AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her chest heaved with her sharp, shaky inhale. “It wasn’t fair.”
“Who told you life was fair?” I leaned back, releasing her hand.
A tear trekked down her cheek, and she quickly swiped it away. Her head tilted away from me, and she stared hard at my dresser as if it had personally committed a slight against her.
“I can’t believe Dad didn’t say anything.” She rubbed an aggressive hand under her nose. “He knew we were coming up here this weekend. He wished us a fun time and told us to put on sunscreen.”
I scoffed. “I literally just got off the phone with him when you pulled up. He didn’t say a word.”
Lavena sighed. “Is it over then? Are you coming home now?”
I pulled my gaze away to focus on my dresser. “Yeah,” I muttered, pushing off the bed and climbing to my feet. “I’m heading back in the morning.”
Blue eyes fluttered in confusion. “Tomorrow? Why? Why can’t you stay? I’ll hardly get to see you—”
“What do you mean? I’m out. I’ll be at the apartment. I’ll see you every day.”
“Yeah, but you just got out. Why can’t you stay until we leave? It’s only three days. Come on. Please? I fucking missed you.”
She fixed pleading eyes on me, her lips puckered, but it was the tears that tested me. It was the hurt in her voice. I couldn’t.
“Fine,” I muttered. “I’ll stay the weekend.”
A brilliant smile erupted across her face even at she swiped at the damp streaks on her cheeks. “Really?”
I waved away her excitement. “Yeah, yeah, you’re such a pain.”
Squealing, Lavena leapt off the bed and bounded towards me. Her long arms looped around my shoulders and dragged me into a choking embrace. A wet kiss was stamped into the side of my cheek.
“You’re the best brother ever!”
I grumbled my response and wiped my cheek. “Remember that the next time you’re being a shit.”
She wasn’t listening. “Everyone will be so thrilled!” She pulled back to beam into my face. “We’ll throw a huge welcome home party, and we’ll get that cake you like from that tiny bakery downtown. It’ll be the talk of the town for years to come. I’ll make sure of it.”
The very idea of having to deal with people I didn’t like before I went into the slammer had me grimacing. “Lavena—”
“Oh!” she exclaimed unexpectedly, face a mask of furious outrage as she tore away. “You will never believe who camesniffing around right after you got arrested.” She didn’t even give me a chance to guess when she blurted, “Liya.”
That was a name I hadn’t thought of in a while and had expected never to hear ever again. Just the sound of it had the muscles all along my spine stiffening.
“What did she want?”
“What Liya always wants — attention. Bitch was in tears, sobbing about how she missed you and she’d wait until you got out.” She paused to shake her head. “I have never felt so embarrassed or disgusted for another person. Told her to go suck a doorknob. Girl couldn’t keep her legs closed when you were actually together. No way anyone believes she didn’t comfort jump her way through every bed in the city. She’s foul.”
As far as mistakes went, Liya took the cake. We’d both been young, and it had seemed like a good idea. Our friends used to run in the same circles, and she’d been movie star gorgeous. Her dad was some low-end leader of some back-alley gang, giving her an understanding of the life, a requirement for whoever I was with. It had all made sense on paper at the time. At least until I found out she’d been sleeping with the sons of every mafia leader up and down the coast. There weren’t many of us, but enough to make me reconsider our relationship. That was a year before my arrest, so, Liya was welcome to sleep with whomever she wanted as long as she stayed out of my bed.
“Anything else I missed?” I asked instead, changing the subject.
“Where do I even begin?” With that, she looped her arm through mine and turned me in the direction of the door. “I’ve been helping Dad with the books. Grandma says I’m a natural, unsurprising, I know. Dad has me overseeing the management for the Titan. Mom doesn’t think it’s a good idea, not after what happened with Milo.”
I wanted to point out that Milo put himself in that situation. He knew it, too. He let his temper get in the way of an escalating situation that resulted in five deaths by his own hands.
“I asked him about that,” I told my sister as she propelled me in the direction of the hallway.
“Milo?”
I nodded. “We shared a block. He’d occasionally join the uncles in the yard and I asked him what happened.”
