26. Chapter Twenty-Six—Carlotta #3
Most months, I didn’t have enough money to buy food, but the owners of the coffee shop let me take home the leftovers from the café and Nonna bought a stack of freezable casseroles for me to work my way through, once a fortnight.
I don’t know who, but somebody had been looking out for me at that very moment. Making sure that I had food in my belly and a roof over my head.
But if they hadn’t been…
Where the fuck would I have ended up?
My depressing train of thought is knocked off course by the reappearance of Genie, armed with plastic menus, a cold beer, and a glass of what appears to be rose wine.
“Will you four beat it and leave the two lovebirds alone?” She places the menus on the table, dishing out the beer for Cassiel and the wine for me, before smiling at me. “I’m sorry, Carlotta. Sometimes these boys get carried away with themselves.”
“It’s okay.” I match her smile, reaching to grab the stem of the glass and take a small sip. The sweet taste of peach bursts on my tongue, quickly followed by something a little more tart. Raspberry, maybe? “I don’t mind.”
“You’re a sweet girl. Cassiel is lucky to have found you. Why are you four still standing here?”
Under Genie’s securitizing eye, the boys disappear, as does the woman herself. Leaving just Cassiel and I alone for the first time all evening.
“So… you grew up here?”
“For a few years, yeah.”
“How old were you?”
Cass sits back in the booth, his fingertips coming to scratch at the thin coating of stubble covering his sharp jaw. “I think I was… fifteen. Maybe sixteen. This was like my eighth placement or something.”
“Placement?” I frown.
“Yeah. I was in the care system, me and my sister.”
I rub my thumb against the glass rim, watching Cassiel. “You’ve got a sister?”
He nods. “Her name’s Caroline. She’s three years older than me.”
“And you two… did you grow up to together?”
Cass shakes his head while he takes a sip of his beer. My eyes zero in on the masculine bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows, a rush of heat pooling in my core. God, everything this man does it attractive, even when he’s covered in a spatter of blood and, Glock in hand and—
“They split us up when I was young, I don’t remember how old exactly.
I was finally allowed her contact information when I turned eighteen.
She was twenty-one and living in Oklahoma.
It was… strange seeing her again after so long, but a good type of strange.
Seeing somebody in the flesh who has the same features I see when I look in the mirror was a little bit of a mindfuck. ”
I huff out a laugh through my nose, cataloguing the hunch of Cass’s shoulders before he lowers them. He may be trying for nonchalance, but he can’t kid me.
“So, this is where you grew up, huh? Before you moved in with… Rome?”
“Yeah. But the house I was placed in was a shithole, full of strangers strung out on the sofa daily, fist fights, and alcohol. I spent most of my time hiding out here with Genie and Fox or meeting up with Rome behind his private high school, pretending my other life didn’t exist.”
“You went to a private high school?” I blink.
“God no,” Cass laughs darkly. “I went to the state school around the corner, but I used to sell—”
He cuts himself off abruptly, rolling his lips together, until I raise both brows.
“Carry on.”
“I used to sell weed and coke, the odd cigarette here and there, to the high and mighty kids behind the bike shed. You’d be surprised how much clientele I’d get, Princess.
I’d swipe it from my stepfather when he wasn’t looking and sell it for twice the price.
Rome caught me once. He wasn’t looking to buy, but he couldn’t keep away. ”
I smile in despite the mention of Rome; I like listening to Cass’s stories.
“How did the care system allow—”
Cassiel fixes me with a haunted gaze. “They don’t give a fuck around this side of town.
The people who work in the sector are just as corrupt as the rest of them.
The kids around here… we slip through the cracks and are purposefully ignored when we cry for help because we’ve been left to fend for ourselves. So, I left.”
“Didn’t anybody notice that you’d gone?”
“Fuck no. They didn’t give a shit about me finishing school, or making sure I ate, or making sure I was washed.
So, they weren’t going to give a fuck when I ran away.
They didn’t even care if I lived. As long as they were getting money from the care system to keep me, to spend buying more drugs, then they weren’t bothered what I did. ”
“What about Genie and… Fox?”
“They cared.” For the second time tonight, a sheepish expression crawls across Cassiel’s features.
“I wrote them a note before I took off. But it took me about ten months until I plucked up the courage to call them and tell them I was okay; I was still alive and healthy and safe with Rome. I know I scared both of them half to death, but I didn’t know what else to do.
I couldn’t tell them when I was going, or where, because I thought my ‘foster dad’ might come by and demand to know where I was.
I’d already bought enough trouble to their doorstep; I didn’t want to bring anymore. ”