When I glance up, my father is frowning at my screen. He clears his throat. “You know that girl?”
A dozen thoughts flicker through my head. All of them unwelcome. “Yeah. She’s a friend from school.” His eyes briefly meet mine then he glances away, and I get a shiver of satisfaction at his discomfort. “Why?”
“Do a lot of your friends have those accounts?”
I’m tempted to say he’d know more about that than me but leave it at a shrug. “Haven’t asked.”
“You’re getting to the age when you’ll need to be careful about who you let into your life. A girl like that”—he nods at the phone again like he thinks I might have lost track—“she won’t think twice about getting pregnant or taking risqué photos you’ll pay to stop being distributed. You know she’s a stripper.”
Dad-of-the-year has a faint smudge on the back of his hand. The remnants of a cherry-red stamp from the strip club. “I guess that puts her on your radar a lot more than mine.”
A steely glint enters his gaze. The same stare he uses to win him concessions in boardrooms is now levelled at me.
I hold steady, but at a cost. It feels like someone is scraping my retinas with a rusty blade.
“Don’t get mixed up with her. My job isn’t to bail you out of every mess you get yourself tangled in. Believe me, if you get caught in some feminine trap you should have spotted a mile away, I’ll disown you rather than legitimise some slut’s sprog.”
A threat that means nothing since the mother I barely remember left me a trust fund, making me independently wealthy. Plus, it’s hard to wade past the total hypocrisy. He’s the one who frequents the club Evie works at, paying money to watch girls barely older than children strip off their clothes, but she’s the danger?
“Some slut’s sprog is such a lovely nickname for your unborn grandchild. Just rolls off your tongue, doesn’t it?”
“You better hope it’sunconceivednot just unborn or you’ll quickly learn it’s not a joke.” After a moment, his glare softens. “Just wrap it up, okay? The last thing I need is Vale charging me ten grand an hour to convince a stripper to get an abortion.”
“Because the money’s better spent on lap dances?”
The taunt is useless. Shame was the first emotion my father cut from his life and there’s no pleasure to be had when the implications roll straight off his back.
“We’re in some of the same classes,” I say, putting a full stop on the exchange. “Not hooking up.”
“Okay, good.”
He puts some horrendous breakfast bar into the microwave, stinking the room out with a fake eggs and bacon smell that tears away any appetite. I pour another cup of coffee in lieu of eating,staring at the back of my father’s head as he sits at the table, unfolding the first of the newspapers he insists on reading cover to cover every morning.
“You went out with Zane last night?”
The sharpness in his voice makes me swivel farther around. “Yeah.”
“Tell me you’re not behind this.”
He raises the paper, and I glance across to read the headline.
Three hospitalised after suspicious fire.
Holy fuck. My heart pounds.
Three?
I only remember beating the crap out of one and he wasn’t the sort to go running to the cops or media. How did the papers get hold of it so quickly?
No. Scrap that thought.
Why do they care?is the real question. They’ve never reported on our raids before.
“It’s the front fucking page for god’s sake.” He stands, walking over to slap the folded paper against my chest. Eyes glaring like the sun. “Get this shit sorted. I’ve given you a long leash for the past year, but I’ll turn it into a bloody choke chain if you smear my name in public.”
Icy fingers creep up my back, settling into the spot between my shoulder blades, but I force a tight smile onto my face. “You think we’re arsonists now?”
His voice is a low rumble that sends trepidation skittering down my spine. “Aren’t you?”
