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And that, and not what I looked like, was what was important.
I finally got dressed, though I grimaced at the T-shirt and jeans that had seen better days, to say nothing of the sneakers that I’d owned since my freshman year of college.
Reminded myself yet again that those things didn’t matter, either.
After a quick brunch of oatmeal, eight-minute eggs, and coffee, I finally left the apartment.
I made my way to the garage and walked up to one of the line of SUVs parked neatly in a row. I got into the SUV, found the key in the driver’s side visor, and was leaving the garage a minute later.
Security had no doubt seen me, but no one had questioned me about what I was doing.
I wonder what that meant. Wondered if it meant anything at all.
Was it good that I was so comfortable with this crime family that I thought nothing of taking one of their vehicles?
Was it good that this crime family was so comfortable with me that none the men questioned my actions?
I didn’t know the answer to those questions.
Didn’t know much of anything at all, except what I was doing this for.
Which was why I was going where I was going.
The drive was nice.
Outside of Elias’s building, I felt like I could breathe.
It was an illusion.
I was driving a car I’d never be able to afford and knew that if Elias called, I’d go running to do his bidding.
But those truths aside, I felt…good. Felt almost like myself, a person I was always terrified I’d lose.
A half-hour drive later, I pulled to a stop in front of my father’s garage.
I’d grown up here, remembered the day he’d bought it. I’d been a little girl not so impressed with the eight overgrown acres that had previously held a vehicle salvage yard.
But my father had looked at me and smiled. Said I might see scrap metal and rotting tires, but this place was the beginning, was proof of the legacy he was building for his family.
All these years later, I could still remember his face, how proud he was, how much love had shone in his eyes.
I’d felt that love too, for my father, and by extension for this place. And even back then, I had sworn I would take care of it.
This trip was exactly what I needed.
However I felt or didn’t feel about Elias was meaningless.
All that mattered was my father, making sure he and his dream stayed alive, and that meant ensuring the debt was repaid.
That was all that mattered and all I would focus on.
I drove through the gates and parked outside of the single-wide trailer that had been my father’s office for years. So much around here had changed, but that little trailer still sat like an emblem of the past.
As I opened the door, my father walked out of the trailer and down the three rickety wooden stairs. “Kayla?” he said.
He took off his tattered ball cap and then put it back on, and I smiled as he walked toward me.
He was not quite six feet tall but a burly bear of man. The gray at his temples and in his beard gave away his age, but he was still strong and sturdy with a spring in his step. And like always, he was dressed in his steel-toed boots, jeans, and T-shirt. When the weather turned, he’d add a flannel shirt, and I could count on my fingers the number of times I’d seen him in anything else.
