“Fuck,” I breathe under my breath.
For the first time since Penelope pulled me into that closet, my dick is not the organ screaming the loudest. It’s my brain. My gut.
Something is wrong. Worse than I thought.
I pull my phone out of my pocket and stare at the screen.
I could text G. Tell him what I heard. Tonight, while it’s fresh. He would be horrified, and would want to fix it, but he has enough on his plate already.
I open a new message and stare at the cursor for a long moment.
I type.
Delete.
Type again.
Me: No rush. Take care of Penelope. But we need to talk about my mom.
I hover over send, then hit it before I can second guess myself. The message hangs there, delivered, a little check mark mocking me.
Silas will hear about it. Of course he will. He and G do not keep this kind of shit from each other. That’s fine. For once in my life, I don’t want to handle this on my own.
I scrub a hand over my face and lean back in the chair, imagining my mother gliding through the room, shaking hands and kissing cheeks and laughing at all the right moments.
She pretends she’s a woman whose life is perfect.
All I can picture now is the way her mouth would tighten as she said Minxy saw too much and how easily the wordsI cleaned up that messrolled off her tongue. I want to see my sister. I want to look her in the eye and hear from her what she saw and what they did about it.
I also want to make sure my TA does not get steamrolled by the same woman who stuffed her own kid in a gilded cage to keep her quiet.
I don’t know how yet, but I know this much.
Tomorrow is the first step in cracking my family open.
And I’m not running from it this time.
Chapter Twenty-One
SILAS
I shouldn’t beon the road right now.
I keep my hands steady on the wheel anyway, knuckles tight, jaw tighter. Streetlights sweep over the hood of the car and up the windshield. It would be calming if my head wasn’t a landfill of thoughts.
My best friend is the other guy.
My nephew threatened her.
The woman I’ve been seeing, the woman I wanted to introduce to my best friend, is about to become my step-niece.
And she’s in the back seat, pressed into the corner, dress rucked up around her thighs, eyes closed like she could just opt out of existing for a few minutes.
Gideon is quiet beside me. That’s how I know he’s wound up too. He gets even more careful with his silence when he’s upset. His breathing is even. His posture is relaxed enough to fool most people. It doesn’t fool me.
I adjust the rearview mirror to check on her again.
Penelope sits with her head tipped back against the seat, hair a little mussed from the party, lipstick smudged at one corner.Her hands rest on her stomach, fingers tangled in the fabric of her dress like she is hanging on by that one small fistful of blue.
