My eyes flash to him. “How the fuck do you—” I cut myself off before I finish the questioning demand. Of course he knows. Silverwood is like every other small town in America. Everyone is always in everyone else’s business. Viks might not live here anymore, but he has proven himself to be a man with many contacts. No doubt he’s been keeping an eye on us since before he stepped foot back into town. “Who’s on your payroll at the hospital?” I ask instead.
Viks’ lips quirk up. “Don’t worry about it,” he replies. “But they’re not on a payroll.”
My hands clench into fists against my thighs. “You think she went back to Morpheus because he threatened us?” God, I’m an idiot because that makes so much more sense. It would explaineverything. All of the words that made no sense. Fuck, I could spank the shit out of her—I will, I decide. The second I get to her, I’m going to put her over my knee and she won’t sit right for a goddamn week.
“That would be my best bet,” Viks says. “But it’s more complicated than that. Calloway’s obsession with her makes no sense. I can understand a man feeling protective over a younger female relative, and he’s been business partners with her father since before she was born, but it goes beyond that.”
“He’s been trying to place her under a conservatorship since she’s aged out of needing a guardian,” I tell him.
Viks nods. “I’m aware. He actually did file the paperwork. Though Juliet’s recent record of offenses isn’t a good look for her.” He pauses and gives me a sidelong glance before continuing. As if I have any control of that woman.Please. If I could control her ass, she’d be in my bed right now, tied up and well pleasured. The fact that she’s not speaks for itself.
“He doesn’t have a leg to stand on and he knows it. It’s probably why he went this route. He knew the conservatorship attempt would fail. Despite what some people would have you believe, it’s not that easy to take control of someone’s entire life if they don’t have a record of mental illness or dangerous actions, and until the past year, Juliet’s been clean.”
We pull off the back road and onto a well-lit one as small rural houses begin to crop up the closer we get to town. “You think the fact that he threatened her to go back to him and Denise Donovan’s accounts going active again are connected,” I guess.
“Exactly,” he agrees.
Unclenching my hands, I scrub one down my face. “The guys are a mess right now,” I admit. “They’re not answering me, especially Lex.”
“You worry about getting Gio,” Viks says. “I’ll get Lex.”
My eyes snap to his face. “I know you think he’s your nephew, but he’s my man,” I say sharply, a warning in my tone. “You don’t know him the way I do.”
“You’re right,” Viks says. “And I understand that Lex doesn’t have a whole lot of trust when it comes to people who should’ve been there to take care of him, but I also am not the type of man to back down from a challenge, Nolan. I don’tthinkAlexio is my nephew, Iknowhe is. I don’t leave those I consider family behind, and something tells me Lex has needed me for a long damn time.”
I narrow my eyes on the man next to me as he drives with one hand on the wheel and the other to the side, propped with an elbow on the windowsill. “Lex isn’t going to come easily,” I tell him.
“Nothing good in life ever does,” is Viks’ only reply.
Much as I don’t want to, that simple response is the exact thing that someone who might be able to understand the most fucked up of us would say. I sit back in the passenger seat and watch as the lights and buildings of Silverwood grow steadily closer.
Trust him or not, Viks might just be what we need to get the fuck out of this hellhole.
36
JULIET
Ilose track of the days that pass trapped in the walls of Morpheus’ house. I wake, I eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner under the careful watch of Morpheus and his unfamiliar staff. I stare at the walls of my room, contemplating killing the man holding me here, then I go back to sleep.
School isn’t a freedom, especially not when I’m constantly monitored within the prison-like walls of the Calloway estate. Any possibility of seeing the guys even in passing disappears like smoke and hope since Morpheus follows through on his previous threat and has me switched to online classes. When I’m not in Morpheus’ presence—forced there by the insistent knocking of one of the maids on my bedroom door—it’s Stuart who follows me about.
Even before I was blackmailed back into this house, he never liked me, and the feeling is mutual. His lips are so far up Morpheus’ ass as he tries to kiss it that I’m sure his breath smells like shit. The pompous ass somehow manages to maintain his professionalism when Morpheus is in the room, but the second he’s gone, all bets are off.
“You should count yourself lucky that Mr. Calloway is so generous,” Stuart snipes at me as I sit, back rigid, on one of the couches of Morpheus’ home office—here by his ‘request’.
“So fucking lucky,” I say with a roll of my eyes, the sarcasm rolling off my tongue as easily as breathing.
Stuart’s eyes narrow on me and then scan down my attire. The first day when I’d refused to wear the clothes that had been purchased for me, he’d been oh-so happy to tattle to Morpheus. My own personal jailer had pleasantly informed me of all of the things that could go wrong for Nolan’s mother or Gio’s or Lex’s aunt in the event that I be less than well-behaved with him. Clothes hadn’t seemed like a worthy rebellion anymore and my old ones had been taken, never to be seen again.
Today, I’m dressed in a soft white silk shirt that buttons down the front, tucked into a pair of black Ralph Lauren pants with a flared base. At least Stuart can’t complain because he knows it’s an outfit Morpheus would like. Other than my hair, I don’t look or feel like myself anymore.
Ignoring Stuart’s nasty eye, I turn my attention to the rows of bookshelves across from me. I scan the titles, moving over the books on law and literature and into psychology and accounting. Like my father, Morpheus is well studied—curious about almost everything.
When I was a child, his fount of knowledge had seemed endless. I’d loved asking the most random of questions to see what answer he’d have for me next. Now, the sound of his voice is worse than nails on a chalkboard.
Stuart’s quiet huff as he marches across the room to the desk that Morpheus had left less than a half hour before due to a call in another room pulls me from my thoughts. I turn my head, watching him shift papers around and stack them together in neat little piles.
“Utterly ungrateful… Don’t know why he bothers… Ridiculously spoiled…” he mutters to himself, each insult flowing over me like water.
