Текст книги "Under Locke"

Автор книги: Mariana Zapata

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Текущая страница: 28 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

Dex slid those long fingers over my wrist, circling the bones gently. “You happy he’s finally talkin’ to you again?” I nodded, earning a shrug. “Then I don’t give a fuck what he thinks, you know that.”

I did know that. Like I knew plenty of other crazy things. Like the fact that I’d offer up one of my dad’s body parts to ensure Dex’s safety. Leaning into him again, I pressed my mouth into his biceps. “Yeah, I know you don’t.”

“One stack of blueberry pancakes, and a double stack with a side of sausage,” our waitress appeared then, dropping each of our plates in front of us.

I thanked her and watched her disappear, looking around for the younger one I’d spotted talking to Dex just a few minutes before. But she wasn’t anywhere.

“I think I pissed her off,” Dex said abruptly, making me drag my eyes back to him.

He was busy cutting into the huge mound of pancakes in front of him, his tone casual.

“The waitress you were talking to?”

He lifted a single shoulder in a shrug. “She was annoyin’ the shit outta me. Don’t know why she’d think I’d care whether she likes my ink or not.”

My first thought was that the girl had run to the kitchen and spit in our food. Oh hell.

Dex cut into another thick triangle, eyeing me out of the corner of his eye. “Wouldn’t quit ramblin’ about how she wants to get tatted up, even after I told her my girl was waitin’ on me.”

It’d be the biggest lie in the universe if I said I didn’t get a thrill out of him calling me his girl. Was that a little barbaric? Maybe, but who cared? I didn’t.  “You can’t blame her, you’re pretty cute, Charlie. I’m sure plenty of women wouldn’t care that you’re with someone else.” As much as the thought bothered me, it was the truth.

An exasperated sigh made its way out of his pretty mouth. “Cute?” he said the word like he was torn between being disgusted and amused, ignoring my other comment.

All right, I could pretend too. “Excuse me, you’re a hot, virile, stud-muffin.”

He pinned me with a flat look that made me laugh.

“What? You are.” When his facial expression didn’t change for a long minute, I laughed again and poked him in the side. I wasn’t going to let my dad and his disappearance plummet my mood. He wouldn’t have that much power over me. And I definitely wasn’t going to take it out on the one person that was here trying to help me, no siree. “Fine, you’re just hot. Smoking hot. Not cute. Definitely not cute at all.”

Dex gave me that signature little smile before returning his attention to his plate. We took a few bites of our food before he finally spoke again. “You know there’s nothin’ and nobody you gotta worry about, Ritz.”

Here we go. I nodded but didn’t look at him. “I believe you.” I just didn’t want to carry around this fear that Dex would eventually get bored. He wasn’t my father, and every day I knew him better and better, that fact was cemented in place more firmly.

He plucked the fork from my hand before pulling it beneath the counter of the diner, setting it palm down right next to his groin. “Babe, you got me as much as I got you, and that shit’s not changin’, you understand? Not today, tomorrow, not ever.” He slid his hand over mine, cupping it firmly to the shape of his thigh. “Got it?”

“Dex,” I sighed.

“Ritz.”

“You can’t say stuff like that. You might get tired of me at some point.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I know exactly what I’m sayin’.  I know exactly what I mean. Yeah?”

He wasn’t really asking, I knew that. So I also knew it was pointless to argue with him, and at the same time, it was pointless to make excuses as to why he couldn’t care for me like that. I’d never know unless I let him. I squeezed his thigh and nodded. “Yeah, I got it.” For good measure, I smiled. “Cutie.”

“Ritz,” he groaned, but I could tell by the look in his eye he didn’t care.

“Just kidding.” Taking my hand off his leg, I cut a neat triangle out of my blueberry pancakes before muttering under my breath, “Not really.”

That got a snort out of him.

The younger waitress that had been harassing Dex before made an appearance right then at a table on the opposite side of the diner. So I took the opportunity to make Dex laugh again. I think I enjoyed the sound way too much. “Dex?”

“Yeah, baby?”

“She’s back,” I whispered, and then paused. “I think I’m going to need your keys.”

And as always, he didn’t disappoint me with the loud, loud laugh that burst out of my reserved, broody man.

~ * ~ *

Three days passed and nothing.

No trace of him.

That son of a friggin' gun had disappeared and my irritation had reached a level never before seen courtesy of my short-lived period. That's how pissed off and stressed I was—my period had lasted half the time it normally did.

"We'll find him," Dex had assured me about a dozen times a day.

