Page 86 of Claimed
My hand trembled as I scrolled through transactions that made no sense. Large sums from various companies. I swallowed, reading the account numbers. I rifled through a drawer and seized Achille’s checkbook. The numbers matched.
My heart sank.
He was giving her money?
Betrayal, cold and sharp, cut through me. How could he keep this from me? I sagged in the chair as everything I’d built with Achille buckled. Why wouldn’t he tell me he wired my sister four thousand dollars a month? He was hiding something.
That’s why he’d tried to rush the wedding.
My trust in him scattered, as flimsy as a dandelion in the wind. Each sweet whisper we shared that night in the cabin…shadowed by lies. Tears streaked down my cheeks.
The room closed in on me. My fiancé had secrets tied up with my family. Secrets that would suffocate my love for him.
I needed to unravel the lie. But what would I find if I kept pulling?
THIRTY
ACHILLE
“Look, Daddy, train go fast!”
I smiled. “It sure does, buddy.”
We sat in a booth in a burger joint. Jack had already polished off his food. I picked at my fries as he ran his toy train through imaginary roads, complete with sound effects. He brought that thing with him everywhere. As a kid, I didn’t have toys. We couldn’t afford them. The church did toy drives, but my father, obsessed with saving face, never let us take “handouts.” So all I had was a stuffed animal, a rabbit with buttons for eyes.
This one time, Romeo bought a new pair of shoes. Nice ones. Italian leather. He’d saved up for weeks. He was so proud of them. Dad never said a word. He’d peeled himself off the couch, grabbed Romeo’s shoes, and cut them up with scissors. For no fucking reason. It was always like that. Everything he did either left us in tears or made us fume with helpless rage. The day he died, I’d never felt more free. I couldn’t be that for Jack.
I seized a napkin and wiped his ketchup-stained cheeks. “Okay, little man. Let’s go.”
We slid out of the booth and walked outside. Jack ripped out of my hand, skipping ahead. I hurried to keep pace. He had a bad habit of crossing roads by himself. I needed to nip that in the bud. We strolled to the park. He sprinted toward the playset as I sat on a bench.
My pocket buzzed, and I opened my phone.
“Hello?”
“Killie, the dress fitting was a disaster,” Elena answered, crying. “I’m sorry. I tried to make it—Brina—such a jerk.”
I barely understood her through the sobbing. “Slow down. I can’t understand you.”
The thing about growing up with four sisters is that you got thrown into their drama, whether or not you liked it. When we were teenagers, they used to ask what a text message from a boy meant.
So many times, I’d patted their back while they wailed over a breakup. And they’d stood by me too. Even when my decisions led us down paths darker than we anticipated. But hearing Elena sob over the phone struck a nerve deeper than squabbles over boys.
“Brina—ruined—everything.”
I gritted my teeth. “Brina did what?”
“She-she confronted Violet at the dress shop. Said some things she shouldn’t have. It was…it was bad. Violet’s upset, and Sabrina stormed off.”
An icy dread settled in my stomach. Sabrina’s temper could topple a skyscraper, but I’d hoped she wouldn’t be a bitch to my fiancée. I looked for Jack on the playground. He was playing tag with the other children.
“What did she say?”
“Some bull about how she’s not good enough and how she won’t fit in with the family.”
Fuck’s sake. “I’ll talk to Brina.”
“I’m pretty sure Violet hates us both,” she moaned. “I’m sorry, Killie. I-I don’t know what to say.”