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“I thought you said you wouldn’t hurt her?”
“If you do as I say Barbie will remain intact. If I lose you, I don’t fucking need her. Once she’s gone the police will get an anonymous tip along with a knife that has your fingerprints and Daxton’s blood on it.”
“That’s blackmail,” I seethed.
“Is that what it’s called? I never knew.”
My mind scrambled. How would he have a knife with my fingerprints on it? I hadn’t hurt Dax. Wait…I’d grabbed one from the kitchen that night. I never used it, though. Had he?
“You’re bluffing,” I retorted smugly in a vain effort to save myself. “You’ve been telling me not to go to the police, but you would? Furthermore, throwing me in jail won’t keep me with you and as far as I know, Dax isn’t a missing person.”
He clicked his tongue, shaking his head in a show of faux disappointment. “I think a lack of sleep is really getting to you. You’re smarter than this.”
“You of all people know I don’t bluff. You’re the one that can’t go to the cops, I can. They’ll do whatever the fuck the Barrons’ tell them to because we line their pockets and make the town look pretty.”
“You would send me to jail?”
“Yes,” he answered without hesitation. “I will make you rot in a fucking prison cell before I let them have you.”
“Them…?”
He looked beyond me to the house as a way of answering. Of course, that’s what he meant. “What did they do?”
“Have you ever thought to ask them?” he questioned coldly.
I shut my mouth and swallowed around a lump in my throat. I knew his sister was a sore subject but didn’t I deserve to know what the hell was going on?
“Don’t do that,” he ordered softly.
“Don’t ask?”
With an indiscernible expression, he held my face in his hands. “Don’t cry.”
What? I didn’t realize I was crying until he swept away my tears.
“I know this is hard for you. I promise you’ll have all your answers one day. All I’m asking is that you give me time to do what I need to first. Can you do that, bella?”
“Are you giving me a choice?”
“The only choice you have is to choose me. Always.”
So, no. He wasn’t.
He leaned closer and planted a gentle kiss on my forehead. “Go inside and try to sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
There were a million things I could say but he’d mentioned the one thing that was vital for me at this point. Maybe sleeping would help me clear my head and alleviate the pressure in my chest.
I escaped the confines of his car and hurried inside my house, not looking back once.
The smell of my favorite dessert slapped me in the face the second I stepped into the foyer. I twisted to lock the door, finding my mother in the doorway that sat off the dining room when I turned around.
“You came home,” she stated, not bothering to hide her relief.
“Where else would I go?”
With Judas, a small voice answered in my head. Mom was thinking the same thing. It was written all over her face.
“You didn’t reply to any of my calls or texts I was worried about you.”
I studied her face for some sign of dishonesty unable to find one. She’d genuinely been upset about me going M-I-A? We hadn’t exactly gotten along recently. I’d yet to read any of the messages she sent.
I tried to regard her from an outsider’s view. Beautiful, willowy, and blonde. Mom didn’t look like someone who would be involved in the things Judas claimed she was.
Her and Dad being sick, criminal masterminds flying beneath the radar was hard for me to believe. But was it that ludicrous? Wasn’t the beautiful, savage boy I was falling in love with a monster of a different breed? Wasn’t I harboring one inside me?
The truth and denial waited for me at a crossroads I was not remotely ready to venture down.
“Well, I’m here,” I stated quietly, adding a silent, for now. Tightening my grip on my satchel, I headed for the stairs.
“I made your favorite cake,” she blurted out as soon as my dress shoe landed on the first step.
“I know, I can smell it. I’m not hungry.”
“Rhiannon.”
The desperation in which she said my name had me freezing in place. I looked at her over my shoulder and saw an expression of uncertainty on her face. Recalling my whirlwind of a life the past few weeks, I was unmoved.
“What is it, mom? We both know you don’t want to sit at the table and watch me eat cake and I’m too tired for this charade. Please don’t make me do this right now.”
She straightened somewhat and ran a hand over the perfectly pressed skirt of her navy pencil dress. “How much has he told you?”
Something about her question immediately pissed me off. I don’t know if it was the way she asked or the fact that she did, but I wasn’t feeling it. I feigned ignorance. “What has who told me about what?”
