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I smiled all the way back to Saint View.
23
CALEB
Vaughn’s mother gaped at me and Harold, her gaze darting between the two of us. “Is any of that true? I mean, even one word of it?”
Harold shook his head. “Of course not. Clearly, he gets the hysterical from you.”
I was less polite. “Your son is a cunt.”
She stared at me for a long second, and then at Harold, before she shook her head in disgust and then ran after the men hauling Vaughn away. “Vaughn! Wait!”
Harold kicked the door closed and turned on me. “What the hell, Black?”
I stared at him. “What? You’re hardly an angel here. It was you who introduced me to Luca Guerra and his family. I’m pretty sure you’re well aware they have initiation processes so they can work out who to trust. Since he trusts you, I know you already went through all of this. How many women did you get for him? Was five the deal for you too?”
Harold grabbed my arm and dragged me away from the door. His expression was pure fury. “Keep your voice down, you foolish child. Your father would be so embarrassed by you right now.”
Rage coursed through me at the reminder of the man who’d raised me. The term ‘father’ seemed overly generous. It wasn’t like he’d ever done anything fatherly, unless it was a public event where I made him look good. When I’d graduated as valedictorian, he’d proudly showed me off to all of his friends, Harold Coker included.
It had been the best day of my life, finally earning my dad’s approval.
But he’d gone right back to ignoring me straight after. My mother had made a fuss for days, but it had only pissed me off. I didn’t care what she thought, just like my father never had. “Don’t speak to me about my father.”
“Then tell me how Vaughn knows about the women?”
I shrugged, even though I knew full well how he knew. It was because of that bitch, Kara, who I’d let go. Fuck her. She was as bad as Bethany-Melissa, making demands on me, thinking I owed her something. They were as painful as my mother. I shook my head. “Who cares?”
Harold got up in my face. “I care, you little shit. Vaughn isn’t like us. He doesn’t see business as business. He doesn’t have that drive to succeed like we do. He lets his heart get involved.”
It was hardly the only reason Vaughn was such a joke. But it was one of them.
Harold’s shoulders were stiff as boards, his eyes wide with panic. “He’s going to go to the cops, Caleb. This place will be swarming with them in no time.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re as dramatic as he is. You think I don’t have just as much dirt on him as he has on me? He’s not talking to anyone.”
Harold paced the floor. “If he knows about the trafficking then other people do too.” He picked up the paper with Vaughn’s offer.
I peered over the older man’s shoulder and scoffed at the figure Vaughn had offered. “I’m embarrassed for you, Vaughn, if that’s all you can afford.”
The paper crumpled beneath Harold’s trembling grasp. “I’m going to take it.”
I snapped my head to the bumbling fool. “What? That’s ridiculous. That figure is lousy.”
He shoved it into my chest. “Yeah, well, it’s a hell of a lot better than spending the next twenty years in jail. I’m taking the offer.”
He took out his phone, his fat fingers moving rapidly over the screen. It made a whistling noise as a text was sent. He shook his head and then went to his desk, yanking out drawers and pulling things off shelves.
I just stared at him. “You are not seriously that scared?”
He raised his gaze to mine. “You have no idea who you’re in bed with, Black. You should be scared. The Guerras are not to be messed with. If they know there’s a weak link in their chain—and believe me, someone on the outside knowing about the women is most definitely a fucking weak link—it won’t be the cops you need to worry about. The Guerras will take care of the problem themselves.” He put a photo frame of him and his beautiful young wife into a box.
My throat still throbbed from where Vaughn had squeezed it, and my nose ached from the punch. I put my hands on the edge of Harold’s desk and leaned toward him. “I’m not scared of anyone.”
It was the mantra I had chanted to myself for years, every time my father beat the shit out of me for coming second in a race or for getting less-than-perfect marks on a math quiz.
My mother had tried to coddle me back then too, comfort me and tell me I was so smart. I’d shoved her away so many times, until any warmth in her eyes faded. I didn’t want her softness.
