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“I’m going with you,” she signed, her mouth set in a firm line.
Fine. I nodded.
We walked over to the shade, and I went to the number that she’d texted and called it.
“Briar,” she answered on the first ring.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Thank God that worked.” She let out a breath.
“You have me completely freaked out. What is this about?”
“Where are you?”
“Outside the grocery store,” I replied.
“Is Storm with you?”
“No,” I bit out, growing more panicked by the second.
“There’s a prospect with The Judgment. He went to high school with Storm, and Storm has used him in some of the underworld shit they do. Anyway, Storm got the guy into The Judgment prospects as payment for something he had him do.
“The guy, Marty, he came in last night, and he’d already been drinking when he got here, but he had several more. Then, he started talking about the band onstage and asked me if I missed you. He went on, slurring and saying Storm was obsessed with you and you’d be living with the Mafia and wouldn’t be coming back.” She paused and took a deep breath.
“But then he said some other things. Briar, Storm had him take all your money out of your car and give it to him. He had him go through your car and get out anything of value. He said that Storm had every move you made monitored. As in cameras all in that house and your vehicle. And … it was Marty who shot at y’all in his Jeep. Storm had him do it. It was part of his plan to get you to go with him. I know Marty was drunk and rambling, but he wouldn’t lie about someone like Storm.
“I had to call my brother because if Marty remembers he told me, he’ll probably try and kill me to keep my mouth shut. The Judgment have him locked up right now. I don’t know what Liam—the president of the Judgment—is gonna do about this. Or what he will do to Marty. They’re loyal to the family, not some prospect, but it’s you I’m worried about.”
I said nothing as I stood there, trying to make sense of all this.
“Briar?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m just … I don’t understand. Why would he have someone shoot at us and take my money?”
“So you felt dependent on him. He wanted you vulnerable,” she said in a wary voice. “He was making you think he was the one who saved you. It was all a plan. A really fucking twisted one.”
Oh my God. How many more things was he lying to me about? I had overlooked the one about Bash and the bar, but I couldn’t just act like all this wasn’t true or forget it. All the lies. And for what? He wanted me that bad? I was in love with him, but as I stood under the shade in the parking lot of a grocery store, I realized that love didn’t overcome everything. Did he even love me? Was he even loyal to me? Was I just some possession he wanted to own?
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I … I don’t know,” I said honestly.
This was so much worse than video cameras. I didn’t know what was real anymore. If we were real. If it was ever real. He’d hated me so much, and then one day, he hadn’t. It had switched so quickly. I should have questioned it more. Not fallen in headfirst.
“He-he got me custody of Dovie,” I said as all he’d done for me ticked off in my head.
“Is that the fifteen-year-old you needed a new identity for?”
I realized she still didn’t know about Dovie. “Yes,” I replied.
“Is that whose number I texted?”
“Yes, and how did you even get her number?” I asked.
“My brother had a hacker find out all the cell numbers connected to your name. He said that at a meeting he was in, he heard Huck say Storm wouldn’t want to leave the state with his woman and her kid sister living with him now.”
My gaze met Dovie’s, and the understanding that this was over was in her eyes. I should have known better. Fairy tales weren’t real. I’d let us both believe in one because I wanted it … him so much. He had consumed me.
“I’ll come get you,” she said.
Leave. How could I go? But how could I stay? He’d wanted to own me. Control me. And I was afraid he might have succeeded.
“I don’t want you involved in this. I need to think,” I told her.
“He’ll know about this soon. Liam will go to Blaise about Marty.”
“I can’t just run. I have to face him with this.”
“He’s dangerous, but in his own messed up way, he wanted you so damn bad that he did fucked-up shit. I don’t think he will hurt you, but I’ll be honest here, I’m worried he will do something like lock you in his room to keep you. There isn’t some weird, locked room in his house, is there? This might be some psycho shit he’s done before.”
