JD leaned back in his chair. “I think today they were trying to figure out how much you actually knew.”
“I know nothing,” Rowan said, her voice steel. “How many times do I have to say that.”
“Well, that may be the case, but the cartel don’t seem to agree. Me? I’m still making up my mind.” JD cocked his head like a savage dog examining a potential threat. “I can’t decide if your parents did a real good job of shielding you from their world—their real world, or if you’re fucking playing us.”
Rowan stood up, stumbling backwards. Gods was there to grab her, and when she tried to shake him off he held her tighter. Her eyes went wild.
“I told you, I don’t know anything. This is all new to me! They were just my parents. They were just Mom and Dad. They worked a lot. Dad was always busy. He lived and died on that farm.” She’d gone paler as she spoke, a sheen of sweat beading on her brow. “Please, I don’t know anything.”
I swallowed, feeling angry and anxious all rolled into one. “Ease up, Gods,” I said, not looking at him. Instead my gaze was on JD.
“Ease up.” Gods laughed. “This bitch’s family screwed the club out of millions over the years, butIshould ease up? Are you really that pussy whipped already?”
I snapped my gaze to him, my lip curling. “Ease. The. Fuck. Up. Whatever her parents did or didn’t do, it had nothing to do with her.”
“Do you know how much potential money we lost over the years? The shitstorm that motherfucker and his bitch wife caused. Just because it wasn’t cash from our pockets doesn’t mean we didn’t lose out.” Gods’s grip on Rowan tightened to the point where I could see the skin pinched under his grip.
I looked at JD but he shrugged. “He’s right, Tex, and you know it. Back in the day, the Kings had a good thing going with the cartel. When everything went down, that deal fell apart.”
“She was just my mom,” Rowan whimpered. “She was just Amy Hale, who liked the smell of flowers and horses and hated it when my dad would stay out drinking in the barn. She was just my mom, please.”
At that Rowan began to cry, and I saw the moment her world and everything she knew shattered. She had been living a lie all these years, and the walls had finally fallen down, crumbling at her feet.
