“Yeah,” he says. “I guess I am.”
“You stole your own brother’s identity?” I ask.
The guy shrugs. “It’s not like he was using it.”
“You lied to me,” Teagan says, her hands balling into fists. “You took my money, and you let me think my real dad was out there missing me. But you were right here the whole time. And you didn’t give a shit.”
“Now, that’s not true. I knew I’d try to look for you eventually, but if I’d tried any sooner, I would’ve had to pay child support—”
“You didn’t try at all. I found you, remember?” Teagan’s lip curls in disgust, fourteen years of pain written all over her face. My own heart cracks down the middle for her. I reach for her hand, but she shirks me.
Instead, she grabs an empty soda can and throws it at her dad.
“Hey, watch it,” he says.
“Fuck you!” She grabs an empty burger box and hurls it at him. She throws everything she can find. A TV remote, empty beer bottles, a desk clock, two pens. Her dad deflects a few items and winces as he gets pelted with the rest.
“Cut it out, you little bitch,” he shouts.
I pin him against the wall. “Now’d be a good time to exercise your right to remain silent.”
Teagan hurls herself at both of us. She reaches around me to hit her dad in the ribs, her mouth twisted into a snarl. I block his fist as he tries to slap her, wedging myself between them and pressing my forearm to his throat.
“Do not touch her,” I growl. He nods, clearly shaken.
I release Teagan’s dad and turn to catch her, just as she tries to slip around me. I’ve never seen her like this, lost to her anger. Totally out of control.
It’s like she can’t stop.
As much as I want to let her kick the shit out of her bastard father, I don’t want her to be here when the cops show up. Pinning her arms to her sides, I shush her softly and ease her down to a kneeling position on the floor. She starts to sob.
“It’s all right, sweetheart,” I whisper into her hair. “Daddy’s got you.”
After a few seconds, she goes limp in my arms. I rock her gently, back and forth. Eventually her sobs temper to whimpers and then silent tears. Once she’s back to being my little girl again, I lift her like a child and march toward the exit.
Pausing at the door, I turn to back her father and say, “Teagan isn’t your daughter. She never was. You will never see her again.”
A police cruiser pulls into the hotel’s parking lot just as we’re pulling out. Teagan sits still as a statue, staring out the window the whole ride home. In the driveway, I shut off the engine and reach across the console to squeeze her thigh.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that, Teagan.”
She doesn’t say anything right away.
“I’m such a fucking idiot,” she mumbles. “My dad never cared about me. He never wanted to see me. He never...” She rubs her reddened eyes. “Nobody ever wanted me.”
“I want you, angel. This doesn’t change anything. I’m still here. I’m still your family.”
“Yeah, for how long? I heard what Mary said the night I came to your house. You didn’t want me there.”
“No, that’s not...” I shake my head, wracking my brain to recall a conversation that feels like it took place a lifetime ago. “I didn’t know you then—”
“You didn’t have to. You knew I was bad news, just like you knew my uncle—or my dad, or whatever the hell he is—wasn’t telling the truth.” She wraps her arms around her bent legs. “Why did you ask Cal to look into him?”
“I just had a feeling” I say. “Cop’s intuition.”
“In other words, you took one look at him and made an assumption. You assumed he was up to something shady because of the kind of person he is. Guess what. Those are my people, Jonah. I come from them. Their flaws are my flaws.”
“Angel, you are nothing like your parents.”
“I’m exactly like them. You saw it for yourself. I don’t belong here. I never should’ve come to stay with you.”
Her words pierce through me like a bullet. Not because they’re true—‘cause they’re not—but because she believes them, and she’s using those beliefs to abuse herself. She’s only pushing me away because it’s what she thinks she deserves, because she doesn’t think she deserves the kind of life I can give her.
“You’re right,” I say. “When Mary first asked me to take you in, I was reluctant. I made an assumption. I was tired and bitter and I didn’t know you, Teagan. But now that I do, I realize how wrong I was to think that way. I was wrong to assume those things about you.”