Page 102 of Intrepid

“I’d stab my own fucking heart out first. I’d do anything for you.”

“That money … how did you …”

“You needed it. Jo needed it. Just keep it. I don’t want you to worry about anything anymore.” He thumbed the tears from my cheek and kissed my forehead.

“So, then, the ledger … the one you asked me to steal. It wasn’t about the money.”

With a huff, he gave one more kiss to my head and sat back in his seat. “Your father has been receiving payments from a man believed to be involved in the trafficking of teenage girls, mostly. According to Dax, he’s taken a young girl named Nicoleta. One Dax has been searching for, for quite some time.”

It wasn’t doubt that stirred a knot of dread in my stomach, because I certainly believed him. No, the sickness threatening to rise to my throat had to do with the fact that I was genetically tied to a piece of shit who hardly even qualified as human. A man I’d spent too many years trying to turn into a father, when I should’ve been seeing him for the monster he was.

“My … fuck.” I buried my face into my palms and shook my head. “He’s not a good man. I’ve known that for a long time.” Lowering my hands, I gripped the steering wheel, disgusted with my father and what I’d be tasked with as a result. Contrary to what Ty might’ve thought, retrieving anything from my father’s office wouldn’t be easy. “Who is it?”

“His name is Tesarik. He’s pretty well known in the underground scene.”

I recognized the name. That day at Butchers when it’d flashed across his phone. My father had fumbled, as if the man’s name alone had made him nervous. “I’ll get the ledger. Whatever I need to do, I’ll get it to you.”

“No. I’ll find another way.” Exhaling a weary sigh, he shook his head. “I shouldn’t have involved you. In any of this.”

“What exactly … was my involvement? What part of this did I play?”

“Sera, I have to ask you something. Please don’t lie to me. I need the truth.” Every word spilling from his mouth stoked my pulse, and my hands went cold with the anticipation. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

Somewhere inside my head, an alarm sounded, warning of a breach. I mentally silenced it, telling myself he didn’t know my past. He didn’t know the things I’d locked so deep, even I couldn’t entirely recall them. “Tell anyone what?”

“You know what.” He glanced over to me then back toward the windshield. “You saw everything.”

The alarms blared again. I fought the urge to shake my head and dismiss them, because how the hell could he have known something to which only two other people had been privy? He couldn’t. Not that.

My heart thumped off rhythm in my chest. Hands fidgeting, I stared down at my lap to keep from having to look at him. Only one explanation came to mind.

“Eli told you.”

“No.” Reaching into his pocket, he produced a folded piece of paper held tight in his palm. “He started to go a little loopy for a while. Told me about a letter he’d written to his father. He told him where to find a secret he’d hidden in an abandoned car at the Packard. I went looking for it a few years back.”

The paper taunted me, leaving me to wonder what Eli had said, how he’d described my actions that day.

“You were there. You saw what happened. You didn’t tell anyone.”

I blinked away the tears in my eyes, while his words took me back seven years ago, on my twelfth birthday.

* * *

Alyssa Jenkins can kiss my ass.

Sitting on the lounge chair beside the pool, I watch the small group of girls my father insisted I invite to my own birthday party sit and gossip about things I don’t care about. Alyssa’s father is friends with mine, but that doesn’t automatically make me friends with her—obviously, since they’ve gathered in their own little circle, leaving me out. I can’t stand her, or her snobby little minions, who like to poke fun at other girls, including me. They’ve made today the exception, since I agreed to invite all of their little clique, but none of them have said more than the fake happy birthday greeting they offered at the door.

I’d give anything to sneak off to my room right now and read a book, but my father says I need to mingle. He says it’s important for a young lady like myself to socialize with other girls my age.

He just doesn’t like the fact that I find conversation with the maid’s son so much more appealing.

In the two years I’ve lived with my father and attended the same, stupid private school as half the kids on the block, Eli’s become my closest friend. A kid with nothing, from Detroit. My only confidant in this fake fantasy life.

I glance back to the stately mansion that’s become my home. Not my home, my house. I have no connection to this place, other than it’s where I sleep.

Eli’s somewhere inside, likely hiding from his mom and reading comic books, as he sometimes does when he tags along with her. My father will kill me if I leave my own party, but I’m not interested in listening to who Alyssa Jenkins and her crew of haughty hags thinks is going to ask her out to the Snow Ball next week.

I’ve no intentions of going myself, so why bother to jump in like I care?