SIX
His sister.
I want to melt into an invisible pool on the floor. How much of an insanely jealous bitch do I look like now? My feet stay sluggish as I make my way up the wide entrance hall to where I hear her clang around in the kitchen. Dallas places a fist on my lower back and presses, urging me forward.
“It’s kind of sexy, you know,” he whispers over my shoulder. “Seeing you so possessive.”
“I wasn’t possessive,” I snap under my breath.
“Keep telling yourself that, baby.” He shoves me hard, launching me into the open plan dining/kitchen.
I stall behind a chair at the table, placing my shaky hands onto the seat back to try and calm my nerves. Dallas’ sister collects plates off the counter, her back to us as she calls out, “Are you done playing with your toy yet, little brother?”
“For now.” He holds my eye, smirking as he pulls a seat out beside mine. “Sit.”
I do as I’m told, mostly out of fear that my weak legs will buckle from my sudden rush of anxiety if I try to stay upright any longer.
“Camille.” The fox introduces herself as she sets a plate of what appear to be freshly made bagels on the table, followed by one with bite-sized fruit. “I take it you two haven’t had time to chat about family yet?”
“Not really,” I mumble. I wring my hands under the table in the hem of my sweatshirt.
Camille runs her eye over my choice of attire and frowns. “Aren’t you hot? It’s like eighty or something out there today.”
“Ninety,” Dallas corrects, reaching for a bagel. “April doesn’t have a clean bra to wear, so she thought it might stop me from staring at her tits if she hid them.”
It may be ninety outside, but I swear my face just hit one hundred. “Did you have to share that?”
Camille waves it away as though his comment was nothing unusual for a first visit. “I’m not judging.” She points to the plates. “You pick first.”
“I’m not so hungry anymore.”
“Nonsense.” Her eyes darken, exactly like Dallas’ do. Definitely family. “I’m sure he made you work up an appetite last night, am I right?”
Dallas chuckles, leaning back in his seat with one arm slung over the back as he funnels the bagel into his mouth.
I glare at the asshole, wondering just how often he does this if his sister has his number. “I take it breakfast with your one-night stand is a common occurrence then, Dallas?”
He lifts both eyebrows suggestively and chooses to keep on eating rather than answer my question. Camille does instead.
“It’s not, actually.” She gives up waiting for me to choose and shifts a handful of grapes and a slice of melon onto my plate. “You’re the first woman he’s brought home … first one alive, anyway.”
Dear God, I swear I’m going to be sick on this table if their Addams Family style meal carries on this way.
“I’d even go as far to say the first girl he’s had a crush on, too,” she remarks, casually selecting a bagel for herself.
Dallas chokes on his next bite, which strangely calms my nerves somewhat. Knowing he feels as awkward as I do right now has us on an almost even par; I don’t feel so much like the odd one out.
“What the fuck are you on about?” he grumbles, seeming as though he tries to play it cool.
“This morning on the phone,” Camille explains. “I said I love you before I hung up like I always do, and you said you love me too.”
“So.” His lip curls up as he picks at what’s left of his breakfast.
I take a bite of my own, my stomach seeming to have settled enough for me to consider trying the food.
“You have never, once, told me you love me.” Camille leans back, staring down her brother. “At first I thought you might be giving me some signal you were in trouble, but then I realized you didn’t use any of the code words.”
Jesus—they have code words. What kind of family business is this?
“So,” she continues, “I thought on it while I did the housework and it came to me: you were fucking with a girl. The only reason you’d do that is if you liked her.”
“Maybe I was fucking with a guy?” he counters. “I could have been establishing a hierarchy by showing his girl was jealous and wanted me, not him.”
“You wouldn’t be that subtle,” Camille says flatly. “You’d just fuck the woman in front of him.”
“True.” He shrugs nonchalantly.
I drop the melon back on my plate.
“Lost your appetite, April?” Dallas asks with a lilt of humor.
“Strangely, I have,” I say.
“Eat,” he demands. “You’ll need a full stomach for what we’re doing later.”
“Which is?” Pretty sure the only thing we’re doing is unloading Terry, and I’m certain an empty stomach would make less of a mess.
“Burning your boyfriend,” he states flatly, taking another bite to finish around his mouthful, “Wouldn’t want you to faint.”
“It’s true,” Camille chimes in. “You need the energy to stay upright if it’s your first.” Her expression softens while she looks me over. “I take it this is your first?”
“Why are you both so flippant about it?” I ask as I push my chair back. “You both sit here discussing the fact he killed my boyfriend”—I gesture to Dallas—“as though it’s normal, as though everybody does this on a Saturday.”
“More people do than you would realize,” Dallas says casually as he pulls his phone out.
“You people are crazy.” I stand; noting the way Camille watches Dallas with apprehension. At least it seems she realizes this has gone too far.
