I took a step toward her, and she didn’t move.
“If he wasn’t beating on her with something, he was selling her body to his drug dealers for his next fix. And there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. Everything Mom ever bought me to try and distract me from my life, he stole. Everything she ever tried to get me out of that situation, he thwarted. He wanted me there. He wanted me to see his power over us.”
She cracked her neck. “Sounds like someone deserves to die.”
I grinned to myself. “Don’t worry, I took care of that some time ago.”
That whipped her gaze back over her shoulder. “You killed your own father?”
I shrugged. “If you found your father raping your mother, wouldn’t you kill him, too?”
She licked her lips as those gears turned behind her eyes, and I swear to hell on high the movement of her tongue alone arrested my attention.
“Good on you,” she said as she turned back toward the balcony view. “Some people don’t deserve the life they’ve been given.”
Not many people shocked me in my life. I expected the worst and welcomed the best. But, as those words fell from her plump little lips, I found myself impressed. I never thought she’d have it in her, quite honestly. She did such a good job at making herself seem so prim and proper. Down to earth, but with an honest moral code.
In another life…
“Are you still close with your mother?” she asked.
I took that as an invitation to go stand beside her, but I made sure to keep a hand close in case she thrusted herself off the balcony. And as I stood next to her, I drew in a deep breath of ocean-salted air.
“Not after she kicked me out and called me a murderous traitor, no,” I said plainly.
She nodded mindlessly, and I knew she was no longer on the same planet as me.
“Penny for your thoughts?” I asked as I nudged her.
“Huh?”
I grinned as she looked over at me. “Or, another orgasm. I’m up for that, too.”
She smiled and shook her head, and I swear to hell on high that the heavens opened up a bit more. The sun shone a bit brighter.
It was amazing, the way her smile lit up her emerald green gaze.
“Naomi, right?”
She furrowed her brow. “What?”
“That’s your name?”
She nodded. “Yeah, it is.”
I held my hand out to her. “Pretty name for a pretty girl. I’m Trooper.”
She looked down at my hand before she placed her palm against mine. “It’s nice to meet you, Trooper.”
I shook her hand, and her warmth sizzled up the expanse of my arm. “It’s lovely to meet you, too.”
She quickly pulled her hand away and retreated back into her mind, her gaze unfocused and locked.
“What’s on your mind, pretty girl?” I asked.
And much to my surprise, she answered me. “When I got to the house and saw my father’s front door open, I texted my fiancée. Told him there was a problem. And I guess I’m just… wondering why he never showed up. He always shows up. He should’ve showed up.”
I leaned against the railing and faced her. “Sounds like a shit fiancée, if you ask me.”
