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After twenty minutes, another pair came over to replace us.
“Which do you want?” Liam asked looking over the cakes.
“Liam, those are for—”
“The hungry, and I’m hungry.” He took the two angel cakes along with a spoon and walked over to one of the tables and took a seat. “Come on.”
Sighing, I took a seat in front of him.
He slid a cake and the spoon to me.
“What are you going to use...?” I stopped as he picked up the long piece of cake with his hand.
Shaking my head, I tried to think of something to change the subject but I only had one question. “Why haven’t you brought up Declan?”
He licked his lips and watched me carefully. “I wanted to see if you cared enough to bring him up first. Good to know you cared about him even a little bit.”
“That’s not fair.”
“When you make a Callahan fall in love and then walk away, that’s not fair.”
I couldn’t believe this.
“You all make it seem like I did something wrong. He was perfect and then he threw this…the mafia in the middle,” I muttered taking a bite.
“We do a lot of good, Coraline—”
“You also do a lot of bad,” I replied as I dropped the spoon and used my hands like him.
“Everyone does bad things. Even you, or at least your company does.”
“What?” I snapped as I glared up at him.
He placed his elbows on the table and nodded. “Two days ago, you were at Absolon, eating lobster with Mrs. Lauren Graham, owner of the Graham Steel Mill. The same steel mill that had an explosion four years ago due to poorly maintained and rusting equipment. Despite her workers’ protests, she and her board didn’t even care. So Ardal over there…” He nodded to the large man that was laughing with a group of other men. “Had the hairs burned off his head and face. He also lost his hearing. So not only does he look ‘scary,’ but since he can’t communicate normally, finding a job, a good job, is almost impossible.
“Carney and his little brother, Daly, lost his their father in that same explosion. And instead of compensating the workers and their families, WIB, your company, helped her to move her money around so that she was only required to pay out less than one hundred dollars to each family. So congrats, you helped shaft the poor. And my family couldn’t do anything but help them rebuild, pay for medical bills, and feed them. But as an orphan yourself, I’m sure you know how little that compensation really means to them. So tell me, who’s the villain now?”
I felt sick.
“Should I explain every other horror story here? Would you like to know how many of those good guys are on your client list?”
I glanced around the hall, everyone was laughing and cheerful even though most of them had all been screwed over in one way or another. I bit my lip and looked down in shame. How had I not known that?
“Like you said, we do a lot of bad. We sell drugs to people who want drugs, and oftentimes, that means our line of work gets messy. But at least when we give back it isn’t just for a tax write off.” He stood up, but paused. “He gave you his mother’s money, right?”
“What?”
“The Laoghaire fortune,” he stated.
It took a second longer than it should have for my brain to start working, but I nodded.
“His mother started Elgin in Boston and brought it here. He still has his father’s fortune and that was more than enough, but he wasn’t sure what to do with it. He’d planned to donate it when we were teenagers. However, it’s tradition—should a mother die, her fortune goes to her daughter on her wedding day. Or, if she had no daughter, her son’s bride, to do whatever she wished with it.”
He left me and went to join in the conversations around the hall.
Once again, my heart burned.
“Lady.”
I turned to see the small blond boy, his brother squeezing his shoulder, forcing him to stay still.
“Sorry for stealing the cake.” He sighed as he crossed his arms. Then he looked up at his brother. “Happy?”
“Sorry again.” The older boy laughed as he dragged his brother away.
So was I.
TWELVE
“The real world is where the monsters are.”
?Rick Riordan
CORALINE
Another week had gone by. Luckily with no more visits from his family.
Two weeks…weeks without him and I was still waiting for it get easier. But every day that went by, I was just a little bit sad that he didn’t email me again. Which was crazy. I was the one who’d wanted this and he was only respecting my decision.
In fact, I needed to just stop thinking about him!
I came to work and I was home by five. Which meant that for the past two weeks I always had a front row seat to my aunt and uncle fighting, and Imani stumbling inside drunk at four in the morning. I had gone from six places, to what felt like all of the world, back down to one in only a month. It was so insane I could barely believe it either.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One.
“Urgh! I think I’m going to be sick.” Imani stumbled up the stairs right on cue.
Rising from my bed, I opened my door and went to her. I lifted her up and she threw her arm over my shoulder as I dragged her to her room.
Her mother stepped out and looked at her.
“Look at you. Such a disgrace.”
“Takes one to know one!”
“Stop!” I said to them both when my aunt raised her hand to slap Imani across the face. “She’s drunk. I’ll take care of her.”
She didn’t say anything more as she went downstairs.
“Bathroom.” Imani pushed away from me and ran towards her bathroom.
With a sigh, I followed her inside her pink bathroom, and as I held her hair behind her ears I noticed her tattoo again.
7B.
“Otis is part of a gang called the Seven Bloods.” I tried to shake his voice from my head. But I couldn’t ignore what was in front of me.
“Imani? What does your tattoo mean?”
“Coraline, please leave me alone,” she whispered as she rested her head against the toilet seat. “Otis dumped me.”
“What?”
“Yeah. He said I was too stupid for him.”
“He’s an ass who wouldn’t know a good woman if she fell out of space and right on top of him. You can do much better—”
“No, I can’t,” she said as she stood up. “We can’t all be like you, Coraline. Go to big fancy schools and live off of the money our smart daddies left for us.”
“Why are you taking all your rage out on me?”
“Because you annoy me!” she yelled as she glared at me. “God, you’re just so…I can’t even! You walk around here like you’re better than everyone else, but you know what, Coraline? You aren’t. We all preferred it when you were in California. Why’d you bother coming back?”
“Excuse me for hoping my family would miss me.”
“There, right there, that’s why you piss me off!” she snapped. “We aren’t a family! We are four people living in a house. And you walking around taking care of everyone doesn’t make anyone feel better. You’re like this dumb, little beat-down dog who keeps coming back down. Have some backbone for once in your damn life!”