The problem was that it was incredibly hard to hold out hope of finding a man that excelled at disappearing. We'd met with Luther's friend the day before but the older man hadn't seen him either. Luckily for me and everyone else, the normally moody man that drove us from Delray to Boca to Deerfield Beach, was optimistic enough for the both of us.

There's no way he knew we were in Florida, of that I was certain. Luther's friend had promised us he'd been discreet, so it just had to be a coincidence he'd gone somewhere else.

At least that's what I really hoped.

~ * ~ *

"Never heard of 'im," the older biker drawled from over the rim of his highball glass, drinking something that was all amber and no ice.

I felt like a balloon that had gotten stabbed with a needle. Deflated. Completely deflated.

Dex shot me a look before extending his hand out to the crazy bearded man. "Thanks, brother."

Another bust. Again. How many was that today? Eight different bars in and around Hollywood? Who the hell even knew there was that many kind of bars here?

I shook the man's hand just like Dex had, and followed him back out. The man had been the last of the three we'd made an effort to zero in on at the bar. Follow his lead, he'd said, and I had. But we were coming up with nothing. Four days in my home state and nothing.

This sucked.

The moment I'd climbed into the truck and shut the door, Dex cut me a glance before reaching over to grab my hand. "You feel like doin' somethin’ else?"

I was too old to pout and cry about how unfair this crap was, so instead, I threaded my fingers through Dex's and sighed. I want to find my dad. But that wasn't happening. This entire trip had so far been a dead end. No dad. Painful memories. And food from places I'd gone to with Will hundreds of times that suddenly didn't seem anywhere near as delicious as they had months before.

All this driving around did was make me miss my mom and yia-yia more. That was probably what led me to open my mouth and suggest something for the first time since we'd started our search.

It was still early in the day. Only about six, so there should have been an hour of sunlight left...

"Do you mind if we go to the cemetery?" I asked Dex hesitantly.

"Why the hell would I mind, babe?" he asked, already putting the truck into reverse. "Tell me how to get there."

The cemetery was pretty close to where we were at. It seemed like I'd just been there yesterday. I didn't need a map or directions to instruct Dex on where to go. In no time, he was pulling into the long, winding drive through the grounds.

Until he wasn't.

He parked the truck along the ultra familiar drive. I could recognize the slight slope of the grounds even if I were blind. I got out and looked around, watching as Dex climbed out as well, his eyes wary and uncomfortable as they flitted over tombstone and tombstone.

"Are you okay?" I asked him after he'd taken a long gulp. He didn't look well.

"Yeah," was his simple answer.

Was he...uncomfortable? From what I could remember, his grandfather had died when he was a baby. All of his family members seemed to still be kicking, so the only thing I could come up with was that cemeteries freaked him out. There was nothing wrong with that.

But I kept my mouth shut and appreciated the gesture instead. "You can stay if you want, I won't be long," I told him,

Those dark eyes narrowed in suspicion. "You sure?"

I could see it on his face. Please be sure.

"Yeah, it's fine. Fifteen minutes tops."

It took him a second to agree but once he'd fed me a nod, I blew him a smile and started making my way toward the large tree that served as a marker to where my mom and yia-yia were buried together.

Months had done nothing to the lush grasses or the classy tombstones that my grandmother had paid for years in advance of her death. She had never found anything ironic about planning for her passing before she was even close to the day. I found the spot almost immediately, taking in the side by side headstones beckoning me forward.

In some sweet, romantic movie, there would be flowers from my dad on the grave with promises of love that could survive an apocalypse. Of a love that had no value for time and no understanding of death.

But there wasn't.

Not a weed. Not a live flower. Not even a dead flower. Or an old love note.

Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Grass and more perfectly manicured grass.

To say that it was disappointing would be the understatement of the week. Then again, what did I expect from a reigning disappointment of a human being?

I should know better.

It was almost an afterthought lowering myself to my knees when I came up to my mom and yia-yia's grave. Sweet but incredibly bitter. How many times had I sat here in the years after yia-yia had died asking for her moral and mental help with Will? Dozens?

Raising a brother was hard. It had always been hard, but after yia-yia died, it got even more difficult. Yet, somehow we'd found a way.

My hands brushed over the sticky green blades, feeling how closely cropped they were. Immaculate and untrodden. I suddenly wished, more than the hope of finding my dad, that I'd have either one of them around to tell me what I should do with this situation.

I wanted their guidance. Their suggestions. Their support.

