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“Really? Huh.” She nods. “Well, besides being dumbstruck at what a perfect specimen of masculinity you are, I liked how restrained and respectful you behaved.”
This isn’t the time to preen about thatspecimencomment. “How so?”
“I told you no when you asked to come in the house and you accepted it.” She runs her gaze over me. “You could’ve easily ripped the door off its hinges, if you wanted to.”
“Grinder asked me to search for Serena, not terrorize you.”
“Well, I could tell you were frustrated but you didn’t keep asking or try to force your way in.”
I shake with laughter. “Frustrated isn’t quite how I’d put it. I had a grudging respect for your tenacity.”
“Hmm. I like that. Thanks.”
“Emily?” Damn, I really don’t want to go back to this but I have to know. “The guy who got the lamp to the head, what happened to him?”
She shifts her body, putting distance between us. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” I repeat. “What do you mean?”
She picks at a loose thread on the comforter. “I think…I think my dad might have killed him.”
Emily
How’d I walk myself into this corner? No one I’ve told that story to—my therapist, Aunt Kim, Serena—none of them ever asked what happened to the guy. They asked if I pressed charges and I said no, which was the truth. I think they assumed I was too scared or embarrassed to go to the police.
I’ve never, ever told anyone what I suspect happened.
Dex stares at me with the strangest expression. “Why do you think your father killed him?”
“I knocked the guy unconscious. I wasn’t sure what to do next. While I was freaking out, my parents and Libby came home.” It feels like a lifetime ago. Something I never intended to talk about again after finishing therapy.
“My dad saw I was bleeding. When I told him what happened…”
The disappointment and rage in my father’s eyes haunted me until he died. And then those memories were replaced with other horrors.
“He called his friend to help him,” I continue. “They said they dumped him at an ER a couple hundred miles away but,” I shrug, “I never heard from him again.”
“Your father probably warned him he’d be taking a dirt nap if he ever contacted you again.”
I nod slowly. “That’s pretty much what they told me.”
That’s enough of my history. Too bad that isn’t the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.
“Thank you for trusting me.” Dex curls his hand around me and tugs me closer, then presses our joined hands against a tattoo on his side. It’s a complicated design that I’ve admired but never studied. I’m usually too eager to lavish attention onotherparts of his anatomy.
My fingertips brush against his skin, feeling a raised, smooth area the size of a quarter. As I stare at the ink, I recognize an old scar’s embedded in the design.
“I did time when I was younger,” he explains slowly, like maybe this is part ofhispast that he thought he’d buried. “Found out the hard way, those stories about getting shivved werenoturban legends.”
“Wait. Did time, where? In prison?” I finish on a whisper.
“Actually, county jail but I was there long enough to spar with a few enemies of the club.”
“Enemies of the club,” I whisper.
A menacing light enters his eyes. “Long gone now.”
“And they stabbed you because of a beef on theoutside?”
