“Maybe on the way, you can show me the rest of the house, too, since I never saw this part on the tour,” Mia said.
“Yeah,” Hades said with a chuckle. “Show her therestof it.” His statement was pointed now, poking at the one place I didn’t want him to, and he knew it. I kept one other room sectioned off from all the staff. Mia would be no different. “Everysingle room.”
“Get the fuck out of my sight.” Or maybe she was already so different that I didn’t want her seeing that room at all. Not after the way her eyes widened at seeing the basement.
Hades walked by me and leaned in. “Lay ground rules for the teacher. She’s already completely bulldozed through the norm.”
He was right.
And I wasn’t sure if I cared, because I was about to bulldoze through every single professional rule I had as soon as they left.
Mia
EVERYONE LEFT … ABANDONING MEwith Jameson Knight.
With the boss I never wanted.
With the man who meticulously sewed people back together in his basement while dissecting me piece by piece. He didn’t look at all concerned or flustered by the fact that a man had been bleeding on his basement floor.
Rather, he looked only irritated with me in the lower level of his home that seemed to essentially be a small hospital. A place he practiced medicine on men who obviously were hiding their dealings.
And not one person who’d come down here with me acted at all disturbed. Instead, they were comfortable with him. This was a man in his element, perched on his throne, confident in his power with people he trusted by his side.
I might have watched Jameson charm people at the clubhouse yesterday, and they might personify the wealth and luxury of this exclusive enclave, but this Jameson was the king of Paradise Grove. A man of power and precision.
Calculated and commanding.
In control.
I’d known he was part of something sinister all along, but hisconfidence told me he ruled it. He managed it. He structured it. I’d been a fool to think otherwise.
And not even his daughter appeared surprised.
Instead, she’d looked hurt he’d left her out. Which was a whole other issue. Their relationship was strained. She loved her daddy, but I saw her little glances and pouts over the last week when he didn’t stop by the study to say hi, when he didn’t include her in whatever he was working on. Something had changed between them, and she didn’t understand it. She was seven. How could she?
“Mia Darling, time to lay more ground rules, it seems.”
Oh, please. I wasn’t about to carve out more stipulations and rules on the imaginary wall between us when the secret waters would just seep through the cracks and flood it. “Or we have a real conversation,” I blurted out, but my body shook with adrenaline at confronting him.
Who was I? A teacher he could get rid of in an instant. Not many would really miss me. My parents would probably sigh and finally speak of me just so they could put on my tombstone, “She got what she deserved.” My mom always believed it was better to stay quiet, and my dying for speaking up would have proved her right.
She’d thought that with my coach. But I spoke up. She thought that with my job, but I spoke up, and then with my sister too. Silence could be perceived as acceptance more often than it should. But I wouldn’t allow it anymore when I needed to be heard.
“What is arealconversation to you?” he asked as if I were dense.
Fine. He probably thought being a teacher made me somehow inferior to him, and I could see it in his judgmental eyes. But I could be judgmental too. “Same as there are dirty cops, I guess there are dirty surgeons too … Are you ‘helping’ criminalsdown here daily?” I whispered. “God, I knew it would be bad, but he’s a part of a motorcycle gang. That wasn’t just a scrape. I saw the blood. He wasstabbed. And no one—not even your daughter—cares.”
“Well, let’s be clear. Franny thinks it’s a bike accident. And everyone else is used to it, Mia.” Jameson leaned casually against the table Jacques had been sitting on while I paced back and forth.
I combed my hands through my hair, feeling the bile swirl in my stomach. “Am I aiding and abetting? I’m just as bad if I stay here being your stupid freaking nanny! I’m teaching her math while you … what? Sew up felons?”
He didn’t deny it. He just let me pace back and forth, back and forth.
“And the motorcycle gang will keep seeing my face, and you told them my name, so I’m practicallyinnow.”
“You’re not in a motorcycle gang.” Did he sound freaking bored? “It’s not a gang. It’s a club.”
“Same thing! Next thing I know, I’ll hear you’re selling drugs.”
