Did Brett ask Uncle Lyle to talk to me about this?
He wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t. He knows I can’t stand Uncle Lyle.
But the two of them have always been a touch too friendly for my taste.
A slick grin unfurls over Uncle Lyle’s face. “It’s good to stay close to people who’ve got power, Blakey girl. You don’t want to get on their bad side.”
My thoughts race. If Brett asked that cop to stop Rowan, why am I so sure he wouldn’t enlist my godfather’s help as well?
My stomach churns. This is a fucking nightmare.
“I’m thirsty,” Steely says.
My eyes snap to him. He arches a brow, like he’s expecting me to do something about it.
Dad was like that too, barking out his needs and expecting Mom to take care of them with a smile on her face.
“There’s some lemonade in the fridge. Would you like some?”
He nods. As I walk inside Rowan’s house, I hear him say, “The ass on that girl. That’s the eighth world wonder, right there.”
Disgusting. He probably thinks I can’t hear him.
“Watch it,” Uncle Lyle says. “The only person who can comment on her ass is me.”
Bile rises in my throat as a memory flashes inside my mind.
A hushed conversation in the kitchen. The words I overheard.
“I’ll take good care of her, Valerie. She can finish up with school first. That girl won’t need to struggle with a man like me by her side.”
I was fifteen. I sat on the stairs and listened.
I didn’t think Mom would defend me as fiercely as she did. I loved her, but I also spent my teenage years and onward wishing she were different. Wishing that she would stand up for Maxton and me. Wishing that she would tell our deadbeat dad not to come around anymore. But when it came to Uncle Lyle, she snapped. The sound of her slapping his cheek rang clear in the air.
Then there was another sound. Hard and dull.
After he left, I went down to the kitchen. My mom was dabbing a paper towel against her bleeding lip.
I lock the memory away, pour two glasses of lemonade, and bring them outside.
The ugly scar just beneath Uncle Lyle’s Adam’s apple bobs as he drinks. He must be pushing fifty now, just like my father would have been if he were still alive.
Instead, he was murdered at thirty-six by a rival gang member. I was twelve. Maxton, fourteen. Mom never recovered from the loss. I still think the cancer started because of it.
They hand me their empty glasses.
We’re done here. What else is left to be said?
Leave.
Just then, I hear the roar of an approaching engine. Rowan’s truck turns onto the road.
Shit.
Uncle Lyle and Steely watch Rowan pull into the driveway, their expressions deceptively neutral.
Frustration wraps around my throat, cutting off the air. I should have tried harder to get them out of here. Rowan’s not the kind of guy who’s easily intimidated, and that’s a bad thing. He should be scared of these guys.
