Chapter Forty-Eight
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Lincoln/ Two Years Ago
G eorgia is sitting at the dining room table in the dark when I get home, her bare feet tucked on the edge of the upholstered cushion with her arms hugging her bent legs.
Maybe it’s the thunderstorm currently raging outside, or maybe it was the shitty meeting I had with the district attorney about a repeat offender who killed three people and struck a deal to get charged with vehicular manslaughter rather than second-degree murder like he deserved, but there is something off-putting in the air.
“Are you okay?” I ask, setting my bag down.
It takes her a long time to look at me, but when she does, there’s something in her eyes that I see all too often at work.
Fear.
“Georgia?”
I walk over and kneel in front of her, seeing the redness in her white hues and the puffiness in her lids that make it look like she’s been crying.
Her jaw quivers. “I need to tell you something.”
The seriousness in her tone makes me still.
Repositioning, I prepare myself for whatever she’s about to say. But right as she opens her mouth, I knock over my bag and spill the contents. Including the notes with her father’s name all over them and the pictures that Knight just gave to me this morning.
Pictures of her on the phone.
Of her father meeting with suited men.
Of her stepmother walking into town with makeup caked onto a swollen face.
Her eyes drift over the images taken from a long-range camera, and a tiny breath puffs past her lips. “You…”
She bends down and collects the last one I had Knight’s man snap of her before I told him to stop. Her eyes flicker between me and the photo of her walking into a high-rise in the city. According to Knight, there were at least twenty different offices inside. But the one that captured my attention was the main office for Carbone Realty.
“Georgia—”
The fear is wiped away, and anger takes its place. “You were having me followed?”
“I—”
“We said no more lies.” She cuts me off, pushing past me.
I stand before I fall, ignoring the mess scattered on the floor as she furiously swipes at her face and walks into the bedroom. When I see her grabbing a bag and stuffing clothes into it, I try to stop her. “Come on, Georgia. Hear me out.”
“No. I’ve tried hearing you out for years , Lincoln. I’ve tried believing that my father was wrong about you, but that just proves he was right.”
What ? I follow her as she storms out of the bedroom and back down the hall. “What are you talking about?”
She tosses her hand toward the information Conklin and Knight passed along to me. “He told me you were looking into him, but I didn’t believe it. Then I gave you the chance to tell me over and over again, but you didn’t. I let myself believe it wasn’t true. But this?” She picks up the photo of her entering the gate leading up to her parents’ house. “This is a line I didn’t think you would cross.”
If she wants to point fingers, she wouldn’t make it out unscathed. “Maybe if you told me what was going on between you and your family, I wouldn’t need to resort to this. I’ve asked you hundreds of times not to go. I’ve reminded you what you walked away from years ago, but you still chose them.”
“It wasn’t about choosing anyone.”
“It was to me ,” I yell, grabbing the photo from her and throwing it back onto the floor. “All of the work I’ve done trying to make you happy never seems to be enough. And for what? You may not think you’re picking sides, but you are. And no matter what I do for you, for us , you throw it back in my face by forgetting who put you in this position to begin with.”
She grips her bag in her hand. “If I can look past the things he’s done, why can’t you?”
My nostrils flare. “Because.”
“Because why ?”
“Because you’re living in some sort of delusional reality where the shit he’s involved in is kids’ play. Open your goddamn eyes, Georgia, and stop being so fucking naive.”
She pales at my raised tone, so I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose. Yelling isn’t going to get me anywhere, so I try taking a few calming breaths.
“I can’t just shut off my emotions like you do, Lincoln. It doesn’t work that way for everybody. You may think it does because you’ve trained yourself to, but I feel everything . I feel anger. And sadness. And grief. I feel sad. And mad. And confused. But you know what I haven’t felt in a long time?”
All I do is watch her.
“Happiness.”
My shoulders tense.
I gesture around us. “Look around you, Georgia. How can you be miserable when I’ve given you everything? You have a roof over your head. The cupboards are full of food. Your shelves are full of books. What more could you want?”
“You can’t just keep throwing money and sex at our problems, thinking they’ll disappear.”
Is that what she thinks? “I buy you things to make you happy. To remind you that I give a fuck. What has he done for you?”
This time, she doesn’t answer. Instead, she grabs her bag and walks to the door leading downstairs.
I put a hand on it. “I don’t want you to leave.”
