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“Easy for you to say when you don’t have to marry a Callahan.”
She smirked, taking a sip of her mimosa. “Babe, I think we both know that you don’t have to do anything at this point,” she said. “You’re definitely doing this because you want to.”
I laughed. “I guess that’s true,” I said, tapping my fingers on my non-alcoholic cocktail. “Carm, can I ask you something?”
She nodded, tucking a strand of red hair behind her ear. “Sure,” she said. “What’s up?”
“When I was…away, who was doing the books? I know it wasn’t Dad, he’s too busy for that. And I mean, I know you can do the books, but you would prefer not to.”
Carmen closed her eyes, thinking for a second. I studied her, trying to read her expression, trying to figure out if she was about to lie to me. “I don’t know,” she shrugged her shoulders. Despite myself, I completely believed her. “One of his men?”
I nodded, mulling over her words. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. A sliver of doubt had been planted in my mind about Carmen’s involvement, and my intuition was screaming at me to dig deeper. There was something she wasn’t telling me - or at least, there was something she didn’t know herself. The question was, how far was I willing to go to find out the truth?
“That’s the thing, Carm,” I replied, leaning back against the booth. “None of his men are capable of handling the books. They’re good at doing what they’re told, not much else. And Dad is too smart to let anyone unreliable handle our finances.”
She frowned, her green eyes reflecting a spark of concern. “You think perhaps... someone else has been messing with the books while you were gone?”
“I don’t know.” I admitted, my voice barely above a whisper. “I just have this uneasy feeling and I can’t shake it off.”
“Weird,” she said. “Fuck, if Dad finds out someone has been messing with his cash, they’re in for a world of pain.”
“Right,” I said, falling quiet.
The silence stretched between us until our server returned with plates of food and fresh drinks. I sipped on my virgin cranberry spritzer, my mind buzzing with unanswered questions and unspoken confessions.
Carmen picked at her food, her gaze distant. Yet there was something in the way she nervously twisted a lock of her red hair that told me she was contemplating something too.
“Promise me one thing, Ade,” she broke the silence, surprising me with the intensity in her voice. “Promise me you won’t let this engagement, this impending marriage or whatever this thing is...don’t let it change you. You’re strong, smarter than all of us combined and you have a heart that’s capable of loving more deeply than any of us. Don’t let the Callahans take that away from you.”
Her words hit me like a punch in the gut. They were honest and heartfelt, layered with an unspoken fear about my future with Tristan.
“I don’t intend to change, Carm,” I assured her, reaching out to squeeze her hand. “Not for anyone.”
“Good. Because if that bastard Tristan hurts you again, I’ll rip his heart out myself,” she said.
Her words hung heavy in the air, and for a moment, all I could do was stare at her. Carmen was brash, bold, and unafraid to speak her mind. But there was a rawness in her voice that stabbed at my heart.
“Tristan won’t hurt me,” I said, my voice steady, but somewhere deep within, uncertainty gnawed at me. Tristan had a past - a past filled with shadows I was still trying to understand. And yet, he’d shown me kindness that defied the cruel world we lived in. But I had seen him at his worst too; he had essentially kidnapped me, he had almost beaten a man to death in front of me. He insisted he didn’t want to turn into his father, but what if he was already on his way? My hand went to my stomach again, to my babies, and I took in a shuddering breath.
Carmen gave me a knowing look, her gaze unwavering. “Adriana,” she said softly, “I hope you’re right.”
Squaring my shoulders, I met her gaze head on. “I am,” I replied with far more certainty than I felt. Because for all of Tristan’s darkness and secrets, he also carried a kind of light. A light that he showed to very few people but had, for reasons unclear to me, chosen to reveal to me.
“Are you going to tell Dad?” she asked. “About the books.”
I put a forkful of food in my mouth to give myself time to think about how to answer her. If I just lied to her, she would clearly see through it. “Not yet,” I finally replied.
“Why not?” Carmen asked, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “He’s the one who could actually do something about it.”
“Yes, but Dad already has so much on his plate,” I tried to explain, struggling to find the right words. “I don’t want to set off any alarms unnecessarily. Like I said, there’s a good chance I’m wrong. The brain fog is so real right now.”
“But it’s Dad’s business. He has a right to know,” Carmen retorted, her eyes blazing with indignation.
“I know that,” I replied, irritated by her stubbornness. “But he doesn’t need another problem on his plate right now. He has to deal with a Callahan as a future son-in-law. Isn’t that enough?”
Carmen smirked. “Don’t know if you remember, Ade, but that was Dad’s idea.”
“Oh, I remember.”
