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JOÃO
Kai: BIG PROBLEM.
Kai: Nicole’s father found the missing footage. We need to move things along and release the video tonight. I don’t want them raiding the house, especially with Ana and Imani out. I’m picking Allie up from her internship. Tell Jace.
After school, I sat in my car and scanned the area in front of my old house. I had wanted to come here to see Mom, but it looked like I didn’t have any fucking time today. Landon and Imani had taken Ana to the store to pick up some supplies. I’d asked her if she wanted me to go too, and she’d straight-up said fucking no. She knew that she could smooth Imani and Landon over into buying her more ingredients to make brigadeiros.
So, since I was rudely not invited, I drove around Redwood, looking for Jace Harbor until I found his car sitting in the parking lot to Mustang Ranch, a burger joint that had just switched ownership and gone to shit.
I parked beside him, walked into the restaurant, and ignored the hostess smiling pleasantly at me. After finding Jace in the back, I grabbed a glass of water from a random waitress hurrying through the tables of people and took a sip.
“I looked all fucking around Redwood for you,” I said through gritted teeth, sliding in on the other side of the booth. “Check your fucking phone next time. Allie could’ve been calling you.”
“Allie’s at her internship,” Jace said, biting into the burger and staring emptily at me. “What do you want?”
“Who made up the rumor about Carter getting Allie pregnant?”
“It’s not a rumor,” Jace said, lying through his fucking teeth.
“It was your father, huh?” I took one of his fries. “Fucking bastard.”
“What’s it to you?” Jace asked.
“Nothing.”
“Then, why’re you here?”
I shrugged one shoulder and looked around. “We have to release the video tonight. Kai is picking Allie up from her internship, so nothing happens to her when it is released. We don’t know how people are going to react.”
Placing his burger down, Jace sat up straight and leaned forward. “Why? I thought the plan was to release it tomorrow during school? What happened? Who found out about it?”
“Nicole’s father found the missing footage. He knows that Nicole took it. She’s with Jamal now, so she should be fine until the video releases at least. She called me earlier, a snotting mess, and told him to do it as soon as possible.”
Jace swallowed hard and cursed under his breath, running a hand through his hair.
I leaned closer. “We’re going to fucking destroy all the billionaires in Redwood, all of the fucking assholes here. Don’t fucking worry about it.”
“That’s not a nice word,” a young girl with brown hair said, walking past our table with a big glass of root beer that she was spilling everywhere. She couldn’t have been older than four years old. “Not all rich people are bad.”
“Who the fuck is this?” I asked Jace, brows furrowed.
Jace shrugged a shoulder and looked back at her, her eyes big and brown.
She smiled and tilted her head, sipping the drink that she could barely hold straight. “Me and my mommy got saved by a rich person. She said that they were so nice.”
“Olivia,” a woman a few booths down called, her back turned toward us.
“That’s me,” the girl said, grinning even wider at us. She held out her hand as if she wanted him to shake it, her soda beginning to spill off the side of her glass. “What’s your name?”
Jace grabbed the glass to hold it upright, so she wouldn’t spill it anymore, and took her hand hesitantly. “Jace,” he said to her and actually smiled back.
She turned to me and held out her hand, waving it as if she was waiting for me to shake it, too. But I stared at her and curled my lip into an ugly grimace.
She placed one hand on her hip, giving me attitude. “I’m waiting.”
“Shouldn’t she be afraid of me?” I said.
Usually, the only kid who would even approach me was Ana. And, hell, I wasn’t shaking anybody’s hand, no matter how innocent they looked. For all I knew, this woman who wouldn’t look back at us was part of Akio’s fucked up family.
