Then the first door buzzes open and clangs shut behind me. Something animal in my chest responds to that sound in a way I don’t like. Something that says:Wrong side. You’re on the wrong side of that door now.
The corridor beyond is concrete block painted the color of old teeth, dirty along the baseboards where the mops reach just so far and no farther. The smell is industrial cleaner on top, like you can tell they’retrying. But underneath is a smell so foul that no amount of Pine-Sol is ever going to touch it.
I follow a guard down the hall on autopilot, my shoes squeaking on the floor. The Pop-Tarts sit like a rock in my empty stomach.
And then I’m sitting down at a visiting window, picking up a telephone receiver, and watching my father’s face light up the way it always does when he sees me through the scratched plexiglass.
“How’s the chip off the old block?” Silas asks, exactly the same way he usually starts all our visits together.
But I’m not here for fucking pleasantries or to bond over Bruiser.
I look Silas in the eye.
“Dad, I need you to show up for me one last time. I need you to give me the deed to the Dungeon so I can sell it.”
Silas’s entire demeanor changes, shoulders going stiff.
I lean forward, fingers clenching the phone as I stare through the glass at him. “Yourgrandsonneeds the money. I’ll never ask anything else of you again, and you know I wouldn’t ask this if there was any other way.”
Another long silence before he finally speaks. “Has somebody approached you?”
“What?” I shake my head like I’m confused. I always was a good liar—that tends to happen when you grow up with anarcissist for a mother and an ex-con father—and I try to draw on all my skills now.
“No, it’s just that we got overextended.” I sigh and rub my temples. “Like last time with the business.”
“Last time Z got into gambling debt.” Silas’s voice goes hard. “Is that what happened again?”
I breathe out heavily and drop my face into my hands. Z didn’t explicitly say to hide his involvement. And this is the most believable excuse without me pointing to the gang or whatever MC he might be involved with.
“Yes. I’m leaving him this time. For real. Believe me, we are never getting back together.Ever.”
Silas’s eyes narrow. He can tell something’s off with me, but he can also clearly hear the truth of that statement, at least. That’s always the important part of telling the most convincing lies—mix in a little bit of truth.
“I just need this from you so I can leave him—” I stop on a small choke, then pull back. I don’t want to oversell it. Silas knows I’m not an overly emotional person.
So I simply reach out and press my palm flat against the glass. “I never wanted Bruiser to have anything to do with…” I let my eyes dance around the cold concrete walls around us. “… any ugliness.”
It’s cruel to remind Dad of my childhood, especially after the sacrifice he made for me that put him behind these walls for the last ten years.
But I’m not above any form of manipulation when it comes to my son. My gaze drifts down to the counter and I let my hand drop.
“Knew that boy Z was no good for ya,” Silas growls. “From the beginning. Still, not glad to find out I was right.”
I lift my eyes back to Dad’s. “So you’ll help? You’ll sign over the deed to the Dungeon?”
Silas tilts his head and squints at me. “You finding out all this about Zedekiah what got you looking like you just went ten rounds in the ring with a demon from hell?”
I lick my still-dry lips and quash the impulse to lift my hand and run it through my hair. I probably do look like hell. I didn’t think about that. I was so determined to get in here and meet Z’s demands so he’ll reunite me with my son, I didn’t bother with a shower.
I try for a wan smile. “It’s been a rough forty-eight hours, that’s for sure. Discovering that the man you’ve loved since you were a kid is a liar will do that to a girl.”
“Always thought you and Caleb woulda been a better fit.”
I’m pretty sure I choke. Or make some other incoherent noise.
“Helen always thought so, too, before she died. I told her it was too odd, cause you were his stepsister. But she always said that wouldn’t be for long, and that you’d been pretty much grown by the time you moved in.”
Dad squares me with his gaze. “She said she could see how you looked at him.”