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“A carpenter who’s been in more than one shootout? Sound more made up why don’t you?” Ruben sniped, then turned to scowl at Kody. “Did you hire him for this?”
Ace snorted, then said to Kody, “He actually thinks he’s worth that, doesn’t he?”
“I think he does,” Kody said, a smile teasing at his lips.
Everybody started talking over each other. Kody gave Ace an apologetic smile but Ace just put his hand on Kody’s thigh and gave him a reassuring squeeze.
“Everything you’ve told me is a fucking lie, isn’t it?” Amanda yelled at Ruben, silencing the whole room.
Kody’s heart was beating wildly in his chest.
“He never treated you the way you told me he did. He never cheated on you,” Amanda said.
Kody snapped his gaze onto Ruben.
“You told her I cheated?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper because of how fucking hard it was to get the words out.
Everyone turned to stare at Ruben who shot out of his chair, sending it backward into the wall with a loud thump.
“Oh, come off it,” Ruben snapped. “An emotional affair is still cheating.”
He didn’t have words. None. His brain was having a hard time processing the bullshit Ruben was spewing.
“I’m sorry, an emotional affair?” Amanda snapped back at him. “You made it sound like he was cheating on you for years. What the fuck?”
“He was. With that firefighter.”
Firefighter? Ruben thought he’d been cheating with one of his colleagues? Ruben seriously thought he’d been cheating while all he’d been doing all those years was try his hardest to please and impress Ruben? What. The. Hell?
“Is he… talking about Cora?” Ace asked.
Kody slowly turned to look at Ace.
Holy fuck. Ruben was talking about Cora. Was that why he’d hated her so much?
“I think it’s time you left,” Dad said, voice calm but the look he gave Ruben was so full of ire that it made Kody’s skin crawl.
Ruben spewed abuse at them all before he stormed off.
“If I’m going away anyway, at least let me take that piece of shit out before I go,” Ace hissed under his breath.
Kody let out a groan and dropped his head into his hands.
Just the thought that Ace might be going away had his chest hurting something fierce.
Ace
Even with Ruben gone, the girls didn’t stop arguing. In fact, he’d wager it got worse. From what he could gather, Ruben had told them both lies and while they’d both believed him to begin with, Olivia had wised up way before Amanda. He wouldn’t be surprised if Ruben had also lied to them about each other. He seemed like just the kind of scumbag to do something like that.
“He broke up with me to make me fight harder for him, didn’t he?” Kody asked him, his jaw clenching. “He wanted me to try to be everything he wanted. He wanted me to beg.”
Ace nodded.
“He probably did that,” he said, motioning toward the mess that was his sisters, “when you didn’t beg him to take you back.”
Kody shook his head and Ace hated the pain he saw in those gorgeous brown eyes. He wished they’d met earlier so he could’ve protected Kody from Ruben’s abuse.
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” Amanda snapped.
