Page 97 of Perfect Sin
“Oh, Jackson! I didn’t think I’d ever hear from you. Do you need help, honey? Oh, please, just come home, whatever it is we’ll fix it.”
I try and muster sympathy for the level of desperation she’s displaying. It’s not a natural emotion for me, and I have to clench my teeth to keep from snapping at her. “Carina, stop please. I have to ask you a question.”
“Anything,” she swears.
“We’ll see about that. Did you know that Arthur sent a notorious trafficker after Raven?”
“What? Of course he didn’t!”
“So he didn’t tell Jesse to get rid of Raven no matter what?”
“He wouldn’t do that,” she mutters.
“You don’t sound so sure.”
“I— Jesse is a nice boy from a good family. You have to be mistaken.”
“As opposed to my wife, right? She’s not from the right family, so she’s lying to me?”
“She’s not right for you.”
“How could you possibly know that? You haven’t even met her.”
“Her father—”
“Yeah, he’s a piece of shit. He also sells people, guns, and probably drugs. He turned me into a whore then a killer. He planned to sell his own daughter before her brother and I took her and ran. He’s been promising to let his associates violate her, the very same men Jesse’s been meeting with.”
“I don’t believe this. He wouldn’t, and your father loves you,” she insists.
“Ask him,” I demand. “You say you want a relationship with me—”
“I do. More than anything.”
“Prove it,” I say and hang up the phone.
The plan was to stay on the phone with her long enough to get real concrete answers, but even that short amount of time caused searing pain to erupt in my temples. I don’t know if she and I will ever be able to forge any kind of relationship, but I’m certain Arthur and I never will.
I head back out to the living room and find Lucien pacing. “Everything is fucked. Gerrick said the meeting is set for next week and couldn’t meet with us today. I tried calling Holbrook, but he isn’t answering.”
I lean against the wall and knock my head back against it. I’ll try anything to knock an idea loose, because it’s appearing more and more that not only are we once again on our own, but we’re being colossally screwed by people we shouldn’t have trusted. “Maybe we should rethink going. I’m not walking into an ambush.”
Raven crosses her arms. “We’re going. I’m done with this bullshit, done being afraid, and of being babysat twenty-four hours a day.”
“I understand, princess, I do, but I’m not taking chances with your safety.”
“I’ve got an idea,” Ford speaks up. “Change the location, and we control the meeting.”
“I like where you’re going with this. The gym, right?” I ask him.
Ford nods. “Shane has been doing some upgrades on the security, mostly on the infrastructure this time. We can stash weapons around the room, that way we don’t have to carry as many and set them on alert off the bat.”
“It’ll still only be us there if Holbrook doesn’t come through,” I point out.
“We’ll manage. It’s not the first time someone has underestimated me,” Ted says.
Rage bubbles up inside of me until I feel the need to lash out. Not wanting to hurt anyone in this room, I kick the coffee table over. “I hate all of this!” I shout.
Lucien claps me on the shoulder and tries to calm me down. “Come on, Sin. We’ve gone into worse and come out mostly unscathed,”