And all I had was this damn grass.

I wasn't nervous or afraid. I was desperate. What should I do? Give up? Sell my car? Try to get a loan? Start a murder-for-hire business?

Quitting wasn't a part of my DNA. Being forced to submit was but it was also a last resort. I'd always thought of myself as being practical.

I had no idea how long I sat there, looking at the etched names with a heavy soul. It couldn't have been that long if the sun was still out—low but it was there. Tired emotionally rather than physically, I got up and made my way back to the car to find Dex sitting in the bed with an unlit cigarette in his mouth. His eyes made a slow path over me as I got closer, checking and inspecting.

Dex stood up, throwing a long leg over the tail bed. With a graceful hop, he dropped to the ground, tucking his cigarette behind his ear.

Neither one of us said anything as I walked over to him and slipped my arms around his waist. Dex wrapped an arm over the top of my shoulders, his free hand finding its way into my hair. I took a hesitant sniff of his shirt, but all he did was smell faintly like soap and laundry detergent.

"You don't have to quit smoking because of me," I told him though obviously I'd rather he did, but I wouldn't ask him to.

He twisted my hair around his fingers. "'Kay."

"I'm serious."

He kept twisting knots at the end of my ponytail. "Went five years without a smoke, babe," he whispered into my ear, his lower lip brushing the shell. "There's shit I want and shit I need. A smoke's not one of 'em, 'specially not when I'm around you."

Was it wrong that his words made me swoon a little? And that I wasn't even going to bother arguing with him more about it?

Going up to the tips of my toes, I pressed my lips against the underside of his chin. "In that case, thank you." I pressed my face to his chest for a moment, savoring the hug.

"You doin' all right?"

I nodded enough so that the top of my head brushed his chin. "Yeah. I just miss them."

Dex hummed in his throat, his arms tightening around me in response to my comment. His body, his heat, his comfort, and safety, saturated me. The feel of him fed the parts of me that were needy and that grounded me. It wasn't that anyone or anything could ever replace the two women who had raised me, but Dex was so much man and personality, that I realized I wasn't alone anymore.

And as selfish as it was, I hoped I wouldn't be alone ever again.

I squeezed his waist. "Since we're here and all, want to go to my favorite pizza place? Sonny used to say they made the best pepperoni."

“I like pizza.” A hand slid down the curve of my spine until I felt a strong pinch on my bottom. "What are you gonna eat? Cheese?" he snickered.

"Spinach alfredo, smart ass." I snorted and took a step away from him, rubbing where he'd gotten me.

Dex wrinkled his nose but made his way around me, swatting my rear when he had the chance. "Spinach alfredo it is, babe," he said.

I got into the truck after him, smiling like a moron. I was in the middle of thinking all about magical thin crust delicacies as Dex steered us out of the cemetery. For some reason, just as we were stopping at the gates, I happened to look across the street. There was one of those pay-per-hour motels on the corner.

"Left or right?" Dex asked.

It was supposed to be a left but something had me zeroing in on the hooker hostel. "Right." Worse case was, we could circle around and head back in the same direction, right?

Dex turned right.

I craned my head to look into the parking lot. What would I really find? Nothing, more than likely.

And I didn't, at first at least. Cars and trucks. Then I saw the handlebar. It could have been anyone's but what if it wasn't? It couldn't be that obvious...

I reached over to slap Dex's arm. "Pull in there, please."

That wonderful man didn't even bother asking why I wanted him to turn into the lot. Swinging the truck to a hard left, he drove the pickup into the two-story motel's parking lot. Up close now, the bike was like a kick to the sternum.

It was still shiny, black with a coil of red shot through the body. Almost a decade later, I still recognized it like the back of my hand. Torn between the memories of being a kid and climbing all over it when it'd been parked in the driveway, and the last memory I had of my dad riding away immediately after Mom's funeral, a frog curled in my throat.

"It's him."

The tires squealed as he slammed down on the brakes. Dex didn't even bother pulling into a spot before parking behind two cars in the lot. I was out of the truck before him, looking at all of the doors like I had some type of internal radar that let me know which room he was in.

"Lemme go find out where he's at," Dex murmured with a squeeze to my forearm.

Uhh...

Yeah, maybe I didn't want to know how he was planning on getting that information.

I stood there as he walked in the direction of the tiny office by the parking lot's entrance. Looking, looking, looking. In less than five minutes Dex's loose gait had him standing next to me.

I took a deep breath to steady my nerves and tipped my head up, trying to be confident. "Is the employee still alive?"

