“Let him rot,” I say into the phone. I’m in my car on my way to work, and I’m half-tempted to swing by the prison just to see the douchebag myself.
But I don’t. Knowing Amara, she is already there and has a piping hot coffee waiting for me, something I desperately need right now.
As I expected, as soon as I walk through the door she is standing there, coffee in hand.
“Good morning, Mr. Rozanov.” She hands me the mug, and I take it.
I take it. “Good morning, Miss Parker. Your father has been arrested.”
I take a sip and head to my desk, looking at the schedule for the day.
I don’t even have to look at Amara to know she is staring.
“What did he do this time?”
“Drunk driving.” I take another sip.
“Of course.”
“Among other things.”
“Let me guess. He wants me to bail him out. I swear to God, I should just leave him there this time. Maybe it’ll clean him up.”
“You can’t bail him,” I say as I sit down.
“You meanshouldn’t,” she corrects me.
“No. I mean can’t. I’ve asked them to hold him.”
There’s a beat before she goes on. “On what grounds?”
I look up from my schedule to meet her eyes. Her white button-down shirt tucked into a black pencil skirt is very professional. Very tidy. Very distracting.
“On the grounds that he isn’t helping you or your siblings feel safe. On the grounds that he has made their home unlivable. On the grounds that I have connections with the NYPD and stopping him for sitting too long at a red light at 2:34 in the morning while his blood was more vodka than plasma tells me he’s better off in a cell and you are better off if he is there too.”
Amara blinks a couple times and bites her lips in thought.
“So you arrested my dad. Now what? My siblings are still living in a dump.”
“See, that’s the thing.” I open my computer and motion for her to take a seat in the chair in front of my desk. “I found a house.”
“Oh?”
I can tell she stopped breathing. She’s holding her breath because Amara has lived an entire life hoping for things and rarely seeing them come true for her.
“This house,” I turn my laptop around, “is a new build. It’s in a neighborhood far away enough from your old house that the area is actually safe. Family-oriented. People have doorcams and let their kids play in the street. The HOA covers the yardwork and there’s a community pool.”
“It’s pretty,” she says, her voice empty and soft. She’s still holding her breath, if not physically then metaphorically. “But why are you showing me this?”
“Because I bought it.”
Amara gives me a questioning look. “No offense, Ransome, but that house seems a little quaint for your taste.”
“Well, then it’s a good thing I won’t be living there.”
“Then why did you buy it?”
With that, I lace my fingers together on the desk and lean in. “Because your brother and sisters need a safe place to live. A place free of violence and drugs. A clean place with three bedrooms and a patio and even a two-car garage so Eliza can park on one side and Gianni can work on his car on the other side. They need normalcy.”
