Except after last night, I'm not sure I’m as excited to be released as I thought I was. I might like it here a little too much. Imight have my own plan beginning to form in my head. But first, I have to figure out how I can help. I owe him that much.
“Well, I hope that too, but I doubt it. Not after how he treated my mother. That’s one of the things I’m hoping you can find in the vault. Any proof of what he did to her. Hospital records. Information on how he wrestled custody away from her. There has to be something somewhere.”
My mother was my father’s mistress when his sons were still young, long after he married his current wife. He considered them his real family and brought me into it after he had her sent away. I only saw her a handful of times when I was very little, and my grandfather a few more than that. Even though I was young, I saw enough arguments between them and my father to know something was wrong. I’ve always wanted to know more of the truth that he never gave me.
“If there is, and we get into that vault, I’ll find it for you if I can,” Levi promises. “Do you know what happened to her?”
“I suspect he drove her to her death. Emotionally, if not literally. My grandfather said she wanted to raise me, and my father wouldn’t allow it. He didn’t want her near me or his family. He was worried that having a mistress and a child—a whole other family—would ruin his chance in politics.
“So he used the power he had to push her to the brink of sanity. He had her committed after she tried to run away with me, and he nearly killed us both in a car accident. Had them treat her like a criminal, no visitors, hours and hours every day alone, refused to tell her where I was or even how I was doing.” My heart hurts just remembering the little I learned about her from my grandfather and her records at the hospital. They were limited, painting a bleak picture of her life. But when I balanced them with what my grandfather had told me as a child, it was obvious that she was just another one of my father's victims.
“Fuck.” He grimaces and shakes his head. “That’s fucking awful. I’m sorry.”
“Me too. She didn’t deserve it.”
“I just can’t fucking believe the lengths some people will go to just to have things their way.”
“Well, my father knows no bounds.” I take a sip of my coffee, satisfied it’s cooled enough not to scald my tongue. “You want the relics then? That’s what you’re looking for in the vault?”
“Yes. He has at least two of them in his possession. One, he paid my father to steal from a rich collector, and another, he presumably hired someone else to steal from Hudson Kelly’s family. He murdered my parents rather than waiting for it to be delivered, and he burned the house down with Hudson’s grandparents inside to cover the theft of the other. So we’re alike because I want to use that history to tear his entire world asunder.”
“Asunder.” I can’t help the smile that comes to my lips. “You have an interesting vocabulary for a cowboy. I like listening to you talk.”
He returns the smile, his eyes drifting over me and the tank and shorts I have on, both emblazoned with “Seven Sins Saloon,” before they come back to meet mine.
“It’s mutual.” The smile on his face curls up one side, and he takes another long drink of his coffee.
“You like listening to me talk?” I give him a curious look because I don’t think there’s anything particularly interesting about the way I speak.
“Yes. I did a lot of it when I was stalking you. Feels like you’re another voice in my head now.”
“Is that a good or a bad thing?” I laugh.
“Time will tell.”
“Should we talk about the elephant in the room then?”
His eyes shift from one side to the other and up to the ceiling, pretending to be looking for the creature.
“Which one is that? The pink one or the purple one? I’m partial to the pink one if you ask me.” His eyes light with amusement.
“I didn’t know there was more than one.”
“Ah, well… Which one are you interested in discussing?”
I shift in my seat. I want to talk about this, need to. But I'm out of practice talking to men in general, let alone crushes. The last time I had one, I was a teenager. I have no idea how to navigate this with a man. Especially one a decade older than me.
“It feels like there’s something here. An attraction…”
“You admitted as much in the confessional. How did you put it again? Acting on it alone.”
My cheeks pink with the reminder of having admitted something so personal to him.
“Well, I didn’t act on it alone last night.”
“No, you didn’t.” He sets his coffee down. “And if that’s bothering you this morning, you can tell me. I’m teasing you about the elephants, you know? I just know yesterday was heavy for you.”
“It’s not bothering me. The opposite actually. I wouldn’t mind if it happened again.” I risk a glance up at him, and his brow rises and falls almost as quickly, descending too much for my liking.
