Page 61 of Wicked Brutal

“Maybe.” But Ally doesn’t sound convinced. Neither am I.

Tobias looks up. “Mom said Cassandra was safe.”

The entire room goes quiet. Not because Tobias understands what he just said. Because the rest of us do.

Ally looks at him. “What?”

He keeps working on the string. “When she was on the phone. She said she needed somebody safe until you got out of school.”

Mom’s face changes. “She said that?”

“Yeah.” He glances up. “You’re safe.”

Mom doesn’t answer immediately. Then she smiles. “Yeah, buddy. You’re safe here.”

“Okay.” And that’s it for him. Back to the leprechaun.

Ally looks at me. One crack. Maybe two.

Arthur arrives twenty minutes later. He wasn’t supposed to — Dad called him after Mom told us what Jane said. Now we’re in the study while Tobias is in the kitchen with my mother, decorating the trap with approximately six pounds of glitter.

Ally sits beside me on the couch. Dad takes the chair across from us. Arthur stays standing for a minute, reading something Dad handed him. “Jane asking Cassandra to watch Tobias is useful context,” he says eventually, “but I don’t want anyone turning it into more than it is.”

Ally nods. “I know.”

“If she is beginning to make decisions independently of Roman, that’s good. If she’s beginning to recognize that Tobias needs people outside their home whom she considers safe, that’s also good.”

“But?” I ask.

Arthur looks at me. “But Jane is still his mother.”

I already know where this is going. I still fucking hate it.

Arthur sits. “Let’s separate Ally from Tobias for a minute.” He looks at Ally. “You are eighteen. Legally, you can leave Roman’s house whenever you want.” She nods. “He cannot force you to marry Tremblay. He cannot force you to live with him. If you decided tonight that you were staying with the Harringtons, you could.”

“But Tobias can’t.”

“No.” Her fingers tighten around mine. “Tobias is six. Roman and Jane are his legal parents. Right now there is no custody order, no guardianship order, and no court finding that removes him from their care.”

“What if Mom lets me take him?”

“That’s different.” Hope moves across Ally’s face, and Arthur immediately tempers it. “But I would want that consent documented, and even then Roman remains Tobias’s father. Jane cannot simply erase his parental rights.”

“What happens if Ally leaves with Tobias anyway?” I ask.

Dad’s jaw tightens. Arthur looks between us. “Roman reports him missing.”

Ally goes very still. “He’d do that.”

“Yes,” I say.

Arthur nods. “He could also claim Ally is withholding his minor child. He could ask law enforcement to return Tobias. Depending on what happened and where she took him, he could attempt to make the situation significantly uglier.”

“Kidnapping,” Ally says quietly.

“That’s the word Roman might use.”

I fucking hate the way she looks when he says it. I turn toward her. “You taking your brother somewhere safe isn’t fucking kidnapping.”