My mother took his hand, then my father’s, as they came closer. She kissed each one before dropping their hands.
She stepped up to me, and I winced when she cupped my face.
“Hush, little baby, don’t say a word?—”
“Stop it!” I screamed over her, but this time, that song didn’t strike the chord inside me it once had.
This time, it wasn’t agony. It was anger.
“Fuck that song,” I told her. “And fuck you!”
Her singing ceased, and she stared at me in shock at how I’d spoken to her.
“You chose strangers over your own blood.” My father came forward, rubbing his hands together. “I’ve waited years to watch you die.”
Forty-Three
Enzo
After the hourdrive back to Saint Vale, the university building broke through the gray fog.
I parked my car at the circular entrance rather than the underground garage. The tunnels would’ve delayed my getting to the dorms.
As I entered the vestibule, I spotted Brooks hunched on the bottom step of the staircase, his elbows planted on his knees and his eyes glued to his phone.
His tie was crooked and loose. He looked exactly like a man whose father had just been shot. Furious and tired. Just like me.
“Dude, what the fuck?” I asked, stalking toward him. “Why aren’t you in Daphne’s room, already talking to her?”
He glanced up at me, a flash of irritation on his face, before pocketing his phone and getting to his feet. “She said she’d only talk to us together.”
As we started up the staircase, he rambled, “She’s in one of her moods, like always.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Saying she doesn’t trust me alone, which is fine with me because the less time I spend with my father’s shooter’s spawn, the better. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was involved in yesterday’s shootings.”
I doubted that.
Daphne was dramatic and about a million other unpleasant things, but orchestrating an assassination attempt on the two most powerful men in the world was a stretch.
Still, like I’d told Benny, power had a funny way of changing people. I’d never rule anything out.
I had questions for Brooks. Whether he’d heard anything new about the car dealership or the shooters or where the VP was. But the hallway wasn’t the place for that conversation.
Too many ears around here.
When we reached their room, I knocked. A first time for that.
The door swung open almost immediately, like Daphne had been standing there, waiting for us. She didn’t smile or say a word, only stepped back and waved us inside before shutting the door and locking it.
“What’s with all the theatrics?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Brooks added, dropping onto her bed. He grabbed one of the stuffed animals piled against the pillows and tossed it aside. “What’s the emergency?”
Daphne slid her hair over her shoulder. “First,” she said, placing a manicured pink nail against her chest in sympathy, “I’m sorry your dads were shot.”
My jaw tightened instantly.
Brooks’s back straightened.
“I obviously had nothing to do with it,” she added.
