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I nodded, but there were bits of the previous conversation still running through my head.
“What did he mean?” I asked as I looked toward the foyer and then up at Tria. “What did he mean about Yolanda?”
“I…I don’t know.” Tria looked up at my uncle, who was shifting back and forth between his left and right foot. “Michael?”
“She was our best way of keeping tabs on him,” Michael told Tria. “Once we realized he wasn’t on the streets anymore—that someone had taken him in—we talked to her and made sure she was going to keep him straight.”
“Made sure?” Tria took the question right out of my mouth.
“We paid her off,” my father admitted. “Enough money to keep her working as a trainer indefinitely.”
“What the fuck,” I mumbled. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around what they were saying.
“She’d been hurt,” Michael said. “She couldn’t fight anymore and wasn’t having much luck working as a trainer. We gave her the funds to get her training business going, and she met with my PI and told him how you were doing.”
“Nice,” I mumbled.
The medicine was making me feel sleepy. I wanted to be pissed off, but I no longer had the strength. I had only been up an hour, and I was ready to crawl back into bed. It was a feeling I fucking hated but was still preferable to ending up in the hospital again.
I closed my eyes, stretched out on the couch, and placed my head on Tria’s lap. I heard someone come over and kneel down beside me, next to my head. When I cracked open one eye, I almost flinched at how close my father was to me.
“Pretty fucking shitty,” I mumbled. “Spying on me like that. Paying her to do that shit. Fucker.”
“Liam,” my father said quietly, “you can hate me for the rest of your life, and I will still make sure someone is looking out for you. Always. You wouldn’t let it be me, so I had to improvise. I think you’re going to understand that someday. I hope you will.”
“Fuck you,” I muttered again as my head swam a bit and everything went dark. By the time I woke up again, Douglass Teague had left and Sunday dinner was indefinitely postponed.
I was never one to count my blessings, but I was glad he was gone.
Chapter 13—Visit the Grave
With a copy of the marriage certificate in my personnel file and Tria added to my insurance through Teague Silver, she got an appointment with Chelsea’s OB/GYN and really started to take care of herself. The doctor even gave her three months’ worth of prenatal vitamins, which were apparently really important.
I didn’t even know there was such a thing.
“Do you think the lack of prenatal care contributed to what happened before?”
We had passed the magical three sessions mark a week ago, and Erin was being pretty fucking aggressive about some of the things we talked about. She said we were going to get around to talking about my current family, but I had to come to terms with the one I lost first. If I didn’t do that, I was going to fail with the family I was trying to create, and I couldn’t let that happen. So, Erin had been pretty fucking harsh. I kind of wished she was a fighter or at least a body builder—I wouldn’t feel as bad if I ended up hitting her.
Of course, she was doing exactly what I asked her to do.
The bitch.
I shuddered a little, and then looked up at Erin.
“I never even heard of prenatal vitamins,” I confessed, “or why Tria needs to make sure she has plenty of folic acid in her diet. I didn’t know any of that shit until we saw Chelsea’s doctor.”
“Is that a yes?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Aimee’s mother wouldn’t ever talk to me or anything, so other than knowing…knowing what I could tell when I found her…well, I never knew anything else.”
In my mind, there was a brief flash—a realization that I had just said her name and it hadn’t made me double over.
“So you never found out what really happened?”
“What difference does it make?”
“Maybe none,” Erin said, “or it might make a lot of difference. It might give you some closure.”
