“Shit,” she drawls down the line.
“Yeah, shit. I pay you very fucking well to make sure no one gets near her, not to touch her, not even to speak to her.”
“I’ll deal with it. You have my word.”
“I don’t care how you do it, or what it costs me, make sure every Sixer bleeds or ends up down in the hole. I want examples made and I don’t want Amelia around any of it.”
“You’re asking for a riot, might be a little difficult to keep her out of it.”
“No riots, fuck, I want this done on the low. I don’t want shit making life worse for Amelia.”
I can hear her eyes rolling and I flex my fists.
“I want to be hearing talk on the streets about their cunt bitches bleeding by the end of the week. If you still want money flowing in, I want blood flowing out.”
I hang up and squeeze the phone, struggling to do my best not to break it.
“I’m not even going to ask, I just want to know Amelia is safe.”
Richard lingers in the doorway. He steps farther into the room when I nod.
“She’s more than safe, you have my word.”
“How much have you paid out to make that happen?” he asks, coming to sit on the bed next to me.
“No more than I can handle.”
“Shouldn’t that be my job?”
“Perhaps but you won’t catch me asking you to reimburse me.”
“It never occurred to me.” He grins.
“She called me the other night. It felt so good hearing her voice. It’s crazy but I swear I slept better that night for it.”
“She’s my daughter and God knows I love her, but seeing her once a week is harder than not seeing her at all. Some days she’s not herself, some days she barely talks and then some days she’s my little girl again and we talk about everything and anything.”
“At least you get to see her. I’d put up with just sitting across the table from her without her saying a word.”
“You really do love her, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“For the time being, you’re going to have to suck it up. I talk to her about it every time and she’s not changing her mind. Go at her pace, take what you can and before we know it, she’ll be home, and we can put this all behind us.”
“You think it’ll be that easy?”
“I haven’t been able to do anything for her, but making life easy when she gets out… that I can do. This last year hasn’t only changed her, everything I once thought has been shot to pieces. And I’m guessing we’re not the only ones. You’re different to the guy I first met. You’re a good man, Darius, Amelia will see that when she’s not surrounded by that damn awful place.”
He stands and looks around the room. I feel his pain. He was right though, Amelia won’t be the only who’s changed, nor Richard. I have changed, shit, nothing is going to be the same ever again.
38
Amelia
The pages of a romance I’ve been trying to read all day bleed into one another. One minute I’m following the story and then in the next, they blur together, and I zone out. Squeezing my eyes shut, I focus on the first line for the third time. Yet I don’t possess enough will power to keep my mind from straying to Elsa. It’s her first birthday and I give up trying to ignore it.
Tossing the book aside, I sit up and scrub my face with my hands. I heard from my dad that he’s throwing a little party for her and had invited Darius’s family over to join them.
