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Logan smiled at her, wiggling the little stuffed elephant she’d brought along. “They’re mine too. There’s one open with your name all over it.”
The same scene replayed as we approached the swing set. Mari caught the chains of her daughter’s swing and whispered something she didn’t like into her ear, or at least that was my guess from the way she spontaneously melted down into tantrum mode.
“Hey. Everything cool?” I lowered Charlotte to the ground.
“Yeah.” She chuckled, nervously grasping the metal chains while her daughter continued to resist.
“Doesn’t seem okay.”
“Stop filming,” Bibi commanded.
Mari let out a long sigh. “I can’t lie to you. We’ve been friends too long. Listen, we got a visit from some of Pedro’s guys the other night. They told us we’d pay if we supported you.”
“Did you say the other night?” Bibi asked.
Mari nodded. “That’s why I canceled babysitting at the last minute. I’m so sorry. I’ve got to protect my kids. You’d do the same thing.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” I growled.
She cocked a defiant brow. “You need to protect your kids, Cindy. Don’t lose sight of what’s important because you have an ax to grind.”
She wouldn’t look at me as she coaxed her daughter away from the park. Charlotte’s face fell when her friend left without so much as giving her a glance, but it didn’t last long, and she climbed onto the now empty swing. I took the seat next to her, oblivious to everything happening around me.
Pedro wasn’t going to attack me. But he’d do his damnedest to take away everything he could.
The question was, where would he draw the line?
