“Devlin,” calls a trilling voice from his back porch, which is just across a small stretch of gravel. “Tootle-oo. You’re home early. Why don’t you come inside, darling?”
Devlin curses, holding out a hand to stop me when I try to sit. “Stay in the car until I get inside,” he says. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t see you.”
He hops out of the car without opening the door, and I lie there, my heart hammering as I listen to his footsteps crunch across the gravel drive to his house.
Shit. His mother was home the whole time. And we’re just parked in the driveway with the top down, fucking like bunnies, out in the open where anyone could see us. Hell, someone on the top floor of my house could see us. Thank god my brothers are all at school. Still, I can’t help but cringe at the thought that his mother might have heard me. She probably knows exactly what he was doing. But she doesn’t know who he was doing it with, and he obviously wants to keep it that way.
Well, that wasn’t the goodbye I wanted. But then, if I’m honest with myself, there’s never going to be a good way to say goodbye to Devlin. The truth is, I don’t want to say goodbye. I want the impossible. Something that can never happen.
When he’s gone, I put myself together as best as I can and climb out of the car, running across the lawn to our house and creeping in the back door like a thief into my own home. I’m halfway up the stairs when Daddy appears at the top.
Shit shit shit.
“Crystal,” he says, coming down a few steps until he’s almost even with me. “What are you doing home so early?”
“I… Don’t feel good,” I say, trying to calm my racing thoughts. I’m not sure what to do, or how long he’s been home, and oh my god, if he heard me, or looked out the window and saw us, I’ll just die. “And I was going to practice my cheer for tonight.”
“Oh,” he says. “Well, why don’t you go lie down for a while?”
Is he acting weird? I can’t tell. My panic is raging too hard to know if it’s him or my own paranoia.
“Okay,” I say, taking another step up. “Why are you home?”
“Construction’s been halted while they investigate the murder,” he says. “But they’ve found some new evidence, and I think they have a pretty good idea of who’s behind the attacks. It’s just a matter of making an arrest.”
“What attacks?” I ask, barely able to breathe through the tightness gripping my chest and throat.
“A couple more of our guys were attacked this week,” Daddy says. “And there’s one person who wants the construction of my new operation stopped. One person who benefits most if they succeed.”
I know who he means. Preston Darling’s father disputed Daddy’s claim on that land.
But I also know what I heard at dinner after they found a guy murdered at the site. I know how my sweet old granddad laughed in a way I’d never heard before after basically confessing. He must have fooled the detective since they let him go home. I’m not surprised. He’s fooled me all my life. And I’m betting it’s not the first time he’s lied to the police, either.
Suddenly, I feel a little bad for Preston. He has no idea what’s coming his way. My family, they don’t play around. No, they go straight for the murder-and-frame-the-enemy approach.
My father starts down the steps, and I turn to watch him descend past me. I see him as a stranger might—the broad shoulders, dark hair, and olive skin; the good looks he passed on to my brothers. He’s the same man he’s always been, the man who coddled and sheltered me from the truth all those years. But now that I know what he was doing, something has changed. He’s not my daddy anymore, the man whose attention and approval I crave above all else. The man whose time I sought so desperately, as if I had to prove myself worthy of my own father’s love.
He’s not the one who’s changed. I am.
“Dad,” I say, feeling the funny way the word stops on my tongue when I don’t add the last syllable, as I always have.
“Yeah, sweetheart?” he asks, stopping at the bottom of the stairs and turning to look up at me, a hand on the railing and a foot on the hardwood floor, already halfway gone.
“How involved are we, exactly?” I ask. “With the families, I mean. King told me who Mom is. Who her uncle is.” What is a parent’s uncle, really? Most people probably never even meet their parents’ uncles and cousins. It’s possible that Mom left the life when she married Dad, an outsider.
“If you’re thinking I’m some kind of gangster, I’m not,” Dad says. “I’m not a member of any family but my own.”
“Oh,” I say, letting out a small, relieved laugh. “But… Then why is King going to work for the Valentis?”
“You know, you’re a real smart kid,” he says. “You and your brother both. I tried to keep you out of it. Thought maybe you could go to college like the other rich kids do these days.”
“Uncle Vinny went to law school,” I point out.
“That’s true,” Dad says. “You know, it’s hard to keep secrets in your own house. As you kids got older, you overheard things. Maybe it was inevitable that you’d all want to dip your toes in the life. And once you dip your toes in the concrete, Crystal, it’s hard not to sink in.”
“I thought you said you weren’t in it.”
Dad squints at me like he’s trying to decide how much to tell. “I’m not a made guy,” he says. “Uncle Al thought I was better positioned where I am. He was happy to get your mother out of any kind of direct danger, but he wanted to keep her close enough to keep an eye on her.”