I held her close, a promise forming in my mind. I’d let her rest for now. Tomorrow, I’d get the truth.
But tonight, she needed me to hold her.
Around four in the morning, I stood in the doorway with my coffee, watching her sleep. Tiny bit of drool at the corner of her mouth. Breathing shallow and even.
I’d forced myself to close my eyes for two hours, but that was it. I’d been running the same thoughts over since The Obsidian… Brandon, Darragh, what I was willing to do and what I could actually get away with. But I was a fighter, not a murderer. My mother had raised me to believe there was a line you didn’t cross, even when the world pushed you.
Murder meant prison. Prison meant leaving her. Noah could pull strings to get me off small charges, but killing someone? There was no chance. Do that, and I would do time. After everything we’d bled through together, I wasn’t doing that.
I turned to slip back into the kitchen, but a soft sniffle stopped me in my tracks.
Ingrid was sitting up, the covers pooled around her waist. Tears were already carving tracks through the sleep-haze on her face. I moved to her immediately, setting the coffee aside. I pulled off my shirt and eased it over her head, shielding her as goosebumps broke out across her skin. I sat on the edge of the mattress and shushed her softly, but the dam had already broken.
I pulled her into my chest, and my heart shattered as she let out a series of gut-wrenching sobs. She’d cried before, but those were the tears of someone trying to stay strong. These were different. Her walls, the ones she’d built out of fear and necessity, had finally came crashing down. She wasn’t going to hide behind a forced smile this time. She needed me to hold the pieces while she fell apart, and there was nowhere else on this earth I wanted to be.
I held her for what felt like hours, rocking her as she struggled to catch her breath between waves of grief. I felt my own eyes burn, but I forced the emotion back.
Finally, Ingrid choked out the reason why she had gone to The Obsidian: “I... I just wanted to know if Camila was okay. I just wanted to find my sister.”
“You’re okay, doll. You’re okay,” I murmured, though the words felt like paper-thin comfort.
She shook her head, her hands trembling. “Darragh knows where she is, and he—he said that if I behave myself, if I keep you in line, she can come home.” Shaking her head, she sobbed, “My father traumatized her, abused her, and she tried to escape it all… but she ended up inhishands instead.Just like you, trying to escape from your father.”
I felt myself tense. I had tried to flee Noah’s pushing, and ended up in Darragh’s instead. I’d escaped once… but then Noah had pulled the money for my mother’s hospital bills, and last night I’d walked straight back in, repeating history. Camila was trapped somewhere in the same web.
“Ingrid... baby—” I started.
She pulled away, looking at me with eyes that had seen too much. “It’s true. Noah pushed you, just like my father pushed me—it’s how we ended up like this, me being your ‘handler.’” She said the word like it tasted wrong. “And you turned to Darragh to find a way out, before. Just like Camila did.” Her bloodshot eyes fixed on mine, penetrating, seeking the truth. “Just like you did again last night. Didn’t you?”
I could only sigh. I had no lies left to give her.
Ingrid sniffed. “What did he offer you?”
My voice was low. “A way to pay Mom’s bills.”
Ingrid nodded. “So what are we going to do?” She searched my face for answers. “Are we just going to let Darragh run our lives now instead of our fathers?”
I shrugged. “It’s the only way.” My voice was weak. I felt defeated. To have had to turn to Darragh again, after everything… it felt like I was giving up any last sense of control I had. “I need to pay for Mom. I need to keep you safe. And this could bring your sister back.”
“…I told him I’d do it,” she whispered. “I shook his hand. Told him we had a deal.” She shook her head. “But I don’t want a deal with him.”
I looked into her face. The tears were easing, a look of defiance pushing through. I saw it in the set of her jaw, the intensity of her gaze. She leaned forward, holding me desperately.
“What are you saying?” I murmured.
Ingrid sniffed. “I’m tired of being pushed around and used as a pawn. My father did it all my life. I always thought his abuse was his way of telling me he loved me,” she whispered, her voice hollow as she shook her head. “That was how I justified it in my mind. Why I hid the bruises, why I endured his beatings, why I hid it from my abuelita... why I hid it from you.”
She shrugged, a small, helpless movement. I rubbed her back, letting her speak.
“And I... I just wanted friends, you know,” she sobbed. “I—I just wanted to feel like I had someone with me. May was there for me, b-but I know I’m too needy and clingy. She doesn’t want to watch over me like I’m some kid. And Amber...”
She trailed off. I tucked a stray hair behind her ear, my jaw tightening at the mention of that name. I already knew. Brandon had started talking before Darragh’s belt shut him down. After Ingrid went to the office I’d used what was left of Brandon to get the rest of it. Amber had planned it. Told Brandon Ingrid would be there. Flagged him when Ingrid stepped outside. Told him to follow.
Just the thought of her made my fists clench, my knuckles turning white.
“She... she’s not my friend. A friend wouldn’t act the way she does behind my back. A friend wouldn’t try to get with the guy I like. A friend...” Her lip wobbled. “A friend wouldn’t... they wouldn’t watch me get chased by a man. They—they wouldn’t send the man after me to... to... They—they wouldn’t do that… I deserve better than this.And so do you.”
I ran a hand down her back, easing her little heart as her chest heaved in anger. “So what are we going to do?”
