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EPILOGUE TWO
SAINT
EIGHTEEN YEARS LATER
Isit at my desk at Carnage when my cell rings. I see it’s my wife, and I hit answer. “Hello, sweetheart…”
“Isshethere?” she asks in a tone that tells me she’s not in the same good mood that I left her in this morning.
“No.” I look around the office that I share with my brothers and see I’m the only one here. My eyes drop to my watch, and I see it’s a little after nine. “She should be in class.”
“She’s not. I just got a call from the school that she’s absent.”
My door swings open, and my eyes narrow on the brunette. She’s got her long dark hair braided and hangs over one shoulder with a white ribbon tied into a perfect bow at the end. It makes her look sweet and innocent, but I know the truth. “She’s here. I’ll call you back.”
“Do not let her sweet-talk you, Saint,” my wife barks into my ear. “She needs to be in school.”
“Uh-huh. I’ll call you back. Love you.” I hang up before she can yell at me. “Why are you here?” I lock my cell and set it down. “You were supposed to ride with your sister to school this morning.” Tinsley is grounded from driving for two weeks. Having to ride with her sister is a punishment that she hates.
She rolls her blue eyes and plops down across from my desk. “Berkeley left before the sun came up to go meet with her boyfriend. She’s trying some new rose quartz shit on him.”
“Boy-boyfriend?” I ask, stumbling over my words. “Since when does your sister have a boyfriend?” I’m not even going to try and decipher what the fuck rose quartz means. I’ll have to google that.
She waves her hand in the air. “It’s nothing serious. Pretty sure he’s married.”
“Married?” I slap my hands on the table.
“We’re eighteen, Dad.”
I run my hands through my hair and take a deep breath. This is going nowhere. “Why are you here in my office?” I ask again. Let’s start back at the beginning.
“I got suspended, remember?”
“Last week. Today is Monday. A new week. You should be in school.”
“Look what I got.” She ignores me and pulls out a rectangular box from her black backpack that has pink butterflies all over it. She’s a walking contradiction in every aspect of life.
This is where her mother would tell her not to deflect and drive her ass to school. But curiosity gets the best of me. “What is it?”
“It’s a souvenir.”
I frown, sitting back in my chair. “For what?”
“I didn’t even wash it.” She laughs.
“Tinsley, that better not be what I think it is.” I growl. She lifts her mother’s eyes and smiles at me. “You can’t take a knife to school.” She knows this. We just went over this last week. With me, her mother, the principal, and the police officer that were present for our mandatory meeting.
“I’m going to mail it to him.”
I run a hand down my face, holding in a sigh. I thought Carnage was going to be the death of me. But nope. It’s my teenage daughter. “You stabbed him. I’d say the scar he’ll have will be souvenir enough,” I remind her as if she could forget.
“He put his hands on me, Dad,” she snaps defensively.
“I—”
“He tripped me, and when I didn’t fall on my face in front of everyone embarrassing myself like he wanted me to, he pushed me into my locker.”
Being a dad is hard. I have to pick my battles with not only my wife but also a little version of her who thinks she’s invincible. It’s my fault. I’m definitely one of those parents who takes a hundred percent responsibility for the monster I created. “Tins, have you stopped to think that maybe he likes you?”
