A few seconds later, we slid to a stop on the side of the street, our gasping breaths loud in the sudden silence. I glanced back toward the tangled intersection. It was a goddamn miracle we’d gotten out of it unscathed.
“Are you okay?” I asked Stella.
In answer, she popped her seat belt and threw open the door, stumbling into the night.
Fuck. She must be having flashbacks of the crash, and while I was probably the last person she wanted near her, I couldn’t let her run off alone into the night.
I eased the car forward, parking in an empty space, and got out. “Stella!”
She ignored me, arms clasped around herself as the rain started to soak her dress.
I shrugged off my jacket and caught up to her, draping it over her shoulders.
“Get away from me,” she said, hurrying up the sidewalk.
“No. I can’t have you getting serial murdered, or I’ll never recoup my loses.” I’d meant it as a joke, but after our shouting match, it felt wrong as soon as the words were out.
“Is that all I am to you?” she said, her voice low and shaky. “All anyone is to you? Pawns on a chessboard?”
I grimaced. Yes, that was eerily close to how I’d first thought of Stella. As a game piece, there to be used and discarded once I was ready to move on to the next one. Because that’s how Ihadto look at people to survive. Otherwise, I might actually start listening to their sob stories—or worse, caring. And I knew the folly of that.
Take the guy Junior had stolen our play club from. He’d tried to sell me one tale of woe after another, when the truth was, he was nothing but an asshole with an addictive personality. He’d had money his whole life and didn’t understand it was a finite resource, so when he started losing at my tables, he just upped the rent on all his tenants to cover the cost.
Stella took my prolonged silence as confirmation of her accusation. “You’re such a bastard.”
I shrugged. “You’re not saying anything I haven’t heard a hundred times before.”
“Why, though? Why are you like this?”
“Remember what I told you? I’ll take any reaction I can get.”
“Stop it! Stoplying. No one is this awful unless someone really hurt them. Who hurt you, Theo?”
“Not me,” I snapped, tonight’s dark thoughts rising to the surface. “My mother.” I grabbed Stella and spun her to face me. “You want to know why I’m like this? Because of her. She was the nicest person on the planet, and all anyone ever did was use her. Her parents for free labor, my father because he wanted a young, hot side piece, and everyone else who entered her life. She gave and gave, and they took and took, just like you said, and I decided that I would never let anyone push me around. I’d never let anyone treat me the way they treated her.”
“Do you fucking hear yourself?” she said, the words fracturing as she shivered. “You hated the way your mother was treated so you became just like the people who mistreated her.”
“I’m not like them,” I sneered.
“Yes, you are.”
“The people I’m mean to deserve it.”
“You’re mean toeveryone, Theo!”
Her words echoed off the brick around us, rebounding, burrowing beneath my skin like insects.
I wasn’t mean toeveryone. I was nice to Josh. Well, nice-ish.
“Name one time I’ve been mean at the events we’ve attended,” I said.
“Easy, you’ve been mean to me 24/7, because blackmail.”
“Fine. Someone else then.”
“My brother.”
“That was self-defense.”
