Even though it was still early, the July heat made the morning brutal. My eyes drifted shut, hoping to block out the sunlight, but the sightless gaze of Jacobo Jiménez staring back at me had them springing open again.
Sitting up, I wiped my palms down my shorts, feeling my hands coated in Jacobo’s blood. I wiped until my skin was raw from the friction, but the tainted feeling remained. Why wouldn’t it just go the fuck away?
I didn’t kill anyone.
I wasn’t the murderer my father wanted me to be.
I was never going to take his place.
This sound, an amalgamation of aggravation and desperation, ripped from my throat as I doubled my efforts. A moment later, my hands were ripped away from my lap, and the darkness that had been slowly swallowing me whole dissipated. The same darkness that led to my epic fuck up and Tyra losing her virginity last night. Tatted hands had seized my wrists, and when I tried to free myself, Jamie tightened his hold. He was kneeling in front of me now, his brows bunched so tightly, he looked in danger of losing his piercing.
“You were about to tear a hole in your shorts, man. What the fuck?”
I looked down to see that the material of my cargos had indeed become frayed. My hands were throbbing, and this time, when I pulled them away, Jamie let go, saving me from headbutting his ass. I inspected my palms and blinked at the redness before balling my hands into fists and settling back in my seat. I avoided Jamie’s gaze as I pretended to watch the crowd, and he went back to his chair next to me.
“You want to tell me what the fuck that was?” he said after a minute or two.
I’d been waiting, not bothering to hold my breath because I already knew the nosy fucker wouldn’t let it go.
“No.”
“I know it sounded like a question, but it really wasn’t,” he retorted.
“And I don’t take orders from you or my father, so leave me the fuck alone.”
I noticed Jamie stiffen from the corner of my eye before he relaxed with a careless shrug. “Fine. Have it your way.” Of course, he relented way too quickly for me to believe. “It’s been a while since I’ve staged an intervention.”
“That was three damn months ago,” I snapped.
“And my spidey senses are tingling again.” I didn’t respond, so he took my silence as permission to poke a sleeping bear. “We can talk about this now while it’s just the two of us, or we can do it as a group when everyone gets back.”
“Fuck you.”
“Word on the street,” Jamie teased, “is that you got more than enough last night.”
I blinked at him.
Two hours. That was all the time it had taken for word to spread in our crew. Bee must have told Jamie, and he definitely told everyone else.
Nice. Real nice.
“Of course, I want all the dirty details—”
“Not going to happen.”
“But first,” he said as if I hadn’t spoken, “I want to know what happened between you and your father.”
“No, you don’t, Jamie, and that’s for your sake and mine.”
“Want to bet?” His eyebrow rose, and I should have known he wouldn’t be so easily swayed. “You might have all the muscles, but I’ve got the biggest balls,” he said, making me roll my eyes. Jamie never wasted an opportunity to brag about his horse dick. “I’m not afraid of your father.”
“That’s because you don’t know what he’s capable of.”
Jamie fell silent, but the intensity of his stare told me that this conversation was far from over. “I know he’s capable of buying a young girl for his son to turn into some kind of Stepford wife,” he whispered.
My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach.
He knew.
He fucking knew my father had been the buyer for Bee.
Fuck. Did she know?
“Bee knows,” Jamie said, reading my mind. “She just doesn’t want to believe it.”
“How?”
“Elliot told her the buyer he had lined up was the father of a friend. He also implied it wasn’t Jason’s old man. Since I already know my uncle never would, that leaves you.”
I couldn’t meet his gaze. The lump stuck in my throat was even harder to swallow. “I should have told you,” I said, going for the obvious when the right words eluded me. “If I could be honest—”
“That would be nice.”
“I was hoping the two of you would never find out.”
“You didn’t think we’d need some kind of warning? This shit is sick,