

  He couldn’t really argue that. “Okay. Look, if someone has to leave, I’ll leave. Stop packing, I’ll—”

  That time she looked up at him, her expression wounded. “No, Ethan, we’re leaving. I don’t feel safe in my own fucking house right now—and who the hell was that man? I have so many…fucking questions that I don’t even want to know the answers to. How could you keep all of this from me?”

  Guilt walloped him. “It wasn’t easy. I… didn’t want you to… I thought I could shoulder it on my own and you’d never have to know.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Never have to know that the father of my children is a rapist? How magnanimous of you.”

  His jaw locked—it was difficult not to be defensive with words like that being thrown at him. “Would you have preferred that I died? Because I would have. The ringleader didn’t fully trust me even after I did it, and since he was going to have me killed when I blew my cover, I’m pretty goddamn sure that I would have died before I ever got to tell the cops where the girls were being taken, so not only would I be dead right now, but all three of the girls who are home with their families right now—hurt, yes, but alive, and not living in forced prostitution—would be living in forced prostitution in the very best of scenarios. I’m not saying it’s okay, but I literally had no better option.”

  Amanda hung her head, rifling through the suitcase. “And that may be true, Ethan, but it doesn’t mean I can forgive you. It isn’t my place to forgive you, honestly.”

  “Give it time,” he said gently. “Even she forgave me.”

  At that, her mouth thinned into a hard little line. “Yeah, I heard.”

  “I’m so sorry, Amanda. It isn’t what you’re thinking—what it sounded like downstairs.”

  “So you’re not fucking her, then?” she asked, looking up at him sharply, daring him to lie to her.

  He forced himself to hold her gaze. “It was only once. I know that doesn’t make it better, but…” He had to avert his gaze then, sighing. “She was a goddamn virgi
n, Amanda. Lane and his band of psychopaths cheated her out of her first time, and…I was trying to help her.”

  “With your dick,” she supplied.

  “No, it wasn’t like that. We… were just sort of survivors of the same horrible experience at first, she couldn’t assimilate back into her life, she was haunted by dreams, she was afraid…to even walk out on her front porch after the sun went down. I felt terrible, and I just wanted to make it right. I just… I can’t even explain it, Amanda, because it sounds so much more fucked up than it was. She needed a friend.”

  Amanda shook her head wordlessly. After a minute passed, she said, “I need you to get Alison’s suitcase out of the closet, I can’t reach it.”

  After Amanda disappeared into the bathroom, Ethan closed his eyes for a few seconds, then he slowly made his way to the closet to get his daughter’s suitcase.

  “Why isn’t Daddy coming?”

  Ethan stood by the driver’s side window, forcing down the instinct to beg Amanda to reconsider—not in front of the kids.

  “I told you, we’re going to go to the American Girl store and get you a new doll, then we’re going to get ice cream and have a little hotel party, just us.”

  “But Daddy likes ice cream,” Alison stated.

  “Daddy has to work,” Amanda stated.

  Pouting, she crossed her arms and slunk back in her seat. “That’s not fair.”

  “What about me?” Jackson demanded. “I don’t want a doll.”

  “We’ll get you a toy, too, don’t worry about it,” Amanda said. Glancing in Ethan’s direction, she held his gaze only for a second before looking away again.

  “I’ll talk to you tomorrow?” he asked.

  She nodded her head, but not with much conviction. Since he couldn’t argue with the kids listening, he took a step back and redirected his gaze to the backseat with a manufactured smile as he waved goodbye to his kids.

  Once the car was out of view, he was consumed by emptiness.

  It had been a longshot, but he had hoped that somehow he could convince Amanda not to go, find the words to explain things to her in a way that she would understand, even if she was still furious at him.