Page 233 of Midnight Curfew

Motherfucker. “He’s not going to hurt me,” I tell her.

“Would you come back to my bed?” he goes on. “If I promised to leave him alone and leave everyone in the Bay alone? If I promised that all of St. Carmen would leave them alone and all you had to do was come back into the Den?”

“Sophia…”

“Would you come play again if it meant Callum and all your new friends are safe?”

“He’s lying!” I tell her. “Ignore him.”

But she lifts her head, looking like she might speak. Like she wants to protect me so much.

He smiles. “The pussy can get stretched out,” he tells me. “After enough activity, it never regains its former glory. The ass, though?”

My stomach rolls, his vile words fucking with my head.

He nods. “But of course, you know that the ass always stays tight.”

He will never have her in his grasp again, and he can threaten me all he wants. He’s not getting the treasure from Sanoa Bay. I never liked him much, but I had no idea of the lengths of his imagination. I guess he was waiting for me to be a man. He thought I’d join in on his depravity.

He closes the distance between us. “What would happen to her if you were sent to cool off and think about your choices in a jail somewhere?” He cocks his head. “I know I could get her to snap out of this. Take her shopping for some pretty clothes.” He turns his head toward her. “You remember how I liked you in pretty panties.”

I launch for him, but he reaches behind and pulls out one of our firearms. Letting it dangle at his side, he doesn’t point it at me.

Yet.

“You wouldn’t be here to protect her,” he continues. “Or him. Or them.” He nods, condescending to me. “Work with me, son. You know I can go over there right now and get away with it if someone happens to disappear. There’s no way I’m letting that amount of money remain in their hands.” He tips his chin down, eyeing me sternly. “How much damage are you willing to watch me do?”

It’s funny. Even now, he speaks to me as if he’s still teaching me things.

He’s right, though. It wouldn’t get national attention if someone in the Bay disappeared. Maybe one of us, but not one of them.

“Let’s go,” he says.

I hold out my hand to Anna-Katherine, and she runs over, both of us holding tight as he follows us out of the Ministry office.

“To Jaeger’s classroom to get her things,” he instructs. “No trail left behind.”

We descend the stairs, and I put my arm around my sister, trying to shield her as much as possible.

“All kids have dreams of doing better than their parents,” my father says. “But you’ll be just like me.”

I definitely showed signs over the past several years, didn’t I?

But I won’t be him, and it’s hard not to believe Dallas is the difference. He doesn’t fit the world I grew up in, but he doesn’t seem to give a shit. He’ll make them fit him, and I’m looking forward to it all.

I won’t let my father take any of it away.

“And St. Carmen will never change,” he drones on, “because it works the way it is.”

I look forward to changing it, and I honestly hope he lives to see it.

“Mr. Ames?” a voice calls out.

We stop, halfway down the corridor to Dallas’s classroom, Officer Grady standing at the end of the hall. The leaves of the trees in the courtyard blow in the breeze sweeping through the roof, a crack of thunder rolling in the distance.

Grady approaches, his hand resting on the hilt of his firearm. “What’s happening?” he asks.

He creeps closer, his gaze surveying Anna-Katherine and me, and then it flies to the weapon in my father’s hand, at his side.