He smirked, the corner of his mouth arching up so high those pretty white teeth flashed at me. He tugged on the hem of my shirt. "Alive and fingers intact, babe."

"Smart ass." Not laughing was impossible. I held up my hand for a high-five. Dex shook his head with a chuckle and slapped it, linking our fingers together afterward.

"Let's go."

I wrapped my free hand around the inside of his elbow, taking confidence in the dark tattoos on his arms. They reminded me of Pins, and my friends there. Safety. Familiarity. Tattoos were Dex. My friend. My protector.

"Let's do this," I agreed.

Up the stairs we went. Down the hallway. A turn to the right.

And we stopped.

Dex held up a hand to knock on the door but I stopped him by grabbing his wrist. I ducked my head and pressed my lips to his thumb, sucking a breath to steady myself. Dex was watching me with those dark, steady eyes—curious.

"Thank you for coming with me," I whispered.

His nostrils flared, and he nodded briskly.

I knocked but no one answered immediately.

I knocked again, this time harder.

Still nothing.

I knocked even harder, faster, more annoyingly persistent.

Still, nothing.

Dex leaned over me, pounding his fist against the door. "Open the fuckin' door," he growled.

Oh hell.

Six foot three and bossy? As long as it wasn't directed at me, it made my ovaries sing an opera.

The lock turning was the only thing that pulled me from my Dex-fantasies. For some reason, I suddenly wondered whether my dad still had facial hair or not.

It was just like a movie in slow motion.

The door opening.

The dark hotel room.

The expectation.

At the door, a woman stood in a t-shirt three sizes too large. A woman that was possibly only a decade older than me.

"Uh, can I help you?"

If he was in there, I was going to kill him. I decided that immediately.

I ignored the woman in front of me and looked over my shoulder at my dark-haired Dex. I wasn't going to have a panic attack or turn into a rabid raccoon with him behind me, that was for sure. "Are you sure this is his room?"

All he needed to do was nod before a confidence and a rage I wasn't extremely familiar with, flooded my stomach.

Fuck this.

With balls that I didn't even know I had, I leaned forward and spoke louder than I probably ever had. "I know you're in there, and I'm not leaving until you get out here."

Where the hell had meek little Iris gone?

"The fuck?" the woman spat, frowning.

Classy. "The man in there with you needs to come talk to his daughter."

"Daughter?" Baloney. This woman was absolutely baloney.

There was a noise coming from the recesses of the hotel room, a voice talking so low I'm surprised the person in front of me could hear. My ears were ringing so loud with adrenaline and frankly anger that I couldn't hear anything clearly.

I had my eyes locked on the lady in front of me, taking in her dark hair, olive skin, light eyes. She was a poor replica of my mother, I thought, as mean as I would have normally assumed the thought was. But I didn't care then. I sized her up. I watched her take a step back and turn around to talk to the man in there.

I had to swallow hard to keep from making some awful noise. If it wouldn't have been for the warm heat on my back that radiated from Dex's chest, I'm not sure what I would have done as I waited for my father to come to the door.

My father. The thought was so immediately detached it should have alarmed me, but I'm surprised by how freeing it was. Not my dad. My father. My sperm donor in Sonny's words.

"Iris."

He was there.

Shorter than what I remembered, or maybe the careful balloon I'd inflated with his memory had been too exaggerated. Or maybe I'd just been around Dex's long bones for too long.

Curt Taylor stood there. With his heavily tattooed forearms void of any past Widowmaker insignia. A salt and pepper mustache curling his upper lip. Hair still short. And so much older than I remembered.

My heart churned in recognition—in need. But only for a split second. For a millisecond I allowed myself to miss him. To miss the times he'd made me feel like I was the most important person in the world to him.

But that time had been decades ago. A faded photograph. It was broken and corrupted.

And most specifically and fortunately for me, I'd been patched up along the way.

I let my hand reach backward until I grasped Dex's thigh, using it to center me as I stared at the man I'd denied myself loving for so long.

But the love I knew, the form of love I remember as a child was completely different than the version I recognized as an adult. There’s no chemistry to it. You can’t break apart love’s properties and make it something it’s not. I knew that now.

A small, stupid part of me might always feel something my father, but that didn't mean that I respected him. That I truly valued him. Not when it had suddenly occurred to me how obvious it was that he didn't feel the same toward me. And love without respect and appreciation isn’t actually anything. It’s worthless.

