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He had the power and the authority to do a lot of things. Giving up was one of those things that I thought he’d taken the coward’s way out on. Especially if he was in trouble. If people were using his town to do things that they shouldn’t be doing.
The only problem was, I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like the answers that I got when I went to talk to him.
“Yes, may I speak to the doctor of Ivan Broussard?” Six said.
I snapped my head up to see her standing there with the phone pressed to her ear.
Her eyes were closed, and she looked like her heart had just been ripped out of her chest.
I held my hand out to her, and she latched onto it with such ferocity that I knew that she wasn’t doing as well on the inside as she looked on the outside.
I waited along with her as the doctor came onto the line.
I knew what she was going to do.
She was going to tell them that her father had tried to commit suicide.
This would cause a chain of reactions.
One, he’d be held in the hospital until his psych hold expired. Then, if he agreed, he’d be sent to a behavioral hospital. And that wouldn’t stay quiet. Someone would find out that he was the mayor of fuckin’ Dallas. And that someone would tell the news. Ivan would be forced to resign his commission and…
I took the phone out of her hand.
She blinked her eyes open and stared at me.
“What are you…”
I hung up and she blinked even more.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
I licked my lips. “Your dad was forced to do something he didn’t want to do. Using his duties as the mayor to make them happen, or to be overlooked. I don’t know. But he’s in a very important position. If we do what you were about to do, the things that we need to know may not happen just yet due to him being on a psych hold at the hospital. Let’s go up there.”
• • •
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I made my way into the room sans Six—she couldn’t face her father just yet—but the mayor of Dallas being high as a kite wasn’t one of them.
He looked at me and blinked. “Ahh, the man that’s fucking my daughter.”
I didn’t rise to the bait.
“Why did you try to hide your suicide attempt?” I asked. “What’s going on? I need to know everything right the fuck now.”
Ivan’s eyes didn’t widen as he heard what I had to say.
In fact, he didn’t even look all that upset that I knew.
Actually, if I had to put a name to what I saw, I would say it was relief.
“It all started when Ines was…”
“Six,” I corrected him.
His eye twitched.
“I’ll get back to that later,” he explained. “But for now, we’ll call her Ines.”
I didn’t interrupt him this time.
“I was contacted when Bruno and her became friends through school.”
I felt more than heard Bruno tense behind the curtains where he was keeping watch making sure that nobody came near.
“His stepfather was a piece of shit. Saw them walking home with each other one day and asked his kid about her. Ines. He somehow found out that Ines was my daughter and thought that was great news to have. He went to his boss—I still don’t know who this boss is, by the way—and told him that my daughter would be perfect leverage to use against me. He was right. The next couple of weeks, I started to get calls to the office about various things. Favors that needed forgiven with the police. Turning a blind eye here and there. Getting rid of something. Stupid little things that mayors do every day. I ignored it. Until they started to threaten Ines. They started to get a little bolder in what they asked me to do. Bruno’s stepfather, Larry Dumas, got this great idea that instead of inflicting punishment on Ines, he’d do it on his stepson, and make Ines watch. She’d come home, tell me, and then the point would be made.”
He swallowed hard.
“It nearly broke her. I put her into private school to get her away. I put her in private school that was so private, and so far away from everyone and everything, that she wouldn’t be touched.” He licked his lips, his voice scratchy. “I don’t call her Six. The reason I don’t call her Six is because they know of Six and an Ines. They think that they’re two different people.” He licked his lips. “When she was first transferred to private school, they found out almost immediately—it was why I sent her there. Didn’t want her here as leverage to be used against me if I fucked up or didn’t do something. Which I did a lot at first, because I didn’t want to be doing it. But the school fucked up and put a Six and an Ines into the system. Not sure how or why. Hell, I even had to pay two tuitions. But it worked really well, because they ‘made me bring ‘Ines’ back home.’ Which I did. They think. I pulled her out of the school. Paid some tutor to come teach my ‘kid.’ And then they continued to threaten killing her without realizing that she wasn’t actually here. And I continued to isolate myself from Six. Made sure that she stayed as far away from me as I could make her.”
