Livvy pressed another kiss to her sister’s forehead through the opening in the bars. “It’s okay, it’s okay. It would’ve been worse if you’d resisted the police. We will tell them the truth in court.”
Judy looked up at her, a stark look of fear on her face. “No, Livvy, no trial. I want to forget this ever happened.”
“But this man needs to pay for what he did to you—”
Judy shook her head sadly. “Do you think I was the only girl treated that way last night? They brought us there to be party favors. I fought back, and look where that got me.”
Livvy wanted to scream, to tear down the walls of this station brick by brick. To march across the city, find Mr. Devlin’s house, and burn it to the ground with him inside it. But most of all, she wanted Judy to be okay. To feel safe. To not have to think about this ever again.
So she simply nodded, and their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the officer who had brought her back here. “Her bail is paid, she’s free to go.” He unlocked the door to Judy’s cell, and her sister practically collapsed into her arms as Livvy led her out.
Flynn was still waiting, and he gave Judy such a look of concern it almost broke Livvy. “I’ll drive you both home.”
She didn’t have the energy to argue and followed him out the door.
Chapter 26
The ride back to the Garden of Allah was the tensest ten minutes of Flynn Banks’s life. They were all squished together on the bench seat with Livvy in the middle, acting as a buffer between Flynn and Judy. She held Judy tight. The poor kid was in shock. She was shivering and hollow-eyed as if she’d seen a ghost.
When they finally pulled up to the bungalow, he hopped out and opened the door for them. Judy stumbled and he ran to catch her, but Livvy held her up instead.
“I’ve got her. I’ve always got her.” The look she gave him was so cold that his heart got frostbite. Livvy blamed him for this. Somehow.
“Wait here,” she muttered, before helping Judy into the house.
Flynn paced nervously by his car, grinding his foot into a piece of gravel that had come loose. God, this place had really deteriorated. Not for the first time, he wished he could help Livvy and Judy find better lodgings. But it was clear Livvy had only accepted his help today because she’d had no other choice.
She returned out the front door, looking like the weight of the world was on her shoulders. “I put her in bed. Hopefully, she can get some sleep.”
He opened his arms to her, and to his surprise, she fell into them, crying into his chest. He held her and rubbed a soothingpattern on her back, hoping to calm her. “Did she tell you what happened?”
Through her tears, Livvy managed to choke out, “A man tried to, to, to have his way with Judy.” Flynn swallowed, a wave of disgust mounting in his gut. “She fought him off.”
He kissed the top of Livvy’s head. “Did she say who it was? Did she know him? I’ll tear him limb from limb.”
She shook her head against his chest. “Judy doesn’t want me to tell anyone. She wants to pretend it never happened.”
“But—”
Livvy broke away from him, and there was something wild and angry in her eyes. “Stop, just stop.”
He took a step back, her words landing like a physical blow. The fight fell out of her, and she looked more tired than she ever had.
“This”—she gestured between the two of them—“this is over. Real, pretend, whatever it was. I’ll do what Harry asks. I’ll go on studio-orchestrated dates. Be photographed together. The bare minimum to make sure I keep my contract so that I have enough money to move us back home when this is done. But that’s all. I let myself get distracted. To believe that acting could be a job that would make me happy. But my only job is to take care of Judy. Nothing else can get in the way of that. Not a movie. Not a studio. And certainly not a man.”
She delivered her speech with steely resolve, as if she’d been practicing it in her head on the drive home. But all Flynn wanted was to help. “You don’t seriously think that if you had come home last night, this would have gone any differently?”
She lifted her chin and glared at him, her eyes swimming with tears. “I do. I would’ve been here to answer her call. To make sure she didn’t spend a night in a jail cell.”
“How would you have bailed her out?”
“I would have found a way,” she snapped.
He cupped her cheek with his hand. “Livvy, why won’t you let me help you?”
She twisted her face away, repelling his touch. “Because none of this would have happened if I’d been paying attention. I should have made Judy turn the job down that first day when she came home with an injured wrist. But I kept ignoring the signs. The twisted ankle. The black eye.”
Flynn involuntarily winced at the mention of the black eye, and he realized a moment too late what he’d done. Livvy grabbed onto it like a dog with a bone. “You knew, didn’t you?”