I knew what it was like to be valued. To be cared for. To be a priority. And I wasn't going to settle for less from the man that should have shown me all of those things throughout my life.

Fuck. That.

I wasn't a little girl anymore. I wouldn't fall for his tricks or his foolish, meaningless words.

If I had a baby, a little tiny boy or girl that had grown up in my arms, there was no way I could ever leave them willingly. There was no way I couldn't think about him or her daily and wonder if they were fine, when I did that for my own little brother. Hell, I even worried about Slim and Blake all the time. What did that say?

It said I wasn't my father, and I never would be.

"We need to talk."

"Iris?" His voice cracked.

I'm not sure what it said about me that I was able to look at his face steadily without feeling a thing besides resentment. "We really do need to talk."

He blinked those hazel eyes. The Taylor eyes he'd given Sonny and me. "Rissy," he said my nickname slowly, "I haven't seen you—"

Dex's growl cut him off. "I don't wanna hear it. She don't wanna hear it. Get your shit, 'cuz we're goin'."

My father, Curt, blinked rapidly. His eyes widened like he had barely seen Dex standing behind me, well, more like towering behind me. My own personal eclipse of ink and ego.

The angry frown that curled over his mouth was the predecessor for those hazel eyes flicking back and forth between me and Dex. Slowly, his eyes moved over the multicolored bruises on my cheek that still hadn't exactly faded. "You son of a bitch," my father boomed. "Did you do that to her?"

My bruise?

Dex? Dex who'd been ready to tear apart the universe because of what those morons had done?

"Old man," Dex hissed, bringing his body so close to mine that I could feel him settle himself around the curves of my back and bottom. "You should shut the fuck up before you say somethin' I'll make you regret."

Oh hell. Diffuse the situation, Iris!

I had to take a calming breath. This wasn't just about me. This was about Dex, Sonny, Slim, Blake, and the little boy in Colorado that shared my bloodline. As much as my subconscious would love seeing Dex stand up to this man, my brain said that this wasn't the right time.

This visit was about preventing something terrible from happening to all of them.

I could do this for them. I could keep it together.

"This is because of the Croatians. Because of you," I stated evenly, watching the color drain from his face. "And I don't care what you have to do, but you're paying them back."

"The...they...found you?" he blabbered.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

The wicked laugh that snaked its way out of Dex let me know he thought my dad was just as full of shit as I did. "You wanna play stupid? I'll play stupid with you. What'd you think? You'd take their money and nothin' would happen?"

My father's eyes slashed over in Dex's direction, his mouth pulled tight in aggression. "Shut your trap, kid."

"Kid?" He was outraged.

Kid? Dex? Did he need glasses?

"Yeah, kid. I been bustin' people up longer than you been alive, don't come up to me, trying to be a bad ass. I'll beat it out of you," Curt snapped.

Dex barked out a laugh. "Old man, you might have been doin' it for longer than me but that don't mean I won't wipe the floor with you. At least I fight my battles with my own two hands instead of lettin' my blood get it beat out of 'em for me."

"You piece of trash—"

And... I was done.

Done.

What did it say about me that I was willing to throw away the thread-like connection with my father for a man I loved? Nothing. Because ultimately, it didn't matter. I'd throw away more.

My stretched out palm met with my father's chest as I pushed him back with more force than was necessary.

His hazel eyes flared, more in response to the moment and the conversation with Dex than with me. At least that's what I could assume. I pointed a finger at my father and shook my head, watching as his eyes drifted the length of my arm until they came in contact with the silver-white scarring my sleeveless racerback left open for everyone to see. See it, he did, and it only reinforced my words and my mood.

"Don't say a word to him. Not a single friggin' word. In the last month, Sonny's gotten the crap beat out of him. I got assaulted at my job, and I've been asked to become some douche bag's mistress. All because of you. You owe me, and trust me, you don't want me to start with the million and one things I've dealt with because of you before this year."

He opened his mouth to argue with me. His eyes going from my arm to Dex's face above mine.

"Don't," I insisted. "Just don't."

"He's a Widow, Rissy!" my dad yelled, completely oblivious to the fact we were standing outside of a cheap motel with dozens of other people.

That's where he was going with this?

"He's mine," I enunciated slowly. "And my business stopped being your business when you left."

I couldn't have slapped him any harder. And my inner jerk couldn't have been more pleased by the stripe of pain and humiliation that blazed across his face.

"Yeah," I taunted him. "Exactly."

Where had all of this ugliness bubbled up from?

"I didn't think..." he stammered. "They came after you?"

