I never would’ve thought, on a day like the day I’ve just had, during theweekI’ve just had, that I would still be capable of fuckingblushing.
But here I am, blushing like a teenager now that my dad’s calling out my crush on my stepbrother.
“Well, I—” I sputter. “That was a long time ago.”
“He’d make a good father to Bruiser. Helluva lot better than that asshole Z. You could go up to Dallas and stay with him while you’re trying to figure things out. I bet he’d welcome you in.”
“Dad! Focus.” I snap my fingers in front of the glass, cheeks still hot. “Will you call your lawyer to draw up the papers or not?”
But Silas just does that thing he does sometimes. That thing where he goes real still, staring at you. Then his gaze shifts to something over my shoulder.
I frown, turning to look, but there’s no one. Just the same guard who brought me in.
“I’ll call my lawyer,” Silas says, leaning forward toward the glass, phone gripped loosely in his hand.
“But only if you promise me one thing,” he says, his voice barely a whisper in my ear through the line.
I mirror his pose, getting close to the glass. “What?”
His steel-gray eyes pierce mine. “You promise me that you’ll pick up that grandson of mine as soon as you leave here. And then yourun. You fuckin’ promise me? Yourun.”
Which is when I realize I haven’t been pullingshitover on Silas.
He’s seen beneath my paltry attempts at hiding the truth.
He knows someone’s after him—or his property—for some reason. And he knows I’m in danger. He’s right, too. Even if I do exactly whatever the men behind Z’s threats want me to do.
I’m not safe.
And neither is Bruiser.
I realize it now by the hard seriousness in his gaze. Whatever’s going on here, Silas has some insight into it, and we’re not safe even now that I’ve done this “favor.”
Fuck.
“Too close to the glass!” the guard comes over and bangs on the glass with his bully stick, making me jump back. Silas’s eyes hold mine.
Well,fuckity fuckfuck!
Was the guard listening to everything we said the whole time? Does he work for whoever Z does? Z said thattheyhad Silas’s ownlawyerin their pocket.
Just what the hell are me and Bruiser entangled with here? What did Z land us in? And what the hell could it have to do with Silas, too?
I push back in my chair, barely hearing Dad say, “Love you, kid,” into the receiver before I nod, too in shock to say anything back.
“Love you, too,” I say, even though he can’t hear it. He’s still watching me, though, and I think he saw me mouth it back.
Then the guard on his side of the glass is hauling him up out of the chair and dragging him back toward the cell block.
SEVENTEEN
CALEB
The sunlight is especiallygolden when I wake this morning, and by the time I’m in my Jeep on I-35 headed down toward Waco, the sky has painted itself in colors that make me think maybe the universe is finally rewarding all my long-suffering patience.
I’ve been floating somewhere above the ground ever since Harper visited two days ago.
She hasn’t called or texted, but I have her number written down in three different places because that felt like the right amount of backups. She told me where she lives and promised to come back, and we’ve cleared up all the misunderstandings of the past.