Page 52 of Violent Little Thing

They had the gall to look affronted.

I steepled my fingers.

“What contract I signed last week?”

“The one where you signed in front of a freakin’ team of lawyers, of your own free will.” Charleigh stood up. “Can I escort y’all out?”

My lips quirked.

Seraphina stood up and gathered her things, clearly not seeing a point in starting a fight.

Which was good, because she’d lose.

She didn’t remember signing the contract because she’d been hiding that she was drunk as a skunk from the entire team of lawyers and witnesses. She’d been so good at hiding it that no one knew but us, because Apollo had caught her pounding the drinks during lunch.

Did I feel any guilt about taking advantage of her? No.

The woman deserved to be at the bottom of an eight-foot grave.

I wasn’t unaware of her issues.

Not to mention, I was fairly sure that she was the reason behind all of Charleigh’s issues.

I had no way of proving it, but this morning on the way to work with Charleigh beside me, I’d been thinking about everything that had happened to her in the last day. I somehow knew that Seraphina was involved.

I mean, she made no attempt to hide that she was involved with Chris, Charleigh’s unhinged ex-boss.

Then she’d dropped him like a hot potato after he was no longer useful because Charleigh had quit her job. And all of a sudden not only do her parents need to retire, but Charleigh’s also losing her house because someone was kicked out of a nursing home?

Yeah, fucking right.

I wasn’t born yesterday.

Poor Charleigh, though, still saw the good in people. She’d probably not made the connection.

But she would, and that was why I’d have her at my house when she figured it out.

Fourteen

Get that tattoo. Your family is already disappointed.

—Charleigh to Sonja, age 16

Charleigh

I don’t know what I expected from the Cottonwoods, but it wasn’t them starting to cry the moment that we got into the elevator.

Well, the two females started to cry.

The father-in-law, he looked pissed as hell and started to pull out his phone.

The younger woman, Zinnia, knocked it out of his hand. “I can’t do this anymore, Daddy.”

The older man looked at her. “Can’t do what? Keep living off my money? Keep getting a new car every year? Keep living in a mansion in Malibu? Keep going to college and thinking up new and inventive ways to waste my goddamn money?”

“I’m not doing it anymore, either,” the quiet woman said. “That boy was ours from the moment he turned fifteen. Him and Lauri were inseparable. I went to every one of his soccer games from the moment that he was old enough to play. You stole that kid’s parents. You stole his brother and sister. You stole us. I just watched him in there, up close, for the first time in five years, and it was like every light that was ever switched on inside of him is no longer there. I won’t do it anymore. I want a divorce.”

Whoa.