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“Nicholas happened.”
Vincent groaned. “How many times do we have to go through this?”
“Whatever. The Mazda took a worse beating than Nicholas did.”
“Your car? What happened tonight? Where’s the girl?”
“I already told you—Nicholas happened,” he spat. “And her fucking name is Haven. Haven. Use it sometime.”
Vincent stared at him, taken aback.
“And if you wanna know where Haven is, find Nicholas. They’re down at the lake somewhere.” An idea hit him the moment he said that. “You’re gonna go get her, aren’t you?”
Vincent pinched the bridge of his nose. “Her life is her own, Carmine. She can have friends, and you should respect that.”
“After what he did to me, you expect me to respect him? I’m supposed to like this?”
“I didn’t say you had to like it, nor did I say you should respect him, but you ought to respect her right to make her own choices, whether you like them or not.”
“I do,” he said. “I’m not that big of an asshole. I tell her all the time to make her own decisions.”
“Well, you should see this as her doing that.”
Groaning, Carmine pushed past his father and headed for the stairs. “How come no one’s taking my side on this?”
Vincent laughed, the sound hitting a nerve. “This isn’t about choosing sides. I told you someday the real world would creep up on you.”
“Oh, I know it,” he said. “I knew it the moment she slapped me.”
Vincent grinned. “She hit you?”
“What’s so fucking amusing?”
“I’m pleasantly surprised,” he said. “Not saying she should’ve hit you, but I’m shocked she’d let go like that. She may make it out there in the world, after all.”
* * *
“Ever heard of Stockholm syndrome?”
Haven eyed Nicholas warily at those words. His legs dangled over the end of the dock, his pants rolled up and feet skimming the surface of the water. She sat cross-legged beside him, their discarded shoes scattered on the deck. “No, what is it?”
“It’s when someone gets mushy feelings for their kidnapper.”
She sighed when she realized where he was going with it. “I wasn’t kidnapped.”
“So the good doctor didn’t cut out letters from a magazine and glue them together to make a colorful ransom note for you?”
“No.”
“Interesting,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be a kidnapping, though. It’s when someone being held hostage gets feelings for their captor.”
“That’s the same thing you said the first time. Besides, Carmine isn’t holding me hostage.”
“But you are being held, right?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t not say it, either,” he said. “And sometimes people in that situation end up brainwashed.”
