“My sister,” he whispered finally, and Cain’s face broke into a smile.
“Oh, right. I remember now.”
Damon reached for the phone, hope and panic churning together in his mind. “I don’t know what she wants.” And please, God, don’t let it be about the money Bas had sent her, or her reaming him out again for being a criminal asshole.
“You know, I sometimes find the best way to figure out what a caller wants is to actuallyanswerthe phone,” Cain teased.
Right, yeah. Answer.
He slid his finger across the screen and cleared his throat. “Chelsea?”
“What did youdo?” Her voice shook with outrage.
He groaned. “Listen if this is about the check…”
“Not the check!” she cried. “Although I already told you I didn’t want your blood money, and you were asshole enough to send it anyway.”
“Yeah, I was,” he agreed. His voice had gone raspy again, so he cleared his throat before he continued. “I am. I know it doesn’t make up for missing all those years with you, or for what the media did to you after I disappeared, but I wanted you to have it anyway. To keep it for Molly. For college or… whatever.”
“College? Oh, my God, Damon!” Chelsea was nearly hysterical. “We’ll be lucky if she makes it to kindergarten thanks to you!” She broke down into sobs. “You’re going to get us killed.”
“Killed!” His eyes flashed to Cain, whose face wore the same expression of shocked worry he imagined he was wearing. “What are you talking about? Chelsea, is Molly okay?”
“Don’t pretend like you care about her, for God’s sake,” his sister wailed. “You came into our lives and brought nothing but trouble. I grew up without you, and from the second I learned you existed, you’ve done nothing but make my life harder.”
Damon’s heart sank to his stomach, dragging the breath from his lungs.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “If I had known, Chelsea. If I’d known about you, if I’d ever had even a tiny clue that you were alive, I would have come for you. I would have protected you.”
“Fuck that! All I wanted from you was for you to leave usalone. But you couldn’t even give me that, and now my baby is… my baby is…”
“What?” Damon leaned forward, hardly even aware that Cain was still in the room. “What happened to Molly, Chels?”
His sister’s crying was overlaid with the high-pitched warble of a three-year old, asking “Whas’ wrong, Mama?”
“It’s okay, baby,” Chelsea told the little girl, who had to have been Molly. Damon heard her take a deep breath, like she was trying to compose herself.
“Chelsea, tell me what the hell is going on,” he demanded. “Is Molly alright?”
“She’s alright,” Chelsea said, her voice cold and hard despite her sniffles. “Thank God. But Damon, this is the last phone call. Do you understand? I don’t know what you’re involved in, but I don’t want any part of it. No more calls, no more checks. I don’t know how your friends found us, but…”
“Wait. Chelsea! Don’t hang up!” Damon said, pushing to his feet, not giving a shit about the pain in his leg until it almost collapsed beneath him.
Without thinking, he grabbed at Cain’s shoulder for support, and Cain stood, wrapping an arm around Damon’s waist.
“Chels, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, as calmly as he could. “Tell me what’s happening.”
“Like you don’t know!”
“I swear to you, I swear toGod, I havenoidea what you’re talking about!”
“I worked a double last night,” she told him, and he nodded even though she couldn’t see him. He knew she waitressed at some all-night diner not thirty minutes from the house where his last and longest foster family had lived, the home where he’d met Cort --the only family he’d ever claimed. The knowledge that a sister he’d never known had been so fuckingcloseall those years, dealing with their shithead father on her own, struggling to raise a daughter when she was barely out of her teens, herself… it absolutely flayed him. If she was too disgusted to allow him into her life, to be there for her personally, he’d thought he could at least help her financially, that maybe she’d take that much from him.
But somehow apparently even that had gone to hell.
“I got off work at eight this morning and got Molly from the sitter - she stays with this retired lady, Mrs. Danport, downstairs when I’m working. We came upstairs and… and-” She broke off into a round of fresh sobs.
“And what? Chelsea,andwhat?”
