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I stared, her words slapping me across the face, brutal and harsh. That word, the ugliest heaviest word, carrying with it a lifetime of pain.
“That’s all he is,” Mama said. “All he can ever be. Except…he’s not. No matter how I try to make him nothing, he can’t ever be nothing.” She raised her tear-streaked face to mine. “Because he’s your father.”
The ground tipped out from under me and I fell to the carpet. My heartbeat had slowed to a heavy clanging in my chest, blood rushing to my ears.
“No, I…” I glanced around vaguely, not seeing. My mouth had gone dry. I couldn’t breathe. “It can’t be. He loved you. You said he loved you.”
“I thought he did too,” Mama said sadly, the sorrow emanating off her in waves. “But I told him I wanted to wait.” She shrugged, horrible in its finality. “He didn’t.”
The implications filled me. The cruel truth hollowing me out and leaving me empty.
Because what am I? The product of a nightmare. Mama’s nightmare in the flesh.
I don’t know how long I sat there, but voices surrounded us until the room felt suffocating. Bertie and Bibi and Rudy, all scolding or comforting. Letitia was kneeling next to me, speaking softly in my ear. I wanted to get up and run. I wanted to curl up in a ball right there on the floor.
Then strong arms wrapped around me and I burrowed into Ronan. Sought refuge in him, clinging to him and wishing I could crawl inside him and be safe.
“Ronan…”
“Ssshh.” He sounded angry. He felt angry, his body vibrating with it as he held me. He’d started to lift me, to get me out of there, when the doorbell rang. The house that had been bustling with raised voices suddenly hushed.
Rudy opened the door, and I heard men’s voices, indistinct. Then Ronan tensed around me all over again, holding me tighter.
“Shiloh.” Uncle Rudy’s voice was trembling. “These officers are here to see you.”
He stepped aside, and I saw two uniformed policemen in the doorway. A chill ran through me, leaving me numb. With Ronan’s help, I stood on stiff legs. Bibi had her hand to her mouth. Letitia’s eyes were wide.
“Shiloh Barrera?”
“Yes.” My voice didn’t sound like mine.
“Are you the owner of Rare Earth Jewelry?”
I felt the sledgehammer poised to fall again, about to change my life forever.
“Yes.”
Both men looked grim. Apologetic. “We’re going to need you to come with us.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The second trip to Rare Earth was fucking lightyears from the first, and I could hardly believe they both happened in the same night.
Bertie and Bibi stayed home with Shiloh’s mother who’d begun sobbing after spilling her secret and hadn’t stopped. The rest of us followed the cop car downtown. Rudy and Letitia took the Cadillac. I drove the Buick, glancing at Shiloh beside me. She sat silently, staring at nothing; her beautiful face was blank, shocked numb. Her perfect night, fucking ruined. I gripped the steering wheel tight.
The streets were empty, and the store was dark. The front entrance looked the same except for the police tape that ran across the front door and the squad car parked directly in front.
“It looks okay,” Shiloh said in a strange, small voice that made my stomach clench. “It looks okay…”
I grit my teeth.
“There’s been an incident…” the cops had said back at the house. I wanted more than anything for it all to be okay, but my gut told me it was bad. Real fucking bad.
I followed the cops around to the back parking lot, trying to bury my own rising nightmares at the sight of the red and blue lights. My only goal was to get Shiloh through this and then fix whatever the fuck needed fixing. All of it. Whatever it was, I’d make it right for her, somehow.
In the back lot, we climbed out of the car and I went to Shiloh’s side. She didn’t look at me or anyone else but walked tall and silent behind the cops to the rear door of the shop, to the first sign of damage. The wood around the lock had been pried away with a crowbar and the knob itself smashed off.
“They got in here,” one officer said—his nametag read Tran—leading us in. The lights in the backroom were on; everything looked intact. He nodded at the boxes of inventory—Shiloh’s life work. “Did they take anything?”
