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“And I read somewhere that your earliest memory could be from the womb. Maybe she’ll remember everything,” he offered me a dry look.
Touché.
I put Luna down on the floor. She swayed until she gained balance, then clutched my hand and smiled.
“Look, no offense, man, but you don’t know what it’s like, okay? You’ve never had to deal with this kind of bullshit before.”
I wasn’t going to correct him. It wasn’t about me. I wanted to be there for him, even if he was going to be a pissy little shit for a while.
“Put your big girl panties on, Trent. You have enough money to hire the best nannies in the world and Luna is a cool kid. You have your parents, your friends, me. You’re not alone in this.”
“I know, I know.” Trent scrubbed his face, walking over to the liquor cabinet and taking out a bottle of Glenmorangie. “Luna, show Uncle Dean how you dance,” he asked tiredly as he poured himself a drink, his smile flaccid. Girl started shaking it like Beyoncé in Madison Square Garden, and we both clapped for her for a few minutes, before Luna got distracted by a door and decided to close and open it five hundred times in a row.
“She’s pretty advanced for her age,” I remarked.
“Very. She’s blabbing all the time, too. Maybe it’s my bias-ass, but I think she’s special. So special.” He shook his head, frowning. “Too special to be discarded like this by her mom.”
“What are you gonna do, bro?”
He stared at me through the rim of his glass while taking a sip, his silence tipping me off that he already had an idea. Putting his glass down, he clucked his tongue. “My parents have a new house here in Todos Santos. Chicago is big and cruel, and I work an insane amount of hours.” He stared at me, long and hard, and I instantly knew what he was asking for. I tapped my lips with my laced fingers.
“Let’s talk shop.”
“This is my so-called life.” Trent gestured with his ripped arms, stealing another glance at Luna, who was still opening and closing the same double door with a devotion better saved for finding the cure to cancer. “It’s a Mess with a capital M, and my daughter is in the middle of the shitshow, dragged through the mud and filth, the consequences of her parents’ bad decisions ruining her life. This stops here. She needs stability.”
“What are you proposing, exactly?” I cracked my neck, looking him dead in the eye. Fiscal Heights Holdings’ headquarters was in New York, and I ran it. Smoothly, if I may say so myself. I was the dedicated bachelor, and I put down the hours. Vicious was working in L.A. and commuting from Todos Santos every day. He wouldn’t leave California for the world. This was where he was born, and this was where he would die. Jaime was in London, handling our European accounts, and Trent was in Chicago, our newest and smallest branch. But it was expanding, fast. There was money to be made, and money talked. It fucking screamed, especially to people like us.
“Vicious should take Chicago.” Trent stared at me with a death glare.
I smiled. “Vicious should do a lot of things. That gap between what he should do and what he actually does? That’s where he thrives.” I wasn’t joking.
“You need to back me up when I bring this up at our next meeting.” He held my gaze firmly, his jaw ticking. I tugged at my lower lip.
“You need more than my vote to make it happen.”
“Jaime’s in, too.”
“Jaime is going against Vicious?” My eyebrows jumped up. Jaime always took his side, even when it was time to call Vic on his bullshit.
Looking at Trent, I saw someone I was willing to fight for. Hard. The guy to always do the right thing. If someone deserved to catch a break out of the four of us, it was him. I nodded, placing a hand on top of Luna’s little head.
Protect the strays. Atone your past. Break the fucking cycle.
“When?” I asked.
“November sounds good. Thanksgiving and all. We’re all going to be here anyway.”
I nodded. “Let’s get you back in Cali.”
We bumped shoulders and clapped backs. “Fuck yeah.”
What makes you feel alive?
Dean. Dean Cole makes me feel alive.
THE REST OF OUR VEGAS escapade dragged, despite my best efforts. I took the girls to the Mob Museum, a barbeque restaurant (my first choice was sushi, but as much as I was mad at my sister, taunting her was not high on my to-do list), and to a spa. Millie and I exchanged a total of twenty words the whole trip and shared nervous silence whenever we were alone. I was curt, polite, and distant. She was miserable, worried, and troubled.
Then there was the guilt. It ate at my insides like a growing tumor. I wasn’t even sure which part was worse. The part where I slept with her ex-boyfriend—there was no denying at this point that Dean and I were more than sleeping together, and that was an issue, too—or the part where I didn’t partake in the cooing-fest Gladys, Sydney, and Elle threw when it came to my sister.
