I sat on the couch, taking off my boots, but he got on the floor and did them himself. “You don’t have to do that. I can take off my own shoes.”
“I know that, but I want to. I love to take care of you, baby girl.” He put them away and sat next to me before he brought my legs up and placed them on his lap. Then he started giving me a foot rub.
“Mmm, that feels good. No argument there.”
He chuckled, his excellent foot massaging skills soothing me yet not distracting me enough.
“How do you know Cameron Delaney?” I began.
He twisted his lips, not meeting my eyes. “How do you?”
I told him everything, from the day I saw her posting flyers about her missing sister until the day I met her at the diner and told her about how Bianca Lanza could have helped her. “But I know everything failed, and she skipped town. Then suddenly she returned, a Night Skull herself. It didn’t take long before the fire, or should I say carnage, that killed everyone at Rosewood. CameronandDusty were no exception. No one survived.”
“You know Dusty, too?”
“Vaguely. We never met, but I know how he looks. Everyone in San Francisco did, and the man who was waiting for her in the car looked an awful lot like him.”
He opened his mouth, but I interrupted. “Now, it’s your turn to answer my questions. How do you know Cameron? And don’t tell me you only know her because she used to be a Skull in another chapter.”
“Are you jealous again?”
“No.” That didn’t cross my mind. I was worried he had something to do with their disappearance because as far as I knew San Francisco chapter used to be in bed with the Lanzas. We couldn’t trust anyone that was close to the Mafia family that betrayed us and almost killed us all. “Should I be?”
“Fuck no.” He snorted. “It’s not like that, Jo.”
“Then tell me. How involved are you in bringing them back from the dead?”
He took a deep breath and continued with massaging the other foot. “There’s a lot you don’t about thatfire. But I ain’t going into that. The bottom line is, the four people you saw today were the only survivors of that night. They were in a very bad shape and needed a lot of help. They couldn’t go back to Fresco so they looked for any help they could get out of town.
“Texas was their first choice because our chapter was one of the few that didn’t approve of the way their chapter did business when Roar, Mama and Rush took over. And when those three were killed, we didn’t have any beef with Dusty or his ol’lady. For fuck’s sake we threw a fucking party to celebrate. So the older man you saw with her is a friend of a friend of Doc’s. When he reached out, I couldn’t turn them down.”
“You helped hide them?”
“I gave them my old house back East where no one could find them. Then I fixed them up with some new identities and helped them move to Austin. They started a new life all four of them, living happily ever since.”
I squinted at him. “What about the Lanzas?”
“What about those fucks?”
“You know they owned San Francisco. The Night Skulls were their runners. Bianca and Cameron were sort of friends.Imade them friends. How could you trust Cameron or any of her family after all we’ve been through because of the Lanzas?”
“Baby, when I helped them it was a long time before I met you. They have a fucking kid. I couldn’t just look the other way. Now, they’re indebted to us. They’d never betray us.”
“I’m not saying they’d do it willingly. You don’t know the way Cameron thinks. She’s capable of much more than she shows when it comes to protecting her own.”
“If the Lanzas knew Dusty was still alive or where he and his family lived, they would have tried to use him back then. But they didn’t. Besides, the Lanzas are gone. They ran like fucking chicken shits. And after their last fuckup no one wants anything to do with them. There’s nothing to be worried about, baby.”
“So you’re one hundred percent sure Cameron and Dusty wouldn’t betray us if the Lanzas decided to come out of their holes and pull a favor, and by a favor I mean threatening that child?”
“They are Skulls, Jo, and one of them is a friend. For fuck’s sake they owe us their own lives. You know the code. So what’s this really about?”
Tell him. Tell him what it is all about. Tell him how you’ve been feeling lately. The reason your smiles are no longer genuine and even your favorite hobby can’t cheer you up. The reason you’re only pretending to be happy with nothing missing.
I pulled my legs away from him and dangled them down the couch. Then I shook my head, pushing everything aside, because I couldn’t be an ungrateful bitch. I couldn’t be that greedy, asking for more. Not after all he’d done for me.
“Hey, get your legs back here,” he said.
I stood. “I need the bathroom.”
