4. Ryan #2
“Evidence.”
Of course.
I lean back. “We have evidence.”
“We have pieces.”
Dad turns his laptop toward us. “We have enough to know Roman is controlling Ally’s life. We have enough to know he’s arranged this marriage. We have enough to know Tremblay concerns the hell out of all of us.”
“Concerns you.”
Dad looks at me. “Ryan.”
“His wives are dead.”
“We know.”
“He specifically wants Ally untouched.”
“I know.”
“He made a fucking arrangement with her father for her!”
Arthur cuts in. “And Ally is eighteen.”
I look at him. “Which means?”
“Which means the law already gives Ally the solution to her own situation. She says no.”
My laugh is ugly. “That’s fucking convenient.”
“I didn’t say it was fair.”
“He can terrorize her for eighteen years, arrange to hand her to a man twice her age, and because she technically has the legal right to walk out the door, everybody shrugs?”
“No.” Arthur’s voice stays calm. “But a judge deciding whether to interfere with Roman’s parental rights over Tobias is going to ask a different question. Is Tobias unsafe.”
I nod. “Yes.”
“Then we prove it.”
Silence. That’s it. That’s the fucking nightmare. We prove it. Not know it. Not feel it. Not look at Tobias and understand exactly what Roman has built around those kids. Prove it.
Ally looks toward the study door. From the kitchen, Tobias laughs, and Mom says something about glitter being permanently banned from her house.
Dad mutters, “She bought the glitter.”
Ally almost smiles. Then it disappears. “I won’t leave without him.”
Arthur looks at her. “Nobody is asking you to.”
“I need you to understand that.”
“I do.”
“If Dad told me tomorrow that I had to pack my things and go with Tremblay, I still wouldn’t leave Tobias there.”
My chest tightens. Arthur nods slowly. “Then we build this around both of you.”
“How?”
“We keep digging.”
Dad closes the laptop. “Financial records. Communications. Anything connecting Roman’s arrangement with Tremblay to money, political benefit, business interests.”
Arthur nods. “And we keep looking at Tremblay’s history. We need facts, not assumptions about what he may do to Ally.”
“Two dead wives feel pretty factual.”
“They are. Proving he caused those deaths is another matter.”
I stare at the floor. More. After months of this shit. More.
Ally’s thumb moves over the side of my hand. I look at her. She already knows.
We need more evidence, so that’s what I’ll get.
Ally walks toward us Wednesday morning.
Kaiden is talking. Danny is laughing about something Iz said. Xander has one shoulder against the lockers. Then Ally looks directly at me, and my stomach drops. She doesn’t do that. Not here. Not when we’re surrounded by half the senior class.
She keeps walking.
Fuck.
Iz notices first, his eyes flicking to mine. Then Kaiden sees her. Nobody changes position. Nobody stops talking. They’re good — we’ve had years of practice being assholes together.
Ally stops a few feet away. “Harrington.”
I look at her like hearing my name from her mouth is already irritating me. “O’Toole.”
Her expression doesn’t change. “Your mom watched Tobias Monday.”
“Congratulations.” I see the smallest flash in her eyes. She expected cold. She didn’t expect that. Good. Neither does anyone else.
“My mom wanted me to thank her.”
I shrug. “Then tell your mom to thank her.”
A couple of people nearby are listening now. Of course they fucking are. Edgewood students can smell blood.
Ally shifts her books against her chest. “Can I talk to you for a second?”
There it is. Wrong question. Too personal. Too direct. And something about the way she’s looking at me tells me this isn’t about my mother. Something happened. Every instinct I have screams to get her somewhere private.
I do the opposite. I laugh. Not because anything is funny. Because Ryan Harrington doesn’t take Alison O’Toole aside when she asks.
Beside me, Iz snorts. Danny looks between us with a grin already forming. The boys understand.
“About what?” I ask.
“It doesn’t matter. I just need a second.”
“Jesus Christ.” I look at Kaiden. Then back at her. “Did I accidentally give you the impression we’re friends?”
The hallway seems to get quieter. Not actually. Just inside my fucking head.
Ally’s fingers tighten around her books. “No.”
“Good. Because you’ve been hovering around us a lot lately, and it’s getting weird.”
Xander laughs. It sounds completely real. That’s because Xander is terrifyingly good at this. Ally’s cheeks turn pink.