I didn't even bother with an answer, settling for a brisk nod.

My dad lifted both of his hands up, running them over the short trimmed hair on his head. "Jesus." He shook his head. "I never thought—"

Dex's body heat seared my back as he stepped forward, into me. He braced his hands on the doorframe, caging me. "You never cared. Don't mistake bein' a dick for bein' an idiot."

He bristled, his mouth poised to argue or talk shit back to the younger man.

Them arguing wasn't the point. It wasn't necessary. "It doesn't matter anymore. I need to know if you have the money."

The face he made wasn't a good sign. "Rissy."

"Yes or no?"

My father blew out a breath that made his lips flutter. "Not all of it."

I guess that could be worse, unless he considered twenty bucks to be a significant chunk. "How much?"

"Fuck." His lips fluttered again. "You wanna come in and talk about this?"

Dex and I answered at the same time. "No." Especially not when that woman was still in there. Gross.

"You got five minutes to meet us downstairs," Dex said. "Gimme your keys."

My father took a step back, frowning fiercely. "Excuse me?"

"Your keys. Give 'em to me."

"Why the fuck would I do that?"

Maybe he didn't know, but I did. I held my hand out. "We can't risk you leaving."

"I'm not leaving," he argued and for a split second I felt rude agreeing with Dex's request.

This wasn't anyone else's battle but mine. I held out my hand and waited. He didn't hand them over immediately. My father's face made a dozen expressions until he finally turned around and went into the room. Whispers stacked on top of each other before he returned, dropping a set of keys into my palm.

"Five minutes," Dex spoke from behind me as I eyed the woman in the room moving around.

The woman dressed in my father's clothes. The woman that looked like my mom if I closed my eyes, squinted, and made my vision blurry.

I sighed. All I could focus on right then, was how disappointed I was in this man I used to call my dad.

~ * ~ *

Awkward wouldn't even begin to describe the atmosphere in Luther's truck, or the tension across the table at the pizza parlor.

Tense also wouldn't be an appropriate adjective.

"Rissy—," he'd started to say about a dozen times before Dex shut him down.

"Don't," my dark-haired man snarled.

I didn't make an effort to assure Dex that it was fine, that I wanted to talk to my father, because honestly, I didn't.

"Rissy," he'd start again on deaf ears.

My mom. My poor, beautiful, sweet mom had been in love with this man. She'd thought the world of him even after he abandoned her with two small kids. She loved him even though he never called, never helped financially, never did a single damn thing.

Rage boiled beneath my veins.

If I'd known everything that I knew now...

That I was related to a self-centered man-whore...

I reached out to grab Dex's hand, threading my fingers over the top of his. The look he gave me was tight. He was seething beneath his skin and I had no idea what directly fueled him, but it wasn't like he didn't have a dozen possible sources.

Dex wasn't my father. Not in any way, shape or form. And I loved him.

“I owe ‘em twenty but I got eighteen on hand.”

Okay, that wasn’t so horrific. A two thousand dollar difference wasn’t as bad as I’d been expecting. Then again, I wasn’t expecting him to owe people twenty friggin’ thousand dollars either. Holy crap.

How much money did I have in my savings account? I tried to do the math in my head.

Twelve hundred for sure, maybe fifteen hundred...

Fingers gripped my forearm. Dex made a grunting noise in his throat that caught my attention more than his grasp. "Don't even think about it," he warned in a stern voice.

How the heck did he know what I was thinking? "What?"

"We aren't usin' your money." He squeezed my arm. "We talked about this, Ris. We'll figure it out, right?"

That's exactly what we'd agreed on. I nodded at him, ignoring the inquisitive look on my father's face as he watched us.

Dex tilted his face back over to him, eyes narrowed. "You like that, big man? Your daughter offerin' to pay for your shit? Her cleanin' up your mess? Seems to be somethin' you're used to. Leavin' your shit layin' around for other people to clean up."

It was impossible not to hear the grinding of Curt Taylor's teeth, or miss the way he leaned across the greasy table. "You don't know shit about me—"

"I know enough."

"You don't know a damn thing—"

"You think I don't know everythin' there is to know about you? I know what I need to, and lemme tell you, I'm not impressed. You're a grade A pussy, Taylor, and you're a fuckin' moron," Dex rolled the words out of his mouth.

Oh hell. They were talking so loud people at the tables surrounding us started to turn around. I palmed the inside of Dex's thigh to try and calm him down. Not that it was an easy task to begin with when he was pissed off.