Page 42 of Fueled Hate

Moving to the chair beside him, I plop down, not taking my angry scowl off of him. I know he’s not going to answer my questions, he never does, but this is crossing the line. Again. Is there nowhere off-limits to Dylan? I doubt he thinks so.

Slightly shifting, he reaches into his pocket, pulls out a phone then hands it to me. “Thought you might want this back.”

My phone. The son of a bitch had my phone. Wait. “You took this last night. Were you in my room? How long were you in my house?”

No answer.

Big fucking shocker. “I’m done with this game.”

“Okay,” he says nonchalantly.

“‘Okay’? That’s it?” Too easy. Nothing is ever easy with Dylan.

“Sure.” Dylan makes a dramatic move of looking around the outdated office. “How’s the local PD around here? They big on stopping drug smuggling?”

That’s all he had to do, and he knows it. Even if I don’t buy his stupid threats about harming my dad or Levi, he knows I don’t want to just hand my dad over to the authorities. I need to know what’s going on, and the police won’t be willing to listen. And I’m hoping my dad would have some excuse for them to listen to, like he’s being forced or something, anything.

“You really are a vile human being.” I avoid looking at him while I try to search through my phone. It’s no use. I can’t focus on anything other than the cause of my current torment.

“I’ve been called worse on a good day.”

“Rightfully so, I’m sure.”

The office seems to get smaller and smaller as the heavy silence continues until my dad steps in the doorway. “There’re a few fires I need to put out, so we’ll have to continue this later.”

Rising from his seat, Dylan extends his arm and shakes my dad’s hand. “It was nice to meet you, sir.”

Ugh. He really puts on a damn good show.

“It was nice meeting you too.” Dad’s gaze lingers on Dylan before turning to me. “I’ll see you back at the house when I get off work.”

“Okay,” I agree against my better judgment. Getting back to school and away from here would be the wiser decision but I can’t leave with things so out of sorts with both Dad and Levi.

“Are you heading back to school, Dylan?” Dad asks.

“No sir. Sadie offered to give me a tour of Staffordsville and invited me for supper, so I’ll be hanging around for a while.”

Dad gives me a disapproving look before glancing over to Dylan and back to me, “Are you sure? Doc said you needed a few days to rest.”

“Um. Yes. He won’t be here that long.” In Staffordsville or my life.

“Don’t worry, Frank. I’ll make sure she takes it easy.”

“All right.” Dad doesn’t look any happier with Dylan’s response than he did with mine, but Dylan, of course, keeps his charming smile in place. He has to see how Dad is reacting to him. Or maybe he doesn’t. He doesn’t know my dad like I do, because if he did, he’d know the man we saw last night couldn’t have been acting of his own free will; something made him do it.

Quickly, I tell Dad bye before I get more questioning looks, and we walk out through the garage bay area and into the parking lot. I’m unable to bite my tongue any longer. I swing around, finding Dylan following me with a triumphant smile fully intact. “Show’s over. You proved your point. Go home.”

“When are you gonna realize I’m not going anywhere? No matter where you are, what you do, I’ll be a part of it.” Dylan’s voice rubs every raw nerve in my body. I’ve more than realized he is impossible to get rid of.

“Hey, Sadie. Everything okay over here?” Mr. George asks, coming to stand beside me as he eyes Dylan.

“Yes, we’re just leaving,” I say, hoping to avoid Mr. George’s curious gaze. He would be harder to fool than my dad being that he actually pays attention. Dad just sees a hormonal male and wants him away from his daughter, except Kyle. Dad has always seemed to like Kyle. Now I know why.

“Remember what I said, Dylan.” Mr. George points to Dylan, holding up his index finger at him. “Take good care of my Sadie girl. If anyone messes with her, you have my permission to whoop their tail.”

Um. What? “Y’all know each other?”

“Oh, yeah. Dylan chatted with me earlier when I was taking a look at his car,” Mr. George says before joking with Dylan about coming back soon so they can finish their chat about his 1955 Bel Air restoration project.