I keep going. I have to. “My mother babysat your brother for an hour. That doesn’t mean you need to start following me around school.”
“I wasn’t following you.”
“You’re standing here, aren’t you?”
Iz whistles under his breath. “Fuck, Harrington.” Performance. All of it. Still makes me want to punch him.
Ally lifts her chin. “I’m trying to tell you something.”
“And I’m trying to tell you I don’t give a shit.”
There. That one lands. I see it — a tiny break in her expression before she locks it down. My chest fucking caves in.
Kaiden laughs beside me. “Take the hint, O’Toole.”
Ally looks at him. Then at me. I make my face bored. It takes everything I have. “Whatever this is,” I say, gesturing vaguely between us, “you’re embarrassing yourself.”
Danny laughs. Someone behind Ally does too. I will remember that voice. Not now. Later.
Her eyes meet mine. I know her well enough to see the hurt. Nobody else does. They see embarrassment. They see a girl getting rejected by one of the Elite Five. Exactly what they need to see.
“Got it,” she says. She turns. I let her walk away. Five steps. Ten.
Becca is coming around the corner. She sees Ally. Then us. Her expression doesn’t change either. She falls into step beside Ally without asking a question. Good girl.
I look away first.
“Well,” Iz says loudly, “that was fucking painful.” A few people laugh. I give him a shove.
“Shut the fuck up.” Normal. Everything normal.
Kaiden starts walking. We follow. I wait until we’re through the doors at the end of the hall before Danny mutters, so quietly nobody outside our group could hear, “You okay?”
“No.”
“She’s okay,” Kaiden says.
“I know.”
“You had to sell it.”
“I fucking know.”
Xander looks back through the glass. “People bought it.” That should make me feel better. It doesn’t.
My phone feels like a brick in my pocket. I can’t text her. Not yet. Not while Roman is asking questions I don’t even know about. Not when I don’t know who the fuck is watching.
So I go to class. And spend the next six hours wanting to crawl out of my own skin.
At three seventeen, Becca’s SUV pulls out of the student lot with Ally in the passenger seat.
At three twenty-one, I leave with Iz. At three thirty-four, Iz drops me at my house.
At three forty, I take my dad’s car out of the garage.
Not mine. At three fifty-two, I pull into the old public docks on the other side of town.
At three fifty-seven, Becca’s SUV rolls into the lot.
She doesn’t park beside me. She stops thirty yards away. Ally gets out. Becca drives away. Then my girl walks toward me.
I know immediately that I fucked her up worse than I wanted to.
She gets in and closes the door quietly.
I lock it. For a second, neither of us says anything.
Then I reach for her, and she turns toward me at the same time.
I pull her across the console as far as the stupid fucking car allows and wrap both arms around her. She buries her face against my neck.
“I’m sorry.”
Her arms tighten around me. “I know.”
“No. Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make me feel better because you know why I did it.”
She pulls back enough to look at me. “I’m not.”
“That fucking hurt you.” Her eyes shine. She looks away. Fuck. “Ally.”
“I knew it wasn’t true. I knew the entire time. But everyone laughed.” She looks down at her hands. “And that’s stupid, because I knew Kaiden and Danny and Xander and Iz were doing exactly what they were supposed to do. I know none of them meant it. I know you didn’t mean it.”
“It’s not stupid.”
“It still felt like everybody was laughing at me.”
I reach for her face. She lets me. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
Her eyes close when my thumb moves beneath one of them. “I’ve spent my whole life being really good at not caring when people make me feel small.”
“You don’t have to be good at that with me and I made you do it anyway.”
“For a good reason.”
She opens her eyes. For once, I don’t try to kiss it away. I want to. Jesus Christ, I want to — I want her mouth on mine so I can replace every fucking word I said this morning with something true. But that isn’t what she needs. So I keep my hands on her. That’s it.
“What were you trying to tell me?”
Her expression shifts. Right. The reason she walked up to me in the first place. “Dad asked about you last night.”
Every part of me goes still. “Me?”
“You and the boys.”
“What did he say?”
“He asked why your families keep turning up in everything that’s happened. Pennington. Xander’s dad. Hartley. He mentioned Fiona too.” Ally watches me. “He sees the pattern.”
“Fuck.”
“He asked if I knew any of you well.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That everybody at Edgewood knows you. He also asked if I’d ever spent time with you outside school.”