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“Again. I said I don’t know what’s in it.”
The short, snappy answers are driving Silas that much quicker to Lorna-level insanity. I’ve never been one to side with Silas and I never will, but I can’t decide if she’s being vague to upset him or honestly doesn’t know.
Silas’s mouth is open, ready to spew out whatever else he wants to know, but then it’s snapped closed at Sgt. Daniels’s murderous glare. It’s nice to see at least one man showing respect toward his wife.
His tone is less harsh. Barely.
“Why did Camellia give you that?” he says, trying again.
Sarah’s smile turns sad, and it’s confusing.
Eli takes a gentle step toward his mother, but she raises a hand to stop him and he backs off.
“Camellia’s the entire reason we moved back here. Made me an offer I couldn’t refuse—ourfamily couldn’t refuse,” she corrects, sounding choked up. Briefly, her gaze connects with her husband. “And in exchange, all I had to do was hold on to this for her.”
Iceman lifts a finger. “Abram, did you know about this?”
“Our previous head of security was getting close to the age of not being able to perform at our standards. By the time he did retire, another was lined up, preapproved by the board.”
So, Sgt. Daniels had been set in place? For how long, how many years?
“You said you were a secretary, same as Lorna…” Cole says and lets the sentence die there.
Sarah picks it up, understanding where his mind has gone. “I was several secretaries before Lorna. That’s where Camellia and I met.” She shudders. “She… uh—found me.”
“Found you?” Now I’m the one asking questions.
“It was late. I didn’t expect anyone else to be there… but she’d walked out the elevator as I was heading back to my desk.” Sarah gulps and it carries with it the heaviness of the room. “The tears hadn’t even had time to dry off my face yet, so there was no point in trying to conceal the red welt on the side of my cheek.”
Distress etches every crevice of her face and I want to dry heave. I don’t have to look over at Silas to know what she’s insinuating. He’d hit her. Slapped her across the face.
Was it with an open palm? A closed fist? Or something else entirely?
Not that the specifics matter, what’s concerning is that he’d done it in the first place. That he keeps getting away with it.
Anger radiates off Cole like a fever. He’d done the same thing to his mother, countless times.
I step around him. “When you say Camellia made you an offer?”
“After the incident, I quit. Left the city out of…” Her tongue clicks as her eyes roll to the ceiling. “Embarrassment, I guess.”
“Then what?”
“I went back to college… met your father.” She lifts a hand from the box toward Eli. “Life happened, and I moved on. I was young. Naive…”
“You were young and taken advantage of, but not naive,” Cole clarifies. He defends her like his life depends on the single sentence.
The way he says this, though, comes off rehearsed, like he’s practiced saying it a thousand times in his mind. In some twisted way, it’s as if he’s saying those words to his own mother. Or what he would have if he’d ever gotten the chance.
“But you came back?” I say with distraught awe.
She nods, inhaling. “She’d helped me that night. Got me cleaned up and made sure I had a safe ride home. Camellia, she was… kind.”
Of all people to go to for solace, her eyes find Cole’s. Some sort of wordless understanding passing between them. The side of his mouth tugs after a few long seconds and then his head’s turning and he’s looking the other way.
The despair is thick in the once hostile room.
Cole’s touching me, and I know it’s out of his own need, but I can hardly feel it. My resentment numbing me to everything else.
