“I did.”
“How did it go?”
“It was hard, but you were right.” I pulled the drawer out and peered farther inside.
He made a small noise behind me. “Ah-ha. I’m glad to hear that.”
“But I’m not great today. I’ve been crying,” I admitted.
“I see.…” Now he sounded uncomfortable. “Uh, I’m sorry. Anything I can help with?”
I turned around. “I just came from the Sarafians’. Serj came back from San Francisco.”
“Oh,” he said, exhaling. “That.He told you about the boy.”
“You knew? About Eddie? In jail?”
He shook his head and shrugged. “I just found out. Trust me when I tell you that we all want this matter cleared up as quickly as possible. It’s going to take money, but it’s going to be fixed.”
Could that sound less on the up-and-up? Jeez. “Never mind. Don’t tell me any more.”
“It’s going to be taken care of. We’ll get the boy home.”
Tears pricked the backs of my eyelids, but I tamped them down, terrified to cry in front of him. I had never. Could never. I shouldn’t even be talking to him like this. He was the boss. The man. The king. I was supposed to step back into the shadows.
I know who Mad Dog’s girl is.
And then there wasthat, Serj’s words, echoing in my head.
I didn’t know where my dad was at the moment. But I didn’t want him catching me crying on Mad Dog’s shoulder. Leo the Lion might be stony, but that only meant he had deeply buried feelings, and he would be beyond upset.
“Hey,hey,” Mad Dog said, reaching out to touch my face, a strange tenderness in his eyes.“Min skattepige.”At the last second, he changed his mind and withdrew his hand awkwardly.
I stilled, then I made myself smaller, shrinking away from him.
I didn’t know what he’d said, but I’d heard enough of his Danish to know what the first word meant.
Mine.
Mine!
Maybe it meant nothing. Maybe it was just a reflexive sentiment that was hollow and empty. Maybe he literally considered me a possession because I was part of his staff.
All of those things could be true.
And yet…
All the strange looks I’d caught, all the weird, competitive energy I’d felt between him and my dad, all the rumors I’d heard. I’d always been able to dismiss all that because Mad Dog never felt like a father. He never treated me special. Never doted on me. Mad Dog hadnevertried to comfort me. Not even when I got hurt at the dam.
But he was comforting me now.
As I stood there with this strange, too-familiar intimacy enveloping us, a bigger realization hit me: whether true or not, Mad Dog thought there was a possibility hecouldbe my father.That’s why Serj had referred to me as Mad Dog’s “girl.” Serj talked to Mad Dog on the regular. They were buds.
So if Mad Dog thought there was a chance he hypotheticallycouldbe my biological father, then that meant he actually had slept with my mother. A housekeeper.
Someone like me.
A spark of rage flared inside my chest.
