“You’ve been lying to me.” My father stared me down, his hard jaw sharp enough to cut through glass. “My own son has been lying to me.” He didn’t raise his voice, but his tone was still deadly. He didn’t need to drop a single curse word to be more intimidating.
“I didn’t lie—”
“Just because you’re a grown man doesn’t mean I won’t knock your teeth out. I don’t give a damn if you’re a famous billionaire.”
I clenched my jaw and stayed quiet. Only my father could talk to me that way and get away with it.
Uncle Cane was just as angry, but he pushed the conversation forward. “Start from the beginning.”
The beginning started a long time ago. Carter and I had been doing this for years.
“I’ll give you the short version of the long version,” Carter began. “Conway and I have been buying women from the Underground for years now. The Skull Kings take women from affluent families, from people who’ve wronged someone else. It’s an act of revenge. The families of the victims contact me. They offer a price, and once we negotiate the right deal, Conway goes to the Underground and buys them. We put the girls in his lingerie shows for a short period of time, and then they’re returned to the families.”
My father pieced it together quickly. “You make a profit from rescuing them.”
It was the only time I wanted to close my eyes because I couldn’t stand his disappointment. “Yes…”
“How much money have you made doing this?” Uncle Cane asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” Carter said.
“Yes, it does fucking matter,” Uncle Cane snapped.
“How I earn my money is none of your business,” Carter countered. “I’m a grown man. I get you’re pissed at me because of this whole thing, but that doesn’t give you the right to cross the line.”
Uncle Cane looked like he might break Carter’s neck.
“We’ve been doing it for a long time,” I continued. “That’s why we’re at the Underground often. And that’s when I encountered Bones. I heard someone say his name, and I recognized it right away. I did some digging…and found out who he was.”
“Does he know who you are?” my father asked, calm and livid at the same time.
“Yes,” I answered. “One of the Skull Kings said my name in front of him.”
“What was his response?” Uncle Cane asked.
“He didn’t have much of a response,” I replied. “He didn’t react at all.”
My father stared at me coldly, considering everything I said in silence.
Uncle Cane did the same.
“We didn’t want to talk about this,” Carter said. “And we wouldn’t have unless we thought it was important. We thought you should know about Bones. Whether he’s a threat or not, that remains to be determined.”
“Always assume that he is.” Uncle Cane took another long drag of his cigar, letting the smoke out through his nostrils.
I could go for a cigar right now, but my loyalty to Muse forbade it.
My father didn’t say anything else, and neither did Uncle Cane. Our glasses were untouched in front of us. The silence became thicker and thicker. Heat burned my neck, and the tension made me sick to my stomach.
I thought we would discuss what our next move was, but our fathers were silent.
“Where should we start?” I asked.
My father inhaled his cigar before dropping it into the ashtray. “Get out, Conway.” My father didn’t look at me as he dismissed us. “We’ll finish this conversation tomorrow.”
I exchanged a look with Carter, knowing our fathers wanted to talk in private. They were both too pissed to talk tactics.
“Go,” Uncle Cane said. “And you can make your own arrangements for the evening.”
It was the first time I wasn’t welcome in the house.
That probably stung most of all.
Carter and I left the office and walked downstairs toward the entryway. My mother was in the dining room, so she heard us as we made our way to the front door. Her eyes were still full of adoration, looking at me like she couldn’t love me more than she already did. “Leaving?”
I wanted to enjoy that look a little longer before she became cold like my father. She would be just as disappointed, just as livid. Instead of greeting me with a hug and a kiss on the cheek, her palm would slap against my face. “Good night, Mother.” I walked out before she could hold me back.
“Conway.”
I couldn’t walk away from my mother when she was talking to me, so I turned around.
“You aren’t staying?” she asked sadly.
My childhood home was no longer open to me. The gates were locked, and I didn’t have a key. My father didn’t want to look at me anymore, and my mother would feel the same way once my father told her the truth. “No.”
Carter and I sat in a bar together in Florence, drinking scotch while we faced each other in the booth. We hadn’t spoken on the drive, and we still hadn’t spoken in the last fifteen minutes.