Page 42 of Professional Liar
He glanced at Pierce who came around the corner after me, and I snapped. “I said, let’s go. You don’t need to verify my every order.”
They shared another glance, and I reigned in another verbal lashing. He followed me outside and opened the backdoor of the car. I climbed in, and he took the front seat with Holt. No doubt wanting to keep his distance.
“I’m going to the lawyers’ office, then my father’s house,” I instructed Holt.
We pulled away in silence, and the entire ride, I could have sworn they could hear the crinkle and crackle of my heart breaking apart in my chest. Like they heard every creak it made as piece-by-piece, it chipped apart and fell into ash. What use was it to anyone if it could get my family killed?
I marched into the lawyer’s office and demanded the deed and keys to my father’s home, and the release of my inheritance. Something in my face must have told him not to fuck with me today. He handed over the paperwork and promised the rest would be taken care of.
Next, we went to my family home, the house mostly packed up. Fox accompanied me inside. “Stay here,” I told him and headed upstairs to my father’s room.
I knew exactly what I needed here. I carefully shifted his bedside table drawer open and pulled out the hand gun and clip he kept under a stack of newspapers from 1978. I checked the chamber and safety before slipping the cold steel into my handbag.
I went back down and exited, with Fox on my heels. “Are you picking up anything?”
I patted my bag gently. “I got everything I needed.”
“Which was?”
I climbed into the car. “None of your God damn business,” I told him and slammed the door in his face.
I narrowly kept the sob from escaping me. It built in my chest, and I allowed the years of practice to take over, school my features, while I broke down inside. I had to shove the world away, keep them at arm’s length, so they couldn’t be used against me.
Unbidden, my thoughts went to my father. His drugs, women, the drinking. For a split second, I understood something about him I’d never been able to glean.
And now, I’d turned into the person I hated all my life.
If it saved Pierce and Bianca, it would be worth it.
