“Only for two more weeks,” Bram said. “Then you’ll be back here.”
The hard edge to his voice said there was no room for argument, so I didn’t say anything, but he must have picked up on all the things I left unsaid because when he spoke again, his voice sounded more worried than mad.
“Youarecoming back here when your ninety days are up, right Cass?”
“Yes,” I said. “I mean. probably.”
He folded his arms over the mountain of his chest. “Probably?”
“I don’t know!” I said. “I don’t know what I want.”
That part was a lie. I knew exactly what I wanted.
Them. The Hawks.
But it was easier to lie than to admit it out loud, especially to Bram.
“Well you’re not staying with them,” he said. “That’s out of the question.”
Now I was the one folding my arms over my chest. “I’m an adult.”
His jaw tightened and his face got red, like he was a cartoon steam engine about to blow. “You have no idea the shit they’re mixed up in, Cass.”
I stared him down. “Maybe you should start by telling me the shit you’re mixed up in.”
I knew. I mean, I’d heard the rumors. But I’d left it alone because Bram wanted me to leave it alone.
Except now he was all up in my business, and that made his business fair game.
He rolled his shoulders, like he was trying to control himself and strode across the room. “We’ll talk about this another time.” He opened the door and turned to look at me. “But Cass, if you think I’m going to let you stay with those psychotic fuckers, you’ve got another think coming.”
He slammed the door behind him, leaving me standing in my living room, alone and surrounded by our dead parents’ things.
36
VIGO
I hated to admit it,but I was nervous as fuck for Cassie to come home, and I crumbled Oreos into my cup, filling it to the brim even though I knew all the sugar was probably the last thing I needed.
“You’re going to have diabetes by the time you’re thirty-five,” Hawk said, without looking up from his computer at the kitchen island.
“At least I’ll die a happy man,” I said, pouring milk slowly into the glass, letting it fill all the cracks and crevices left by the crumbled Oreos.
“She just pulled up,” Jagger said, striding into the kitchen. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
I took a bite of Oreos and milk. “You were the one who argued yes.”
We’d been arguing about how much to tell Cassie all day. To say we were surprised Dimitri Kaprolov had attended Aventine — that he’d mentored the guy who’d kidnapped Maeve last year — would be an understatement.
That meant that Bram already knew about Kaprolov, although maybe not about Kaprolov’s possible connection to thesex trafficking ring that had been operating around Blackwell Falls.
“I know,” Jagger said as the door opened at the front of the house. “But I’m second-guessing.”
“We’re not keeping shit from her,” Hawk said. “Bram does more than enough of that.”
Hawk was right. If what the Kings said was true — and there was no reason to think it wasn’t — Bram hadn’t told Cassie shit about what had happened with Maeve last year.
Not the details anyway.
