I was fine. I was loved. I had everything I needed.
Except for this conversation with a man who I suddenly knew, some way, somehow, was my father.
How the hell had he gotten my number?
My father was calling me. After nine years. After telling me he was going to kill me. After holding a—
Calm down, Luna.
I was calm. I was calm. I was fine. I could think.
“Don’t ever call me again,” I said into the receiver slowly, cutting off the man on the other end.
What did he do? He cursed. He cussed like he had every time I had ever asked him for anything growing up. Like I was an inconvenience, and his next words confirmed that nothing had changed. “I’m only fucking calling you because of your sister, don’t think it’s because of anything else.”
Because of my sister? Which one?
“Tell her she needs to quit that fucking job she’s at. She’s not taking my calls anymore.”
Taking his calls anymore? She was taking them in the first place? Since when? Why?
Why would she do something like that?
I wouldn’t hold it past him to lie, but... why? Why would he do that?
“Just talk to her. She doesn’t have any business doing that shit,” he went on, rambling, talking too fast.
Shredding me a little word by word. Or maybe it was my sister who was doing it with every word that came out ofhismouth.
My hands started to shake.Mine. And just as I was about to shove the empty one under my thighs, I stopped. Then I made a decision.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I told him honestly, because I didn’t, and I wasn’t going to hide it. “But I don’t ever want to hear your voice again. Don’t call Lily or Kyra either. If you do, I’ll call your parole officer. Don’t think I won’t.”
And I hung up.
Thenand only then, did I shove my freaking shaking hands under my thighs as I let out a deep breath.
What in God’s name was Thea into? What the hell was she doing? Why the hell was she talking to him of all freaking people?
Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse…
I foundthisout?This?
“You all right?” Rip didn’t wait to ask.
I wanted to say I was fine. I really did. But that wasn’t what I responded with. “Yes. No. I think… I think you’re right about my sister doing something fishy. That was my dad who just called.”
My dad. What a joke.
“I haven’t talked to him in years, and he just said…”
Why the hell was I telling Rip all this?
Slipping one of my hands out from under my thigh, I lifted it up to my head and rubbed the palm of it across my forehead pretty freaking roughly, like that would erase the conversation that had just happened.
Rip’s voice was low and gravelly, and so, so serious as he asked, “What he say?”
Keeping my gaze forward, I could barely tell him. “He said my sister doesn’t have any business doing something, but he didn’t say what, and…” Bitterness, honest to God bitterness, swelled up in my throat for the first time I could remember. I wasn’t bitter.I wasn’t. But I felt it then. Understood it then. I got why people could hold on to resentment for the rest of their lives. “He said she’s been ignoring his calls, like that was new.”
