Page 98 of Claimed
“Why would you do that?”
Heat wrapped my throat. “I wanted a regular girl that I didn’t have to share with other men.”
“So, you had my sister on retainer to get your rocks off.” She shot me a look. “And then what?”
“She vanished.”
She glared at me. “Just like that?”
“I paid her for June, but only saw her once before she disappeared. I messaged her, but she didn’t respond. I visited her apartment—not the one you were living in, a different one—but she’d packed up everything. I figured she cut and run. I never heard from her again.”
“That didn’t upset you?”
I shrugged. “We weren’t close.”
Violet stood, her hand on the chair. “But…that was four years ago. How did she afford her current place? She said she was a waitress.”
“Then she probably started hooking again,” I said, wincing at the sight of a tear tracking her cheek.
She wiped her face. “What was she to you?”
I swallowed hard. “A girl I saw for sex.”
“How many other women did you see?”
“What does it matter?”
Her burning gaze drilled into me. “Because I didn’t realize I was marryin’ a man who paid to screw my sister! Did you think I’d be okay with that?”
“It was a long time ago.”
“I don’t care.”
“What choice did I have? Every street gang in this city wants me dead because of who I am. I only went out with escorts because I didn’t want to be responsible for anyone’s life.”
“And yet, my sister was killed.”
“Yes,” I whispered. “I thought I was careful with her, but somebody must’ve been watching us. Probably at Afterlife. That’s where we met up.”
“Then what?”
“Whoever it is found out her kid was mine and hired a thug to kill her.”
“How do you know that?”
“Nobody kills escorts to get back at someone. Not unless her son belonged to me.”
“Why now? Why not while he was a baby?”
“I don’t fucking know.”
Their names hit my brain like lightning strikes. Becky. Romeo. Elise. Travis Wilson. What did they have in common?
Violet paced the room faster, a deep color rising to her cheeks. “Were you going to hide this forever?”
“Telling you the truth gives you more reasons to hate me.”
Her nostrils flared. “Because you need custody of Jack.”