Isabella frowned harder. “Daddy can’t come with us? Live with Fluffy and Jessie?”
“No, Bug, Daddy can’t live with us.” Katarina didn’t want to mention that, if she had anything to do about it, that Gill would never see her again. As hard as it would be for her to understand, it wasn’t safe. Even if Gill loved her, even if Gill never purposely put a hand on Isabella…Katarina couldn’t risk him trying to use her to get back at his ex-wife. If he so much as whispered a mean comment into her child’s ear, she might explode. Isabella was too vulnerable at this age, too fragile.
I won’t let him poison you like he poisoned me.
“Why not?” Isabella whimpered, tears welling in her eyes.
“Daddy made bad choices. Bad choices that hurt Momma. When you make bad choices, you have to face consequences. And, remember, you said I’m happy now, and I am.” Katarina scooped her child off the counter and hoped beyond hope that she wouldn’t ask why again.Please, I know it’s a lot to expect from you when the world is still so big and so many things don’t make sense, but please know I’m doing this to protect you.
“Where is he?” She looked away, sniffling hard.
Katarina cringed as she clutched her child close.I can’t lie to you, it’ll only hurt you.Katarina thought about what would happen if she let Bella hate Gill. But there was an awful pit in her stomach that rolled around like limestone, sizzling and burning away her stomach lining at the thought.Gill would…but I can’t?She hated it so much that she settled on the easy, factual truth. “Bella…Daddy is in jail.”
“Why?” Isabella clung to Katarina’s shirt.
“Because Daddy did something he wasn’t supposed to, something very bad and mean, and he hurt Momma. When youdo those things, you go to jail. You remember what he did to the car?” Her daughter nodded softly before she stuffed her face into Katarina’s collarbone. Katarina hummed a soft lullaby in hopes of soothing the pain.I won’t poison you against him, but I won’t let him hurt you. I will bear this burden because you’re too small. You’re still too soft, my little ladybug.
Isabella rubbed her nose into Katarina’s shirt, soft sniffles filling the hallway as they walked into Jessie’s old room again. It was a small, cozy four walls with a queen-sized bed, a singular dresser, and a wall of old car posters taped up. There were even twice as many polaroid photos of cars at the shop like he was keeping trophies of cars he worked on. She did, however, see on the dresser a bunch of other photos taped down to the top like a collage. Images of Nik and Jessie at the shop growing up, of Elliot at the field, of Rex on crutches, and so many lopsided photos of a minotaur at the bottom of the frame and someone awkwardly standing behind them. It warmed her chest to see the kind of childhood Jessie had…despite the whole crime family part.
When she glanced around for some sort of change of topic, she saw the large stuffed orc, in some sort of paladin dress blues, sat on the bed with a giant captain’s hat on his head. “Captain Goobers, I presume.”
“Captain goob…ers?” Isabella picked up her head from Katarina’s shoulder and gasped. “Captain!”
“Yeah, you wanna sleep with Captain tonight?”
“Where Barnibus?” Isabella glanced around.Think fast.Katarina chuckled, setting her kid on the comforter.
“Barnibus is protecting our house while the boys are out working and we’re having a sleep over.” Katarina pulled back the blanket, letting Isabella roll underneath. She took up Captain Goober with her, only to hold him up above her with a broad smile.
“Captain protects this house,” she giggled, snuggling down into the bed. Katarina went about her routine of turning out the lights, closing the door, checking her phone, and then convincingherself to lie down. Only, after a minute, out of sheer curiosity, she pulled open the browser on her phone. She typed inCaptain Gooberand snickered to herself when she saw the headline.
Captain Good Bear, the main character in a popular King’s Fall afterschool television show. An orc Paladin who swore an oath to protect all the citizens of the magical kingdom of Finkleberg and saves the day with the power of friendship.
She glanced at Isabella, then took a screenshot of what she found.I’m gonna give him so much shit for this.
Chapter Twenty-two:
~Jessie~
“Whoa,buddy…whofuckedupBobby’s house?” Rex blurted out as Jessie pulled off to the side of the road, down the street and across the concrete from Big Bobby’s house. Even from three houses down, he could tell someone ransacked the place.
“Damn,” Jessie huffed as he threw himself out the driver door. Nik climbed out before letting Rex out from the backseat of his truck. The cabin wasn’t big enough for four doors, but Rex was small enough to fit comfortably in the back.
The three dropped to the quiet, darkened concrete as they stared at Bobby’s house. The front windows were busted out with nighttime air making his curtains dance in front of the house like a ghost. With his door and garage left open, Jessie knew for a fact there wasn’t a single valuable left in that house. Not to mention all the lights were snuffed, though he wasn’t sure how that happened yet. They crept up along the sidewalk till they stood across the street from it.
“What do you think happened?” Rex murmured, checking up and down the street before jogging across the dead-end road. Jessie didn’t check, didn’t have to—there wasn’t another soul on that end of the road. Nothing but trees and gravel past Bobby’s driveway, and beyond that, nothingness till the edge of King’s Fall. Jessie sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. Nik walked in step with him, shoulders tense.
“I don’t like this,” Nik growled.
“Me either.” Jessie shook his head as he spun around in a circle in Bobby’s front yard.This couldn’t have been Fridge, could it? This isn’t his style.The yard was relatively fine, despite the small shards of glass near the windows and the footprints all over the walkway leading up into the house. Jessie could see from where he stood that the garage was empty, but the busted bumper lay in the middle of it. “Nik, walk the outside. Rex? You’re with me.”
Nik nodded, silently slinking into the inky black of night as Jessie pulled his flashlight out of his back pocket.I brought this because I intended to cut the fucker’s lights off…seems like someone beat me to the punch.Jessie handed it to Rex and the pair walked tentatively over the crunchy window glass into the open doorway. Bobby’s house was a two-bedroom, one-story, concrete rectangle. The walls were covered in store bought art in frames to look fancy, but Jessie knew that reprint art anywhere. They had that exact same canvas reprint of a car over their couch at the townhouse.
But his attention was on the couch. Someone took a knife and ripped open each cushion before digging into the springs. Then they ripped out all the drawers in his stereo cabinet, leaving the moderately-aged tech lying on the ground. Jessie stepped to the side to investigate the kitchen. The cabinets were all the same—open and ransacked.
“Whoever was here was looking for something,” Jessie muttered. He put a hand to his brother’s arm and manually aimed Rex’s light beam across the room. Every vent, every cushion, every door, all ripped open and dug through.What happened?
"Jessie?” Rex tip-hooved across the floor till he was at the hallway, looking into the first bedroom. “What do you think Bobby was hiding?”
