I didn’t understand why Maria nagged me. We weren’t a regular man and wife. We’d never kissed, never fucked. We didn’t share a bedroom. We didn’t even really share a kid. Freddie wasn’t mine, but I treated him like he was—I just didn’t do it when Maria was around, which, thankfully for me, but shitty for him, wasn’t often. The mall took more of her attention than Freddie did, which made her more of a fool than I already thought she was.
He was my bud, and it wasn’t his fault that he was related to his bitch of a mother, so I had to make up for the fact that she was a twisted, vindictive cow, and that his father was a fucker who I hoped I’d never have to see again.
Stopping beside his highchair, I bent down and pressed a kiss to Freddie’s forehead. His giggle made me smile, especially as his face was dotted with toast crumbs which danced and fell off with his gurgling, and as was usually the case, Maria glared at him and me. She was jealous. Jealous of her own kid.
I felt sure she didn’t want me, but the more I pulled away from her, the harder she tried.
There was a reason I had a lock on my bedroom door.
No way did I want her skank ass anywhere near me, and even more so now.
When I thought back to the meet in Fort Worth, it felt like it was last week and not months ago.
Time seemed to be slipping through my fingers, even though life, as always, was busy.
Maria had miscarried her baby, and I knew it was self-induced. She’d taken a bunch of drugs a few weeks after I’d returned from Texas, and after having her stomach pumped, she’d lost the kid.
Ever since, her parents had been on me to make her behave, to make her act like a wife and mom, but she wasn’t either.
She was a shit wife, and she was a shittier mom, who left the raising of her son to a nanny and me, unless it was time for her to look like the good little homemaker where she put on airs and graces for her parents and mine.
We lived in an annex just off the main house on her father’s estate. It was a large property, four beds, two huge living rooms, and a massive kitchen/dining area.
Ironically, I was comfortable here. The house was great, she was the one who sucked.
More than anything, I liked being away from my parents—well, my dad less so. Ever since Cain had been sent down, Robert had actually started being interested in me, and he’d also taken an interest in Thea. Which, to be honest, I was really happy about.
Thea needed someone like my dad, who was an overachiever, and who was really encouraging when it came down to reaching your goals.
I knew what Thea’s new goal was. Money. She wanted it. A lot of it.
I wished I had it to give to her, but I had one small trust that I’d get when I was twenty-five, and only if I had a college degree. I had no idea how much it would cost to hire a criminal defense attorney, but I imagined it was a fuck ton.
Something about her, about the way she lived her life, told me her people’s beliefs had been ingrained in her, even though she’d been so young when her grandmother had died.
I’d done a lot of reading on the Roma, had learned how they didn’t believe in possessions. How the more you had didn’t mean the luckier you were, or the richer. If anything, it meant you were bogged down, weighed down by stuff you didn’t really need. It meant you were trapped, imprisoned really. Unable to move on, to travel to the next place you were just waiting to discover.
I didn’t doubt that being raised in poverty had also helped instill those beliefs in her. When you had no money, you couldn’t buy anything, but things were different now, she had it. I knew my parents had given her an account which she could use to buy stuff for school and for her swimming, but as far as I could see, she didn’t have any new clothes, had only really bought things she needed for school—a laptop, books, equipment.
Thea: At the pool. Where are you?
My heart thudded when the text came through. Thea was more prickly than ever, but