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“Okay, yes. But for what?” My question earns me a subdued but disheartened look from my tattooed friend.
“She’s just leverage with all this shit with her mom. I don’t know what her mom did but it’s enough for him to drop all his other work just to follow through with this one thing.”
We all nod along. Anticipation growing between us.
“Think. It’s something that’s enough for him to spend his valuable time tracking down his daughter,” he gestures toward Dee who leans even closer to me, “who he hasn’t contacted in eighteen years.”
We wait hoping Knox’s train of thought gets us exactly where we need to be. I just wish I could think about something other than how soft Dee’s skin feels under my touch. It so easily occupies me.
“I just don’t know what it is,” he finally mutters.
Well, shit. Guess we are back to square one. Or two?
Dee tenses walking back to the dresser and pulling herself back on top of it to sit. This time her legs don’t swing at all.
“He killed my stepdad,” she says from out of nowhere, the strain of her voice cutting through the high-strung atmosphere.
Woah. Didn’t see that one coming. I mean it isn’t out of character but still. Surprise, surprise another man dead at the hands of a Reyes. I frown. Knox catches my scowl and I try to wipe the emotion of my face, try to play passive like he does. Though likely I’m not doing it well.
“Fuck.” Reed runs his hands through his hair sending it sprouting in different directions.
“When I was nine years old, my mom took a trip to Vegas. While she was there she had her very own dream fairytale wedding. With a judge.” She closes her eyes. Some scene, likely a horrifying one judging by how taunt every muscle in her body is, playing out behind her closed lids.
“They tried to make it work but she is a junkie and he was a man with an image to be upheld. And an abuse problem. It started with her. Let me tell you something, you can’t beat the addiction out of someone. Addiction is the escape.”
Knox turns to face her, resting his hand on the dresser his pinky touching her leg. The steady sound of our breathing is all you can hear between her sentences.
“Eventually it all lead to me.” Her chin drops.
A riot burns inside me at the thought of someone laying their hands on her. The healing scratch along her cheek a reminder that someone already had.
“And that’s when she called someone in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve. I never knew who she called or why. But the very next day my dear old stepdad was shot leaving his office.”
Dee lifts her face, her eyes empty of emotion. For the tiniest moment she is the girl that appeared in the dining room. A hollow shell of a human being.
There it is.
Shit.
Her mom knows too much.
And that is a problem.
Thirty-Three
Dee
I can’t stand the silence anymore. Their pathetic looks of pity. Pity for poor Violet Demure. She’s had a rough life. Let’s all join together and feel sorry for her. Oh, boo-hoo.
Ugh, it makes me sick. I don’t need their pity.
Heavy steps follow behind me. I glance over my shoulder with a sigh. “Landon, I don’t need a babysitter.”
He pauses but not for long before he power walks behind me. Reed and Knox stare out of Landon’s bedroom door down the hall at us but eventually they head off in the opposite direction, whispering under their breath.
“I don’t want to babysit you.”
Reaching my doorway, I stop underneath it to watch him as he nears. “Then why are you following me?”
