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“You fell in love.”
My eyes snap to his, wondering how he knows about Logan. “He’s a good guy.”
“You trusted when I told you not to trust.”
I blink. Then blink again. A coldness crystalizes the blood in my veins. “My friends, those attachments you’re worried about, they won’t betray me.”
Dad raises his eyebrows. “It’s not them I’m referring to.”
“I never trusted Ricky. I never trusted any of them.”
He just keeps staring, waiting for me to catch up, and when the answer strikes me the blood rushes out of my face and I bend over with the impact. Linus.
“He ordered Tommy to go after you,” Dad says under his breath. “Not to kill, just to scare you. It went further than he had intended.”
My hand presses against my stomach as if that can keep me from vomiting. “How do you know this?”
Dad’s blue eyes become ice. “Because he confessed to me. Linus saw how you were pulling away and didn’t like it. Felt like his meal ticket was too strongly tied to you and he needed to keep you in and figured he could use fear to do it. You aren’t safe with him anymore. You aren’t safe working for Ricky.”
My heart jumps to my throat. “Ricky was in on this?”
“Linus says he wasn’t, but I don’t know. I don’t believe in coincidence and Ricky’s push to move you up, Linus’s promotion associated with it, and you being shot all work too closely together for my taste.”
“The alley couldn’t have been a setup. Ricky warned me off from selling that night. Linus had no idea I’d be there.”
“Them going after Eric’s crew was a setup, but by you not paying attention, you stumbled into it.” His murderous glare and firm reprimand cause me to internally shrink. “Linus told me that he had been talking to Tommy about possible ways to scare you into submission for a few weeks, but he swears none of it was supposed to hurt you. After they did their business in the alley, Linus decided to take advantage of your stupidity and scare you into going deeper.”
“Why did he confess?”
Dad briefly glances away as his eyes soften and that causes my heart to warm. “Linus knows what you mean to me and part of his job was to protect you. He lost you with Eric’s kidnapping. Thought he had lost you for good. He came to tell me and then...” Dad returns his typical hard stare on me. “I told him I already knew and that if he valued his life, he better tell me the truth real fucking quick.”
I shiver and my stomach bottoms out. Death is in my father’s eyes. The type that’s either already been done or is in the works. Either way, Dad has played the reaper, I just don’t know who he’s been toying with. “How
did you know about Eric? Why are you working with him?”
My father merely holds up his hand and I fall silent. “Do you want out, Abby?”
“But—”
“Do you want out? Because if you do, you don’t get to know any of this business anymore. If you want to stay in, tell me, but the stakes of the game have been raised. You will have to accept that promotion, and I can no longer guarantee your safety.”
It’s hard to recover from the pain ripping me up on the inside. Linus...my God, Linus. The ache in my chest is too hard to ignore. He, at the heart of it, was like a mentor to me. And Dad was right, I trusted him. Not in the way I trusted Logan or Isaiah. But I thought he was an ally among wolves. “I want out. It’s going to be tough to figure out how to take care of Grams, but I think I can swing it.”
“You can’t go back to Louisville,” Dad says. “Retired dealers are a liability. Especially you. You know too much. On both sides. Ricky can be dangerous, but so can some of your clients. Any of them thinking you’re making a deal with police could cause you problems. And by the cards I’ve been playing lately, I can’t trust that someone won’t take their aggressions for my choices out on you. In here, I don’t have the reaction time needed to keep you safe.”
The world spins. “Where am I supposed to go? Do?”
“Denny’s working on it. I knew you’d eventually surface and figured you’d contact him for help once Eric told you the truth. Denny is getting together a new identity for you. New background. He’s going to raise you a year in age so you can find a job.”
I don’t even get to finish high school. I don’t even get the option of Harvard or a state school or junior college or even something online. “You’re going to make me disappear again? Like me...like Abby never existed?”
Dad nods, not seeing how he’s taken a knife and has gutted me open. Yes, I hated the Abby I was becoming, but at times, I like the girl she was and I was in love with the girl she was going to be. Tears prick my eyes as I already mourn her and then turn my head to avoid a dry heave at the thought that no one will care if and when I disappear again.
“What about Grams?”
“She’s dying.” He says it as if she’s already dead. As if he’s already grieved for her and his loss is already years removed. He says it with as much emotion as when he discussed me becoming somebody new. “I’ve heard she no longer has much of an idea of who she is or where she’s at. Mac will put her in a nursing home, and he’ll try to find a good one.”
My head falls back, and I rub my hands over my eyes and this anger, this fear, this utter and complete sadness causes me to want to weep, but I have to choke down the burn in my throat. “I promised to take care of her.”
