Page 48 of Weston’s Treasure

“You know I have room. And I’ve been waiting for you to take over,” Dale returned.

“And I’ve told you, I don’t want to take over.”

“Come on, Scout, it’s time. Give your old man a break. I want to retire.”

Something in Silver changed. It was subtle, but it was there. She lost the exasperated but friendly look and it went straight to stubborn.

“Then retire. But I am not taking over your business and I am not going to Florida with you to jump on your boat and run away from my problems. I’m staying right here.”

“Scout—”

“Enough, Dad. Weston has everything under control. I’m safe right here.”

Weston has everything under control.

The single sentence echoed in his head like an invocation. A spell that tethered around his heart and squeezed until the organ damn near stopped beating.

“Are you? Do you even know these people?” Dale inquired.

The new change in Silver wasn’t subtle, it was immediate and fierce.

Weston didn’t have time to look around the room at his teammates, nor did he need to, to know they were just as annoyed as he was. But before he could speak, Silver beat him to it.

“You are unbelievable,” she seethed. “You’ve been gone for four months. During that time I haven’t heard hide nor hair from you. Not a call. Not an email. Not a text. Dale Coyle comes and goes as he pleases. Been that way my whole life, Dad. Only when I was a kid you had no choice but to drag me along. Now suddenly you’re here and worried about my safety? But you don’t pull me aside and have a rational, caring conversation. Instead, you do what you always do, make it about you. Me coming with you to take over your business so you can retire, making it not about me and whether or not I’m safe. And in the process of trying to get me to do what you want, you insult my friends. The very men who saved your daughter’s life. But do you thank them for that? No. You throw your drama, pitch a fit, and insult them.”

Time to shut this shit down.

“Dale,” Weston started and waited for the man to look at him before he continued. “Not only is Silver safer with us, but she’s also needed. Her knowledge and insight is invaluable.”

“So you’re using my daughter to help you find these drug dealers and you want me to believe she’d be safer in Maryland than on a boat in the middle of the Caribbean far away from all of this?”

Weston wasn’t about to explain himself or the operation to the man. He was irrational, selfish, and now Weston fully understood where Silver had learned to be stubborn. Only when she did it, it took very little to talk her around. And once she saw the truth she backed down. Not in a spineless, helpless way—in a rational, intelligent sense.

“Straight up, Dale, I don’t care what you believe. My only concern is Silver. Bottom line, we can’t make you keep quiet about what Silver has explained. But I can promise you if you run your mouth and tell anyone where she is, the threat level that is already high, goes up exponentially. That doesn’t mean I can’t and won’t keep her safe, it just means you will have made my job harder. That’s your choice. What isn’t, is forcing Silver to do something she’s repeatedly told you she’s not going to do. I couldn’t give the first fuck, you want to question my or my team’s motives. Again, your opinion doesn’t matter. What does is Silver’s. And to that end, if you wanna stand here and argue with her, upsetting her more, then you’re done and you can leave.”

Dale’s face turned a shade of red Weston had never seen. And for a moment he hoped the man didn’t have high blood pressure. But as soon as Dale opened his mouth, all worries about the man having a stroke vanished.

“After everything I’ve done for you, Scout, you’re gonna let some man you barely know speak to your father that way? I should’ve known—”

“You’re done. No more talking.” Weston turned to Silver. “Babe, do me a favor, yeah? Go on upstairs and give me a minute with your dad.”

“Sure.”

Easy.

No argument.

Defeat.

That was when Weston knew the blow her father had dealt was painful. Not only that but it sliced deep. Which made what was going to come next all that much easier.

“Scout—”

“Do not speak,” Weston growled and waited until Silver hit the top of the stairs then disappeared out of sight. “There’s a hotel in town. I suggest you find it, check in, and spend some time reflecting on what you just did to your daughter. If you come back here tomorrow and you haven’t sorted your shit, I’ll put you out again.”

“You have no right to tell me what to do with my daughter. And I’m not leaving here without her. I don’t know what you’ve done to her, but you’ve turned her against me and I don’t—”

“You’re wrong. As the man who sleeps next to her, I have every right to protect her. And if you think anyone can make Silver do anything she doesn’t want to do, you don’t know your daughter. Silver’s in danger, she’s stressed, she’s worried, she’s lost damn near everything she owns, yet she’s still standing strong, doing her part to take millions of dollars of drugs off the street. She is brave beyond belief. Yet in twenty minutes you’ve successfully brought her more stress, more worry, and laid your bullshit on her shoulders. And just to point out, for a man who was so worried his child had supposedly been missing, worried enough he high-tailed his ass all the way up to Delaware, you have to know what you just did to her was jacked. And the icing on that is, you didn’t even touch her. Not even when she told you she’d been held against her will did you pull her into your arms and hold her. Not when she told you her apartment was trashed, did you hug her. That’s not jacked—that’s plain fucked-up.”