“I may be crazy,” Dallas says as he scrolls the screen, “but you’re homeless.” He places the phone on the table and spins it around to face me before sliding it across.
I stare down at the news article open on the browser. The headline reports a building fire in an old apartment block. Camille sighs when I fail to move the page, reaching over to scroll up so she can presumably keep reading. As I feared, the fire was in my building, less than an hour ago.
“What did you do?”
“Covered our tracks.” He frowns as he licks his fingers clean. “What? You didn’t have anything of value in there.”
“You might have hurt someone.” My neighbors weren’t exactly friends, but they were people nonetheless.
“Everyone got out,” he states calmly. “I tipped off a guy on the top floor while you were asleep this morning; gave him an incentive to go door-knocking.”
“Seriously …” I can’t believe this guy. He’s so goddamn entitled, as though everything is his to do with what he pleases. “You don’t give a fuck about anyone but yourself, huh?”
“Now she gets it,” he exclaims, throwing his hands in the air.
“April,” Camille says firmly, drawing my attention back to her and away from her cocky brother. “Can you please give me a hand by bringing that plate to the kitchen?” She looks across at Dallas. “Go outside for a while.”
If looks could kill, he would have upped his daily body count to two. Yet he does as Camille asks: he rises from the table and stretches before walking that fine-as-fuck ass right out the door.
“Get,” she instructs, jerking her head to the kitchen.
I pick up the abandoned plate of fruit and follow her to the counter. She takes the dish out of my hold and sets it down firmly enough that I wait for the damn thing to crack.
“How did he pick you up?”
I shrink against the cabinets, wondering if this is where she whips the gun out to shoot me on the spot. “He hit me with his car.” I point to my bruised hip despite the fact she can’t see it.
“Why?” She frowns and folds her arms as she puts a hip against the counter. “He’s not usually a bad driver like that.”
“I ran out without looking, okay? I was a little preoccupied with trying not to get stabbed.”
“The boyfriend?” Camille cocks an eyebrow.
“Yeah,” I admit, chin down. “Ball and chain, really.”
“Huh. Makes sense why Dallas took care of it, then.”
“Why?” I look up expectantly, hoping she’ll have pity on me and explain what exactly it is Dallas wants with me.
“He can’t stand pointless violence against women,” she says as though that makes sense with a man like him—all I’ve seen is violence from him. Her gaze drops to the bruises on my neck, a slight twitch in one eye the only sign of recognition I get. “He’s rough, yeah, but he would never go too far. I know it doesn’t make sense, but we had a rough childhood. Hate is love to Dallas. It’s all he knew, so it’s all he learned.”
“What about you?” I ask, understanding what she means about all you know, being all you learn. I mean, look at me, searching out abuse as though it’s air to breathe.
“I’m older by five years,” she says with a sigh. “I knew our real father, the one who skipped out when Dallas was still in Mom’s belly. He loved us, but he didn’t love her—nobody could love her.” Camille shifts her gaze out the window over the counter, pain clear in her eyes. “Our step-father, the one who raised Dallas, would beat him for crying. It’s hard to explain, but there’s nothing creepier than having a four-year-old brother who splits his leg open playing outside and doesn’t shed a tear, let alone cry out in pain. He was conditioned to be cold, switched off, and well …”
“It’s made him who he is today?”
“Yeah.” She sighs, turning and busying herself with the leftovers.
“It’s not right though, what he does,” I say gently. “He can’t kill people on a whim because he had a bad childhood.”
“No, but he’s my brother, April, and I’ll protect him until the day I die.” She lances me with the kind of intense stare that Dallas keeps permanently. “You get that, right?”
“Not really. I’m an only child.”
She nods. “Well, I hope that one day you do understand. But until then, just believe me when I say that if any harm comes to him, I will make Dallas look like a goddamn puppy.”
“What about the people he hurts, though, Camille?”
“If he goes to prison, he’ll get the chair. I’m not sentencing my brother to death.”
“But you’ll sentence complete strangers to keep him on the outside?”
“We have a deal,” she snaps. “He only takes those who deserve it.”
“And who decides?” I ask. “Who decides they aren’t capable of redemption?”
“Nobody knows evil, like evil itself,” Dallas says.
I jolt, unaware he’d returned to the dining room to eavesdrop. He steps into full-view from where he’d been leaned against the junction of the wall and takes the plate from Camille’s shaky hand. “Go sit down, sis.”
“I don’t want to lose you,” she mutters. “Not you.”
“You won’t.” He pulls her close and places a soft kiss on the top of her head.
Relatives or not, I can’t help but be jealous of that kind of adoration. I want it. I need it.
He tells me I can have it—I just have to be on board with what he is.
Talk about an existential crisis.
“April and I will take care of the dishes,” Dallas says, nudging Camille out of the way. “Go have a fucking joint or something.”
