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“I would have come sooner…I was looking for you.”
She shifts and looks up at me with curious blue eyes. “You were?”
She’s so goddamn beautiful, I lose myself for a moment as I try to memorize her exquisite features. Perfectly arched brows. Defiant, upturned nose. Those lips.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to rid myself of the demon that so haunts me. The one that longs for the girl so innocently seated on my lap, looking up at me like a sister would a brother.
Finally, I say, “Before the dead rose, I tried to get to you, but your father had everything on lockdown, and there’s no way he’d let a lowlife like me near you. At the time, I was CP, but that didn’t give me jurisdiction to just waltz right in and take you.”
She looks away, contemplating my words.
“Then, you were gone. Your apartment had squatters. I didn’t know what happened to you, but I never stopped looking.”
“My father had many apartments across town. We were in another one.”
“You’re safe now,” I assure her.
“Is this where you live? You said you had people…”
“No. This is an outpost we use.”
“Who is we?”
“You’ve probably seen us around. We wear black, sling blades, kill dead things. We’re former Civil Police gone rogue.”
“I’ve never seen you guys, but I didn’t see much of anything. I wasn’t allowed outside the club. Before that, I wasn’t allowed outside our penthouse. Even before things went bad, my father saw the writing on the wall and forced me to stay inside.”
My muscles tense as rage pours through my veins.
“How’d you end up dancing?” I ask, my voice wrought with emotion.
“Your mother sold me.”
My mouth drops, though I should hardly be shocked.
“When my father didn’t come home one night, she let her true colors show. First, she made me a maid. I obeyed because the staff was beholden to her and I didn’t want to be forced out. Eventually, men raided our penthouse, and she bartered me away.”
There are no words for the despair I feel knowing that my own mother sold her stepdaughter, and there is no end to the pain I’m going to rain down on every motherfucker who had a hand in Brooke’s defiling.
But first I have to get her to safety.
“I can’t take back what’s happened to you, but know that—I’m going to spend the rest of my time on this planet trying to make it right.”
She snickers.
“You gotta believe me.”
“You made quite a scene at the titty bar. It’s possible Frank won’t want trouble and they’ll let us go. Or they’ll be on the lookout for you. For us. It’s hard to say.”
“Then it’s a good thing I have a place they can never find. One with electricity, fields, playgrounds, good food. You’re going to love it.”
She studies my face like I’m trying to run a con job on her.
“It’s my home base. You’ll have friends there.”
“And because of you, they’ll let me in?” she asks, a hopeful glint in her dazzling blue eyes that’s too easy to get lost in.
But peace is a luxury I’ve never been afforded. The last thing I want is to ruin her joy, but she deserves to know the truth. The whole truth.
