Davin did a better job of covering any feelings he might have on the matter and continuing. “He wanted you to help him kidnap Flynn, in exchange for your son’s safety.”
“Exactly,” she agreed. “And I would do anything for Esteban, but he would never forgive me if I traded someone else’s life for his. And I do not appreciate being used. I will not do it.”
“So you decided to tell us instead,” I said, nodding. That made sense. I might have done the same in her position, because she clearly needed help, but there was always a choice about who you would trust to give that help.
Trusting us? Well, we had at least proven that we weren’t interested in making her life more difficult for the sake of our own convenience, when we hadn’t pressed anything with Charles’s death because she’d clearly had nothing to do with it.
This guy, though, had kidnapped her son and demanded her help. Helping a man who had kidnapped your son was fucking bullshit, and Carmen clearly wasn’t having it.
“He says”—she paused and looked me over, as though confused, looking for something she didn’t think was there—“he says you’re a dragon. And he’s a dragon. And he threatened to burn my house to the ground if I betrayed him.”
“Seventy or so, wearing an expensive suit, with a face that looks like someone soaked him in lemons?” Davin asked her.
“Yes!” She turned to stare at him, her whole face lighting up. “You know him?”
“Unfortunately so,” Davin agreed, then turned to me. “So much for any chance of it not being Fearson.”
Me? I smiled at him. “This is fucking great, you know that?” Looking back at Carmen, I could almost feel my smile turning into something manic and maybe a bit sinister. “Carmen, it’s time to go meet your new best friend. Then after that, we’re going to fucking destroy Fearson and get your son back.”
CHAPTER 19
Davin was clearly worried about my sanity as we loaded Carmen into the back of his car. He kept glancing over at me, like he wanted to remind me that Carmen and my mother couldn’t stand each other, but also didn’t want to say anything out loud in front of the stressed vamp.
As she was settling in, he mouthed “what the feck?” at me over the top of the car, but I ignored him.
After we’d joined her, climbing into the front, Twist popped up out of her pocket, and jumped onto and then over the front seat to leap into Carmen’s lap. Carmen startled for a second, then gave a smile and started petting her as she curled up in a ball and vibrated like a little purring machine.
“Your little friend is sweet,” she told me, and some of the tension had leeched out of her.
Davin scoffed. “She’s a monster. But apparently she likes you.”
“She is worried about her son,” Twist meowed at him. “Father would also worry about me if the terrible dragon took me away.”
Davin lifted a brow at me, and unthinkingly, I responded with what I knew he wanted. “She identifies with her. Or at least,she thinks Carmen feels like I would if she were kidnapped. And she’s not wrong. I’d burn a motherfucker to the foundation if they stole my Plot Twist.”
I worried a bit that Carmen would think we were invalidating her feelings by comparing them to what was ostensibly a “pet,” but instead, she smiled and agreed. “Just so. This dragon...can you burn a dragon?”
“No,” I admitted, sighing as I remembered that tiny fly in the ointment. “But that doesn’t mean he can’t be killed. And we are going to kill him.”
It was a little odd, that utter conviction, since I really wasn’t much for violence. But this guy? He’d kidnapped Carmen’s son to try to force her to help him. He had attacked my cousin. He had threatened Arthur for no reason at all.
He had helped to kidnap my father and hold him prisoner for thirty fucking years, starving and tormenting him.
Sure, I wasn’t a violent person when I wasn’t forced to be, but in this case I would make an exception.
“He wasn’t coming into Teas(e) to see Arthur,” I said aloud as Davin pulled out of the parking lot. He glanced over at me, but didn’t say anything, so I explained how I’d arrived at the random notion. “It makes sense, doesn’t it? He was looking for me, because my father said he’s supposed to kidnap me. But then he showed up and there was this guy he knew sitting there at the table with me. So he panicked and started that whole ‘Arthur had a contract with him’ thing. It wasn’t like he could attack or kidnap or even follow me when everyone in the whole place was staring at him the second he walked in.”
Davin sighed and nodded. “At least we know he isn’t going to go after Arthur.”
Which was an excellent point. I would rather the assholes come after me, every time. Carmen was case in point of that.I didn’t doubt for a second that she’d have preferred that Fearson’s people had come after her rather than her son.
Which was why we were going straight to my mother. For both Carmen and Mother.
Davin was still dubious when we got back to Mother’s house, I could tell from the way he kept glancing at me from the corner of his eye. He was probably also annoyed that we hadn’t yet had a chance to get extra clothes for him, but we could do that later.
Probably.
I was mostly annoyed we hadn’t gotten to have curry and sex.