“Yeah, sure,” she mutters before heading for the back door.
It closes with a soft click, the silence between Dallas and I excruciating as he stands beside the counter and stares me down.
“What?” I whisper, unable to find strength in my voice.
“You think what I do is wrong?” He folds his arms, one ankle crossed in front of the other as he waits for me to answer.
“Is it not?” I say. “In what world is taking somebody else’s life ever acceptable?”
“You want Terry alive again?” His eyes narrow as a muscle ticks in his jaw.
“Of course not.”
“I’ll ask you again,” Dallas says. “Is what I do wrong?”
“I guess in some circumstances it may be the last resort,” I cede.
“You guess?” He stalks forward until we’re toe to toe. “Just sometimes?”
“Are you saying you’ve never got it wrong? Misjudged a person?” I challenge.
“Of course I have.” His breath is hot as he looks down at me with raw hunger in his eyes.
I’m his next meal, but whether that will be a pleasant experience for me or not, I can’t be sure.
“Doesn’t that bother you?” I’m genuinely curious how it is he keeps so detached. No matter how disturbed a person’s upbringing, how disconnected they made themselves to survive, underneath it all we’re still human—we all feel.
“No.”
I’d believe him if it weren’t for that flicker of truth behind his eyes, that almost indecipherable twitch of his lips. “Liar.”
“How would you know?” he asks as he threads his fingers gently through my hair.
I keep my silence while he softly arranges the lengths over my shoulder, his gaze almost at peace as he focuses on the task at hand. I’m not done with this argument, not done with his arrogance, but this … it’s nice. I’d almost go as far as to say it’s pleasant, having him dote on me in such a way.
“She was right,” he says quietly, eyes still on his fingers as he traces the shape of my shoulder. “I’ve never said I love her before.”
“I knew you were messing with me at the time,” I admit, keen for him to realize I’m not as stupid as he’d like to think.
“Did it bother you?” His gaze shifts to mine, but instead of the usual challenge, I find curiosity. He really wants to know.
“A little.”
A small smile tugs at the corner of his lips. “Liar.”
Touché. I chuckle before answering, “Okay. It bothered me a lot.”
“Why?” Still nothing but curiosity.
My cheeks flame under his scrutiny. “Because … because I want all that attention for myself. I don’t like the thought of sharing.”
“Sharing me,” he says, fleshing out the words I was hesitant to say.
“Yeah.” I drop my chin, needing the respite from his unwavering gaze to find a moment to breathe. “Silly, huh? Considering how we know each other and all.” Considering how all his markers scream for me to run.
“How do we know each other?” His palm slides across my chest to rest below my throat. “Tell me in your own words.”
My breath hitches as his fingertips skim the still sensitive flesh. “You killed my boyfriend,” I state. “It all boils down to that, and yet …”
“Yet?” He tips his chin up; those delicious lips parted as he eyeballs the hand at my throat.
“Yet, I still don’t know why. Your sister said you don’t like men who are abusive to women, but that still doesn’t explain why you killed him, why you’re helping clean up the evidence, why you care.”
The last word jars him from his trance, his hand dropping away as he takes a step back. “I don’t care.”
“Yes you do, Dallas,” I press, stepping forward. “You could have shot him in the leg, dumped me at the nearest hospital. You could have walked away completely and carried on with your night. But you didn’t.” I take the chance and reach for him, taking charge for the first time since we met. “You chose to stop and help me. You chose to protect me.” I loop my arms around his neck and link my fingers at his nape.
“I didn’t choose anything,” he bites with a slight twitch in his eye. “I did what came naturally.”
He can’t look away, and neither can I. I want him to realize on his own, that this man he pretends to be, this cold, closed off monster is a lie.
He’s human. He feels. And he loves.
It’s impossible to have a heartbeat and not do so.
“If I left now,” I ask, stepping away. “What would you do?”
He glances down at my arms, as though he can’t understand why I put the distance between us. “What do you mean?”
“If I left,” I say again. “Would you think of me?”
He snorts a laugh, reluctant to give up the tough guy image. “No.”
I play it cool; lifting both eyebrows as though surprised despite the fact my heart hurts. He can’t do it. He can’t put aside his pride to admit the truth—he cares.
“Okay.” I take a deep breath and square my shoulders, praying he’ll let me do this. “I guess you made up my mind for me.”
“Made up your mind on what?” He runs a hand through his hair, a deep frown marring his beautiful face.
“Whether I should stay. You had a chance, Dallas, to prove I matter, and you pretty bluntly told me that I don’t.”
He opens his mouth to protest, for once lost for words as I turn and head for the front door. My heart thunders in my chest, my pulse fat and heavy in my hands as I will my feet to keep a calm, slow pace while I leave him behind.
I have no money. I have no home.
Fuck, I have nothing. But be damned if I’m going to let Dallas strip me of my dignity.
“April!”