Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
She fucking left. Snuck out in the middle of the goddamn night. Again. I don’t blame her, though. Dinner at my parents was a shitshow. I get it. It’s a lot to deal with. I don’t even want to deal with it, and they’re my family.
I watched her leave on the CCTV. I also tracked her down to a car rental place. Where she went once she got that car, I have no idea. The thought of tracking her down and finding out why she left is tempting. But I also don’t want to be the guy who chases her around the fucking country.
Maybe I’m more into her than she is into me. It’s possible I read into things, saw signs that weren’t there. I really thought I was winning her over, though, and that fucking sucks.
Footsteps against the marble floor echo through my otherwise-silent apartment. “Your phone broken?”
My father’s voice has me picking up my head. “Nope.”
“Then why the fuck aren’t you answering my calls?” He walks into my office and helps himself to my bar.
“Been busy,” I lie. I’ve been sitting here feeling sorry for myself. Replaying everything that happened last night over in my head, trying to pinpoint the moment Poppy changed her mind about me. About us.
“Where’s Poppy?” My father looks around my office as if the woman is just going to appear.
“She left.”
“She left?” He leans against the bookcase that lines the wall.
“Yep.”
“Why?”
If I knew the why, I’d be able to fix it, change her mind and bring her back. “No idea. She left in the middle of the night,” I tell him.
“What’d you do?” Dad asks.
“You mean besides taking her to dinner with my parents two weeks into dating her? Having my sister announce to me that she’s dying? Gee, Dad, I don’t know why she ran from such a great fucking situation.”
“It’s not you,” Dad says. “Obviously, you’re a fucking catch for any woman. You did come from me after all. Also, that girl was very much into you when I left you two in the living room last night. So what happened between then and now?”
“Nothing. We came home and went to bed. I woke up without her.” As the words leave my mouth, I recall her strange reaction to Tío E. I thought it was just the fact she was meeting more of my family than she was prepared for. “Tío E…” I say aloud.
“What about him?”
“He came into the house as we were leaving, looking for Mom. Poppy seemed off when he introduced himself. I thought she was just nervous about meeting more family.”
“Emmanuel can be intimidating if you don’t know him,” Dad agrees.
“Tío E is intimidating when you do know him,” I counter.
My uncle is the leader of the fucking cartel. I don’t really think too much about it. I’ve grown up with him. But being a stranger and meeting him for the first time could be daunting. Especially if they’ve heard his name in the news.
“Your sister is going to be okay. We’ve got an appointment with one of the best doctors in the country. We’ll figure it out,” Dad says after another moment of silence.
“Yeah,” I agree and really fucking hope that we do. I still feel guilty for betraying Imogen and telling our parents about her being sick. I don’t regret it, but I also feel like shit because I’ve never gone against her wishes before.
“She’s had a change of heart. Imogen. She wants to do treatment,” Dad continues.
When my sister told me she was sick, she was adamant she didn’t want treatment, said it was pointless. I talked to her until I was blue in the face, trying to get her to change her mind. Nothing I said worked.
“What did you say to her?” I ask my father.
“It wasn’t me. It was Poppy.”
“What she say?”
“Something about not being enough for anyone, and that if Imogen gives up, it’s you who will suffer, not her.” Dad takes a sip of the whiskey in his tumbler. “I don’t know. All I heard was she changed her mind and that’s all that matters.”
What the fuck? Why would they even be talking about it?
“Right.” I nod. I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do.
“You should read that file your mother gave you. That girl has suffered more loss than anyone should. It might give you some insight into who you’ve gone and fallen in love with,” Dad tells me.
“I’m not in love.”
“So you planning on bringing all the chicks you hook up with to family dinners?”
“She’s not some chick I’m hooking up with. She’s different,” I tell him.
“Really? How so?”
“She just is. That doesn’t mean I’m in love with her.”
“Okay, sure. Read the file, Sammie J. Figure out where she went and go and get her. Don’t waste time wallowing in self-pity.”
“I’m not chasing anyone around the fucking country. If she wanted to be here, she would have stayed. Besides, I need to focus on Imogen. She needs me now more than ever.”
“No, I need to focus on Imogen. She’s my daughter. You need to get your girl before someone else does. Also, I want to thank her. You got her number? I’ll give her a call.”
“Yeah, because having the guy she just snuck out on in the middle of the fucking night’s father call her isn’t weird at all.” I shake my head. He’s not getting that number from me.
“It’s not weird,” Dad says.
More footsteps sound out through the open door. “When did my apartment become a drop-in center?” I groan as Elias, Alfie, and CJ all appear on the threshold.
“I called them,” Dad says. “I need you to do a job before you run off to find Poppy.”
“Poppy left?” Alfie asks.
“Yep,” Dad answers for me. “In the middle of the night,” he adds with a smirk.
“You need some insights on how to keep a woman satisfied, cousin?” Alfie asks.
“Fuck off,” I grunt at him before turning to my father. “What do you need me to do?”
“There’s a problem at one of the packing locations. Someone is skimming, and you three are going to go and find out who it is,” Dad explains.
“There’s four of us?” I remind him.
“Elias isn’t going. I’ve got something else I need him to do.”
“What d’you need?” Elias quirks a curious brow.
“I need you to go and rein in your father.”
“What’s he doing now?”
“Encouraging my wife to go on a blood bender. They’ve cooked up some shit-ass plan to round up every hematologic-oncologist in the country and threaten them until they find a cure for Imogen.”
“That’s not a horrible idea,” I say.
“It’s not the way we’re handling this. We try to do it like civilized people first. Then, if that doesn’t work, we go to more extreme measures.”
“Okay, civilized. Got it.” Elias nods his head. “What does that look like exactly?”
“Whatever you think is a good idea, don’t do that,” Dad grumbles. “Just go and find your father and figure out how to get him away from my wife. Those two together is a bad idea right now.”
I chuckle. My mother and Tío E are deadly on their own. Get them working together on any project, and they’re likely to start World War III.
Standing, I pick up my keys. “I’m driving.”
“Sure. I didn’t want to live past today anyway,” CJ retorts as he and Alfie follow me out of the room.
“She really left?” Alfie asks once we’re in the car.
“Yep.”
“What’d you do? I thought she was a keeper for sure,” CJ chimes in.
“She is a keeper,” I groan. Otherwise I wouldn’t have brought her to fucking Vegas to meet my family.
“So, you gonna go after her?” Alfie questions.
“No.” I shake my head. My fingers grip the steering wheel a little tighter. I don’t want to be having this conversation.
“Why the fuck not? You just said she was a keeper?” He eyes me like I’ve lost my damn mind.
“She doesn’t want to be kept.” I shrug. “If she did, she wouldn’t have left.”