“Well, I don’t want you to keep lying to me, so I guess we’re both going to wind up disappointed tonight.”
Using all of her strength, she yanks open the door and walks down the stairs with me following a few steps behind.
“One day, you’re going to realize that the person you’re trying to see the best in is not who he says he is.”
She stops at the bottom of the stairwell. “And what about you? Because you’re not the person you used to be either.”
I start to reply but close my mouth.
Putting her coat on, she reaches for the door handle and hesitates. “When my father told me that you were digging into him, I didn’t want to believe it. Because I only have room in my heart for one liar, and he took that spot. I thought you, of all people, could understand when I said I needed someone to trust.”
“If you know he’s a liar, then why give him the benefit of the doubt?”
She opens the door. “I’m not giving him the benefit of the doubt. I’m trying to fix everything he’s done.”
“That isn’t your responsibility.”
“Then whose is it? Yours ?”
I don’t answer.
She grips the bag in her hand. “He’s the only family I have left, and I’m doing everything in my power to save him from crossing lines he’ll never come back from.”
“You have me,” I remind her.
Her eyes skate down the front of me. “No,” she whispers, shaking her head. “I don’t think I do anymore. I don’t think I have for a while. If I did, you wouldn’t have hired somebody to follow me like I’m in on one of my father’s schemes.”
She walks out but stops halfway.
Looking over her shoulder, her eyes dim.
“I kissed Luca Carbone today.”
My hand on the stairway railing tightens, the wood creaking in my grip.
I don’t say a word.
Neither does she.
I watch her get in her car and back out of the driveway, not looking back once as she disappears down the road.
That’s when a new kind of fury takes over.
*
The same big-boobed secretary is sitting at the desk when I storm into Carbone Reality. “Mr. Danforth, it’s lovely to—”
Ignoring her, I veer right down the hall to the same conference room where I met Luca before.
His secretary is hot on my heels. “Mr. Danforth, he’s in a meeting right now. You can’t go in—”
I don’t pay her any attention as I throw open the door and find the man I’m looking for standing in front of blueprints that he’s presenting to a group of men who stare as I round the table.
Luca straightens as my right hook meets his jaw. He goes down, and a string of startled cusses and gasps fill the room as they watch him fall on his ass, taking the prints down with him.
I tower over him, half-tempted to punch him again. Maybe even throw my foot back and land a hit to the ribcage. But he looks too pathetic sitting there on the floor.
It wouldn’t be a fair fight.
“Keep your mouth and your hands off my wife,” I growl at him, feeling the burning gazes of our audience piercing my back.
Quietly, I hear a feminine voice say, “We need security at—”
“No,” Luca calls out. “Don’t call security, Lyla. I can handle this myself.”
He rubs his jaw and cracks his neck before standing, unafraid to stand mere inches away from me when he reaches full height. “The problem with men like you is that you don’t know what you have, so you take advantage of it. You’re lucky that my mouth is the only thing that touched her.”
Somebody clears their throat on the opposite end of the room, but that doesn’t stop the current exchange. “And what about men like you? Are you really trying to tell me that you’d cherish her? If she wanted that, she would have chosen you to begin with.”
It’s Lyla who says, “Mr. Carbone, I can get him escorted out if you’d—”
He raises a hand to silence her. “Detective, I have no doubt in my mind that she would have chosen me if she’d given it a chance. You just wish you could say the same. It may be your ring on her finger, but that doesn’t make her yours. If it did, you wouldn’t be here right now.”
Teeth grinding, I take another step toward him and force myself to stop. He wants a reaction. He wants me to hit him again.
So, I won’t.
“Georgia has a mind of her own,” he tells me as if I don’t already know that. “There are things that neither one of us would be okay with her doing. But she always does what she thinks is best.”
And he thinks that’s him? “You’re a far cry from the best option.”
“I’m not talking about me, Danforth.”
I don’t let him feed me more bullshit, so I back away, turning to the people watching us. “Sorry to interrupt your meeting.”
All they do is stare as I walk out, brushing past the wide-eyed secretary as I make my hasty exit.
It may be your ring on her finger, but that doesn’t make her yours.
When I slam the truck door behind me, I stare down at my swollen knuckles. Clenching them, I back out of the spot I haphazardly parked in and try calling Georgia.
It goes to voicemail immediately three times.