Me.
I look up and find him staring down at me with those gorgeous blue eyes and I realize that, yes, I belong to this man.
I also pray that the two of them don’t end up at each other’s throats and force me into picking sides.
Every ounce of my being hopes that.
Because it’d break my heart to lose either of them, and it might kill George to lose me.
Chapter Five
Then
I didn’t sleep that night after talking to Ms. Blaine. We had a bunk bed in our room, and of course I took the top bunk. Long after Mom softly cried herself to sleep, I laid there and stewed in my anger. I wanted to go hunt down the Ronald family and have it out with them. I wanted to contact a journalist and spill my guts about my parentage, and Emma, and the suspicious connection between her visit to their home and her death.
That’s what people did in TV shows and movies, right?
I wanted what was owed to us. All those years, Mom struggled by herself to raise us, and that fucker wasrich?
Except I had no proof, not really. Sure, DNA evidence could prove the man’s my father, but I had no proof Emma went to visit them.
Ms. Blaine had told me I could call her Casey. Yes, I told Mom to sign the papers, and I remember the guilt eating at me while watching her sign her name where indicated.
This made me an accomplice in my fate. I hoped I hadn’t royally fucked up and screwed myself. That some ICE assholes in windbreakers wouldn’t show up to take Mom away and then take me somewhere else.
Before she left, Casey quietly spoke to me with a warning and slipped me a flip-phone.
“It’s a burner. Keep it on silent. I put my personal cell in the contacts. Donotanswer it unless my name comes up, understand me? And call me if you need me. Day or night.”
“We’re going to the cops with this, right? The papers?”
She looked a mix between angry and sad as she softly snorted. “Short answer—no. Long answer—hell, no. Not unless you want to paint a target on your back. Can youpleasetrust me? There’s a reason Father Benjamin calledmespecifically to help you, and we can talk more tomorrow. Donottalk about any of this with anyone, not even him, and definitely not with your mother.”
“If we call the press, can’t they help?”
In her heels Casey stood about two inches taller than me. She glanced around and leaned in, dropping her voice to a whisper. “If I hit the Powerball numbers tomorrow, sure, kid, then we can go after the Ronald family. They aren’t just well-off—they’rerich. The kind of money that uses Caymanian offshore accounts and can piss away more money throwing a dinner party than your mom makes in an entire fuckingyear. The best I can do is keep youalive.
“But if you can even find some J-school drop-out stupid enough to take on the Ronald family’s entire fuckingteamof attorneys, and the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office, be my guest. It means I’ll be reading about your unfortunate and tragically early death, and probably the reporter’s, too. Because your sister isn’t the first person to die under mysterious circumstances around that family.”
I wasn’t sure what stunned me more—the information I’d just learned, the intensity she’d delivered it with, or that she’d dropped the F-bomb. I mean, I wasn’t a stranger to the word, although I was smart enough not to say it around Mom. But that was the first time an adult actually said ittome, on purpose.
Multiple times.
“If you keep your mouth shut,” she added, “and do what I tell you to do, I can probably keep you and your momalive. If you want to go off on your own and call attention to yourself, I guarantee you I’ll be helping your mom figure out how to bury you, too. Or, worse, they might kill her if they can’t find you.”
That was my weak spot, my mom, and I didn’t know if Casey knew that for sure, or if it was an easy and lucky guess.
I nodded. “I’ll stay quiet.”
She held out her hand and shook with me.
Casey returned late the next morning. Father Benjamin pulled me out of class, and I met with Casey in the same room where she’d seen us yesterday. Mom was over at the shelter, doing housekeeping there, working in the kitchen, tasks like that. Father Benjamin had asked the shelter manager to let her work there in exchange for our room and board.
Now, I understood why. She was never alone, for starters. It also meant she didn’t have to go somewhere else and possibly be recognized or exposed.
Casey showed me a sheaf of papers. The judge signed the emergency order yesterday, and Casey had already filed for my new birth certificate.
“I should have it by Monday, and we can get you enrolled in public school again.”
