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She cusses under her breath as if she isn’t surprised her father left out an important detail. “Victor La Rosa.”
I continue to follow her down the long hallway, passing multiple doors that are closed. An opened one catches my eye and I pause, glancing inside briefly. Walls painted yellow with white cornices and posters hanging on the walls. More music pours out of her room—something unfamiliar. Never heard it.
Her little face fills the space instantly, the door shutting off my view to her room. I look down at her, watching as her pouty lips disappear when she curls them beneath her teeth.
Shit.
Why does she have to be so cute?
“How old are you?” I tilt my head to the side. It isn’t intentional, but when her cheeks flush and she ducks out of my space, I’m thinking she maybe thought it was. She’s shy.
Ruby La Rosa…
“Seventeen.” Same age as me. Worked. Don’t feel like a complete fucking creep perving on her. But she’s way too fucking shy for the girls I know around her age.
She widens the door beside her room and gestures inside. “It might be a tight fit for both of you on that bed, but it’s comfortable.”
My eyes narrow, and when hers swing back onto mine, I realize what she is implying.
“She’s my sister.”
“Oh.” Her brows hit her hairline. “Well, then she can sleep in here and you can have the room opposite.”
I shake my head. “I’ll take the floor in her room.”
“Okay.” Ruby runs her hands down her arms. She has a small body. I’d crush her if I touched her. “Well, I’ll get some clothes for her to wear and leave you both to—” She waves her hand up and down my body. “Wash up.” She quickly scatters off, leavingme thinking who the fuck Victor La Rosa is, and why the hell would he allow someone like me into his house where he keeps someone like her.
The room is larger than mine at our house and has its own bathroom. We aren’t this kind of rich, but we have money.
Shit.
I fall on top of the mattress as Poppy curls beneath the sheets in the bed without taking a shower. Blood and brain matter cling to me like a bad stench, but I can’t seem to care. What the fuck am I going to do? Pop and I don’t have any other family. It’s just us, but that doesn’t mean that people won’t be asking questions. We know other people. Fuck, even the parents know people.
There’s a knock on the door and I shuffle around to see Victor leaning against the frame.
“Victor, huh?”
He chuckles, widening the door. “I guess she filled you in.” There’s a pause, until he finally nudges his head to the hallway behind him. “We need to have a chat, son, and I’d rather that happen out here than in front of Poppy.”
Shuffling out of the sheets, I follow him down the stairs and out through the entry to the sitting room. Their house—or mansion—is the kind that slaps dollar bills in front of your face as soon as you see it. I’m pretty sure I even saw guards at their entry gates. The furnishings and architecture hold an obvious opulence, but there is more to it than that. It feels like a home. The kind you watch on TV where the mother is always cooking or baking, and the child is a straight-A student. It upsets me in a way that I can’t explain because not only is it unfamiliar, but it is—mundane. So why the fuck did this man invite me into his perfect family and life without so much as knowing who I am? In his eyes, I just killed my father. What would make him think I wouldn’t do the same to him?
Victor spreads the sliding doors wide, opening onto a sparse area of flush greenery growing delicately through the cracks of the aged concrete and vibrant plants flowering among the shrubs. There’s a small pool house that’s up against the backyard, overlooking the pool and the patio of the main house with a built-in wooden patio and plants that hang off hooks, with lights switched on inside.
Victor stops walking, his hands on the railing of the frame that wraps around his patio. “You and Poppy can both stay in there starting tomorrow. Pearl, my wife, is setting it up for you both.”
The sun has long since set, and I don’t care much about the fact that I still haven’t washed off the blood on my skin. The words I want to ask choke me. Why the fuck has this man just taken in two strangers? But two strangers where one just killed his father.
“Why did you bring me here? To your family?” I ask, stepping beside him until we’re shoulder to shoulder. There’s a large BBQ area with tables, chairs, and a standing bar. I could imagine countless nights of their friends coming over for a cookout. Laughing, drinking, doing all that shit that happy homes do when they aren’t confined by the restraints of abuse. I could picture it, but I could never understand it.
“I was once in your shoes. Pearl knows it, and that is why she agreed to my having you both here.” He turns to lean against the railing, his attention solely on me. “When I look at you, I see me. A scared boy with no one to turn to and a sister he needs to protect.”
“You don’t know me, though. I could be worse than what you’re picturing right now.”
He chuckles after a moment, and it’s the first time that I’ve realized he has tattoos on his arms and hands. “Son, I come from a world where trust doesn’t mean shit. Trust is a word thatpeople who don’t understand it throw around in hopes to win your approval.” He crosses his ankles at his feet. “You wanna know why I’m saving you?” The corner of his mouth curves upward. “The answer is simple. I think you can be trusted, because unlike the people I know, you have a moral compass. Loyalty. Compassion.” He reaches into the inside of his jacket, pulling out the packet of cigarettes that are tucked in his pocket. Banging the bottom onto his palm, he bites a trunk into his mouth and uses his other hand to light the end. Blowing out a cloud of smoke, he points to me with his fingers. “I was in your shoes when I was around your age.” As much as I try to seek the truth behind his words, I know that there’s no hidden agenda to them. There’s something trusting about the way he speaks. The confidence.
He takes another inhale of his smoke. “My only rule is don’t touch my kid unless I say you can.”
“Yourkid?” I raise a brow at his choice of words. The girl is hardly a kid, but I’ll play.
