Page 27 of Love At Peace

I’d been in the dark for too long.

“I’ll head to the hospital in a moment,” Marty told them, not taking his serious glare off Nevaeh.

Heather didn’t look back. She didn’t spare me a single glance, and I couldn’t blame her. It couldn’t be easy to face off with the woman who was so crude, who might have caused her issues at work.

To my dismay, I couldn’t focus on Heather at this moment, too locked and sucked into this spiral of anger and frustration of what Nevaeh was up to.

She never told me what she did, but I was getting a flood of news now. And none of it was good.

Here she was getting together with an asshole like David. Potentially stealing Heather’s work data. Then getting knocked up.

I didn’t even know where to start with her, and I wondered if I shouldn’t bother. If it’d be better for all involved parties to let her deal with her life on her own, since she was so damn fond of telling me that she was an adult. Deep down in a small kernel in my soul, I knew I couldn’t walk away yet. I had to try.

“Nevaeh, if you have any information about the circumstances that led to Mr. James lying down here, you need to speak up.” Marty straightened, likely feeling weighed down by all the stress of the night. “I wouldn’t plan on leaving town.”

“Oh, is that a threat?” she sassed.

“Watch your attitude,” I scolded her.

“Roarke?” He turned toward me as he moved aside to go. “I’ll be in touch.”

I nodded. “Thanks. I’ll catch up with you shortly.” Anything of importance that Nevaeh could tell me that could be connected to why Eric ended up down here like that, I’d be sharing in a heartbeat.

The second Marty was gone, Nevaeh huffed and turned away. “I don’t have anything to say to—”

“You better watch your tone with me.” The cold yet level tone I used was effective. She stopped midstep but didn’t turn to face me. “After all the things I’ve tried to do for you. All I’ve offered without question, this is how you treat me?”

“Without question?” she parroted with snark. She spun to glower at me, haughty once more. “Without question? All you ever do is nag with questions about what I’m doing, where I’m going, and what I want.”

“And you never,” I said through clenched teeth as I stalked toward her and pointed my finger, “ever fucking tell me a thing.”

“Maybe because it’s not your business.”

I was sick of this. I was exhausted of the pure disrespect. “It’s not? Then why do you keep coming back? Huh? Why do you always show up and take what you want? Why do you count on me when you do? Have you ever stopped for a single damn second and realized I do that because care? Because you’re my niece. You’re family. And it is my business.”

“You don’t give me anything. You let me crash on the couch when your uptight bitch of a girlfriend isn’t there.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Call her a name one more time, kid, and see what happens.”

She swallowed and lost a little of her bravado at my growled warning.

“You don’t give me money anymore.”

“Earn it for once,” I shot back.

“You don’t let me have a key to your place.”

“Because you steal,” I explained immediately.

“You don’t—”

I cut her off with another growl. “I don’t care, Nevaeh. I don’t fucking care what you want anymore. Why the hell should I trust you? Why should I enable you to depend on me just giving you charity all the time? What’s that going to teach you?”

“Who says I need to be taught anything?” she sassed.

“Oh, my—Fuck this.” I pivoted, rubbing my face. This was past the point of no return. The sheer audacity. The attitude and complete avoidance of being a responsible person at all. She was too much.

“Oh, so you just walk away too? You’re going to abandon me like my parents did?”