Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 110694 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 553(@200wpm)___ 443(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110694 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 553(@200wpm)___ 443(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
I noticed Linc’s jaw was jutted and his neck veins were standing out. What was wrong with him?
“Where is your aunt now?” he asked, his voice sounding tight.
“In the uppity neighborhood she moved to after I graduated and got the hell out of there.”
“Does she contact you still?” His question sounded almost like a demand.
Frowning at him, I nodded. “Yeah. When she wants money.”
His eyes flared with…anger? Was he mad? About my aunt? I was confused.
“Do you send her money?” The words were clipped, as if he already knew the answer and wasn’t going to like it.
I nodded, watching him warily.
“How much?”
“Uh, normally about two to three hundred dollars.”
His throat bobbed as he swallowed, and his nostrils flared. “How many times have you done that since you moved out?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Why are you asking me all this?”
“Branwen, how old were you when she started asking you for money?”
I glanced at Stevie, wondering if I should pull her back over to me. Linc was looking more severe by the second.
“I guess the year after I moved out. I don’t know exactly.”
When he remained looking like he was about to go put his fist through a wall, I asked him, “What is wrong with you?”
He took a deep breath, his chest rising and falling while he studied me, as if he wasn’t sure he was going to tell me or not.
“Garrett gave your aunt money. Money to take care of you, make sure you had all you needed. A car. To pay for your college. I don’t know the exact amount, but I know it was significant.”
I sank back onto the sofa as a rush of air left me. “He…he did what?” My question was just above a whisper.
“Demeter was part of the family. Garrett made sure you were taken care of for your father. He thought letting you go live with your aunt would be a better life for you, but he still provided for you.”
I shook my head. “My dad was the lead trainer. He was an employee of the family.” Did they do that for all their employees? I didn’t ask that though.
“No, Branwen. Your dad was family. So was his father. Your dad was our bookie, just like his father had been, but then he took over as head trainer after proving how successful he was, working with thoroughbreds.”
Everything I’d thought I knew about me, my life…had just been sent spinning like a wheel while I waited for it to stop on something that made sense.
Forty-Nine
Linc
The silence on the other end of the line I understood. I waited while Garrett processed what I’d learned this evening. Nothing had prepared me for the sheer hate that had come over me. It surpassed that of the dentist who had thought he was going to take what was mine. This was another level of loathing that I’d never experienced.
“I’ll have her location and all her financial records pulled,” he said, his voice the hard, unyielding one I’d not heard in a while. This was the sound of the boss. “Once it’s all together, I’ll call you with details.”
“Okay.”
“I failed Demeter,” he said. “I should have watched her closer. Trusting some bitch I didn’t know was a mistake that she’ll pay for. But, Linc, I won’t fail him again. If you don’t love her, then you’d better set her free.”
The underlying threat took me by surprise. I stared at the bookshelf in my office, letting it sink in.
“The family takes care of our own. She’s ours.”
My body went rigid, and I gripped the phone tightly. Like hell she was ours. She wasn’t fucking ours.
“She’s mine.” The words came out like an animalistic snarl.
Silence.
He wasn’t the boss anymore, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a Hughes. Right now, I didn’t care. He’d said something I wouldn’t allow. No one got to claim her. She was already claimed.
“Good,” he finally said with a sigh. “Fawn assured me as much when you left here. I had my doubts, seeing as how you treated her, but my wife reminded me of my treatment of her in the beginning, so I was giving it time. Having Luther update me on how things were going with the two of you.”
I narrowed my eyes as I let that process. Luther had been telling him shit? That motherfucker!
“And what has he said?” I asked between clenched teeth, ready to go break another bone in his goddamn body.
Garrett sighed and then laughed. “That you’re so fucking messed up in the head over her that you’re showing signs of insanity.”
I sank back into my chair, feeling most of my rage fade. I opened my mouth to argue, but closed it. What the fuck was I going to say? That it wasn’t true? Because the fact was, Luther’s words had described the way I was feeling so damn accurately that I was tempted to laugh.