Avenging Angel (Pounding Hearts 5)

It looks like some kind of legal document. A court case or something like it.

“All the background information I dug up on your gym rat and that little boy he’s taking care of,” my father says smugly.

Icy cold dread washes over me, and I quickly scroll through all the text on the paper I’m staring at until I find Casey’s name. After reading a couple of sentences, it quickly becomes obvious that I’m reading a custody agreement.

There’s nothing shocking in the agreement, custody awarded to both of his grandparents after his father’s death, so I flip past it and move on to the next paper. The next paper, however, isn’t a paper at all but another glossy picture.

A picture of Emmett clearly trashed. He’s passed out on his back porch, surrounded by empty liquor bottles and beer cans.

I suck in a breath and my father chuckles.

“That photo is only a few weeks old, and given his upcoming match, the photographer was hesitant to sell it to me before it’s printed, but I managed to convince him.”

I slant a dark look at my father over the folder and he chuckles again as I flip to the next paper. Great, another picture, but this time Emmett is passed out in his front yard.

“Tell me, did you know he’s a drunk before you hooked up with him? Was that half of the appeal?” my father taunts, and the folder begins to crumple in my hands as my anger starts to get the best of me.

I flip to the next picture, then the next. It’s just picture after picture of Emmett trashed in some fashion.

Utterly disgusted, I only make it halfway through the stack before I snap the folder shut. I’ve seen enough.

“So what?” I ask as I lower the folder. “So what if he used to drink?”

It’s not news to me. And despite how disturbed and heartbroken I am by what I’ve seen, I’m determined not to let my father get to me.

“You didn’t make it to the back,” my father says with a flick of his hand.

Sighing, I shake my head, not taking the bait. “I’m tired of these games. Why don’t you get straight to the point?”

My father’s face tightens with anger and I hear his teeth grinding together. All that expensive dental work at risk because of me…

I’ve never, in all the years I’ve been in contact with him, given him so much defiance or resistance before and it’s clearly getting to him. In the past, I’ve always bent to his will, submitting quickly and easily out of the fear he’d walk out of my life again. I’ve carried out his bidding for the past four years.

I’ve been his pretty little obedient doll. Bending, almost breaking, in the ways he’s used me.

But not today… goddammit, not today.

“Very well,” my father grits out. “Since you refuse to look, I’ll describe the contents for you. In the back of that folder you will find the most recent bank documents for Mr. and Mrs. Babson, Casey’s grandparents.”

If I thought the bottom fell out of me before… well, my entire existence drops as I immediately realize what my father intends to threaten me with.

Flipping quickly through the pages, I end up accidentally tearing a couple in my haste to reach the very papers he’s talking about.

“It seems Mr. Babson has had some medical issues lately. Some very expensive medical issues which have put a strain on their finances…”

“Don’t,” I warn, looking up from the papers. “Don’t you dare…”

Ignoring me, my father continues, a smile beginning to creep across his face. “Their house is about to enter foreclosure. And being that they’re on a fixed income, there’s little hope they’ll be able to pull themselves out of the financial hole they’ve found themselves in.”

God help me. Gripping the folder, it’s everything I can do not to shake and tremble like a fucking leaf.

“Soon, they’ll be without a house, unable to care and provide for their dear grandson…”

For a foolish second, I hope that my father forgot that Casey isn’t in his grandparent’s care, he’s in Emmett’s.

“Concerned, as a father myself, and as the governor of our great state Nevada, I took it upon myself to do a little investigating. Casey, that poor boy, has had such a tragic life, and I’d like to do all in my power to help him. I was able, through a little luck and perhaps a little divine intervention, locate his mother, Amber. Her picture should be right there with the mortgage documents.”

Bile rises in my throat and my fingers shake as I force myself to flip through to the very picture he’s speaking of.