“Work?”
I sighed and shifted so I could snatch the phone up off the floor. She rolled to the side and took the single blanket I had thrown over us at some point in the night with her. She looked so sweet all rumpled and thoroughly sexed up but so out of place in the hollow and empty loft. She pushed her hair off of her face and watched me with careful eyes.
“I wish it was work.” I swiped a finger across the screen of the phone and moved to the edge of the bed. Only my past could instantly deflate the erection Brysen and her sexy, chilly blondness had inspired.
“Been a while, Mom.”
There was no masking the bitterness and anger in my tone and I saw Brysen look at me with concern. I sighed again as she climbed off the other side of the bed, taking the blanket with her as she went toward the bathroom.
“Race . . .” My mother was crying, hysterical even, and I thought I should try to care.
“What do you want?” I sounded like an asshole but I couldn’t help it. I reached for my discarded jeans.
“I need you to meet me down at the police station.”
I paused. “Why?”
She made a hiccuping noise and then a sound like that of a dying animal. “You father has been arrested.”
I didn’t mean to but I burst out laughing. I heard her gasp, and as I looked up, Brysen was coming out of the bathroom. She was dressed, which was a damn shame.
“This is hardly funny.” My mom sounded devastated.
“What did he get arrested for?” My father was a bad man. A criminal on more levels than I could ever be. I wasn’t surprised and I couldn’t really believe my mother was either. How could you be married to someone, spend a life with them, and not know about all the dirt and filth they wallowed in to keep you in fur and diamonds?
“I’m not really sure. There were federal agents here this morning before the sun came up. They had warrants and took your father away in handcuffs. I called our lawyer.” She broke off in a sob again and I frowned when Brysen nodded her head toward the stairs like she was going to leave without saying anything to me. I shook my head at her and scowled. “All of our accounts are frozen. He won’t even go to the police station and help me post your dad’s bail. There is no money.”
Wow. Fate was a real nasty bitch when she put her mind to it. “It’s the feds, Mom. You probably can’t bail him out anyway.” Not if they wanted to tie him up and use him as leverage against the last of Novak’s crew or get him to turn on Novak’s suppliers. My dad was neck-deep in that mess, and I was honestly surprised they were just now catching up with his sorry ass.
“What am I supposed to do? I can’t even stay at the house.” She sounded lost and scared. I climbed to my feet and walked to where Brysen was standing, watching me silently. I didn’t stop until I was right in front of her. I slid a hand around the back of her neck and tilted her face up toward mine.
“I fail to see how that’s my problem. You tossed me out in the cold without a second thought.”
She didn’t answer me for a full minute, and I took the time to get lost in a sea of endless blue.
“Your dad said it was what we had to do. He told me that you were poisoned by that boy, by the lifestyle he dragged you into. You made the choice to disappear for years, to waste your college fund on some girl, Race. Your father told me cutting you out of our lives was the only way you would see what you were giving up. You were supposed to come back home.”
It grated on my last nerve. I gritted my teeth and Brysen lifted her hands to run them over the swirling black-and-blue bruises that were painting my ribs on either side. People with power and money always thought they had the upper hand, that they could manipulate others with no consequences.
I lowered my forehead so it touched hers, and told my mom in a tone that was final, “You can come into the city and get some money, not for Dad. I’ll give you enough to get a hotel until you figure out a game plan.”
She started to talk over me, but I cut her off.
“That girl, the one I spent all of my tuition money on, wasn’t just some stranger, Mom. She’s Dad’s kid, and he tried to have her killed. Once before she was even born, and then again when her mom came back around to try and extort money out of him. He’s a fucking monster and I hope he turns on Novak’s crew because he’ll never make it to the witness stand alive. He can rot in hell with Novak as far as I’m concerned.”
I hung up on her before she could say anything else and bent so I could kiss this girl who always made all the bad things seem less in control of my day-to-day. She tasted like mint and the morning, and when she buried her fingers in the hair at the back of my neck and tugged, I made sure she knew that if she wanted to I was more than willing to take her back to bed. Only I got a little overzealous, and the way my lip was split open started to burn, so I had to lift my head, and when I did she had a drop of blood on the center of her sweet, pink mouth. I used my thumb to wipe it away, thinking that’s exactly why I had to be careful with her. I didn’t want any kind of blood on her: mine, hers, or the rivers of it that the Point seemed to spill without any thought.