Chapter 7 #2
Kira’s fingers flew faster. Zane’s scrutiny intensified. Cash’s jaw clenched. But Penny looked like she was getting ready to cry.
“You were born in Hesperia at Victor Valley hospital.”
Either Cash didn’t know that or he did and she was right.
This had to be the most painful conversation to witness. The only thing more painful was explaining to Cara why she couldn’t see her parents again.
“Our mom was…” Penny trailed off. With a jerk of her head and a stiffening of her spine, she went on. “She was sick. Very sick.”
“Just stop,” Cash demanded but there was a thread of uncertainty wrapped around his words.
“I was five,” Penny went on like Cash hadn’t spoken. “I asked where you were and when we were going back to get you and she told me I made you up.”
I heard Cash suck in a breath.
My shoulders slumped. I could take no more.
No more.
But before I could interject Penny continued. “Your name is Benjamin. That’s what she named you. I called you Benji when I’d give you a bottle and rock you to sleep. Then she took you away from me.”
Benji.
My stomach clenched, not only for Cash’s pain but for the selfish, selfish woman who should’ve found a better way to administer the death blow she’d landed. But even as pissed as I was at her, the agony in her voice couldn’t be denied.
“I asked where you were. Every day I asked. She’d fly into a rage and tell me I was crazy and made up having a brother.
Then when I wouldn’t stop, she’d beat the hell out of me.
Finally, I stopped asking. She’d convinced me I was crazy and I’d imagined you—something good and sweet in my otherwise shitty life. ”
“We don’t have an exact birthdate for you,” Kira started.
Her voice was strong and sure, all business like she was delivering an intel brief.
“Hospital records show seven boys were born in Victor Valley hospital the month before you entered the system. One of them was Benjamin Nicholas Robbins born March first. Mother listed as Eden Robbins. No father listed.”
Cash was staring at Penny, and I was wondering if he was now cataloging the similarities.
The two of them shared the same mother, different fathers, so those blue eyes had to be passed down from Eden.
But there were other traits like the shape of their faces, and they both shared the same hairline.
Penny was a very pretty female version of Cash.
Or maybe he was a handsome, masculine version of her since she was older.
“You knew.” Cash’s statement vibrated through the room, and it took me a moment to realize he was talking to me. “You fucking knew.”
“Cash—”
Or was he Benji now? No, he was Cash—always would be.
Cash is King.
Never Benjamin.
“It’s a yes or no, Lore,” he spat. “Actually, it wasn’t even a question. You fucking knew and you didn’t tell me.”
Lore.
Ouch.
“Please, Cash, let me—”
“Fuck that and fuck you.” His hand came up and slashed through the air before dropping to his side.
“You know, even with all those warnings you dish out about how no one should trust you, and all the times you not only admitted but acted like a total bitch, I never imagined you’d be so fucking cold and dead inside you wouldn’t fucking tell me something as important as you knowing who I really was.
I’ve lived my whole life not even knowing my birthdate.
My real name. Fucking hell. I get you’re a cold-hearted bitch, but you didn’t even want me to have that.
A real name instead of what the state named me—Cash the dumpster baby found behind Fast Cash Depot.
I guess I’m lucky the social worker didn’t decide to name me fucking Depot. ”
Cold and dead.
Cold-hearted.
With each lash of his tongue, that cold and dead part of me shriveled until I was so cold I was frozen.
“Cash,” Zane rumbled. “You need to—”
“What’s wrong, Lore, you got nothing to say?” Cash taunted.
Lore.
I was so deep in my head I couldn’t find the smallest sliver of Stella.
Cash was right, so right. I was cold-hearted.
All of this a reminder of why I built my walls.
Why I protected myself. Words fucking hurt.
Even if—or most especially if—they’re true.
I’d take the leather of my father’s belt or palm of my mother’s hand across the face any day over the ugly words they spewed.
I took in Cash’s irate face, so different from the cocky, smug smile he’d walked in with.
He was beautiful.
The most beautiful man I’d ever seen.
But the way he was looking at me was hideous.
I could take anything but that, the pure hatred rolling off of him piercing my chest. If my heart wasn’t already a stone that look would’ve broken it.
With all the callousness I could muster I shook my head. “Nope.”
His head jerked like I’d slapped him. “It wasn’t my story to tell.
” I stopped to look at Penny and found that I couldn’t dredge up the cold-hearted bitch even if she’d surfaced, not when Penny looked like her world had ended when she broke Cash.
Maybe there was love there. I hoped so. For Cash.
He deserved it. “There was a better way to do that. You damn well knew what that was going to do to him.”
“Don’t fucking talk to her like that,” Cash spewed more abhorrence.
Right.
They were blood.
I was no one to him.
Actually, I wasn’t anything to any of these people.
I was nothing.
Meaningless.
Always had been. Always would be.
With that, I headed for the stairs.
Ten minutes later with my shit packed, I went back downstairs, grateful Cash, Penny, and Kira weren’t in the room, and tossed my laptop on the coffee table.
Zane turned with his phone pressed to his ear. He didn’t speak but his jaw clenched seeing me.
Meaningless.
Totally.
“Tell Kira it’s unlocked. All my intel’s on there. You already have my handwritten notes and before you threaten me, I’m out. Totally out. I know nothing. I’ve forgotten everything. And you’ll never see or hear my name again. Right here, right now, Lore’s dead.”
Stella was too.
But I didn’t tell him that. Zane wouldn’t care.
“Out?” he asked.
Like he cared.
“Totally out.”
“Maybe you should wait until—”
I shook my head and headed for the door but paused to turn back.
“I know you don’t like me,” I whispered. “But thank you for being the most honest person in my life. I always knew where you were at and where I stood and in our business that’s rare. So thank you for that respect. Have a good life, Viper.”
With that, I flung open the front door and ran to my rental car.
Leaving Lore behind.
It wasn’t until I was over the Bay Bridge back on the Western Shore of Maryland did it dawn on me, I’d killed off the facade I’d hid behind for the better part of a decade and I didn’t mourn her. I was too busy trying to erase the memory of Cash’s agony.
I didn’t care that his words had gutted me.
But his pain was something I couldn’t forget.