Page 7 of Tell Me

Typical.

I got my feet back under me and headed for the door, already thinking about the next move. So I couldn’t depend on him. As usual.

Fine.

Luckily, he wasn’t my only option.

5

BROOKS

I got as far as the door to the library on my pure, unadulterated fury. My father had always been in it for himself, and he’d never thought I should have an opinion of my own. Hell, he’d thought he could dictate my entire life even after I moved to New York, constantly sending demands and deadlines to me like I was still under his thumb.

He was the first man I’d learned to ignore.

I’d never gotten very good at manipulating him, though, and now I was feeling pretty fucking stupid for having thought that had changed. I’d come down here with nothing but the sketch of a plan in place, hoping he’d stand up and be there for me when I needed him, and now that I was here, facing the hard truth about him once again, I felt...

“Stupid,” I hissed, banging through door he’d just closed.

I hated feeling stupid. I’d spent too much of my childhood feeling like I didn’t have control over anything—because I didn’t—and being told that I didn’t know what I was talking about. I’d watched my father destroy relationships, turn people out onto the streets, and traffic women like they were bags of fucking flour, and the baggage I carried out of it all...

Let’s just say it had taken me a long time living a free life in New York to realize I could call my own shots, and how to do it. It had taken even longer for me to get comfortable with it. Once I had, though, I’d never looked back.

Until I was here in the New Orleans mansion where I’d grown up, listening to my father act like I was some stupid kid who didn’t know what the fuck I was asking.

God, I hated that I was right back there. I was Brooks Peterson, for fuck’s sake. I could shoot a man and then stitch him up in the same breath. Fix a problem for any of my friends without them having to ask. Combat anyone who tried to stand against me without thinking twice.

In New York, I could do whatever the fuck I wanted.

In New Orleans, I was still a kid who didn’t know how to get her father to pay attention to her.

God dammit.

I snarled and pushed forward, intent on getting out of the house and to the next step of my plan. Dad might be a disappointment, but he wasn’t my only route to getting men, and the quicker I got to my next stop the?—

I ran right into someone as I rounded the corner and literally bounced and spun, half shocked and half thrown off-balance by the sudden appearance of someone who hadn’t been there moments earlier. I hit the wall and straightened up, ready to shout at someone for getting in my way. I was already mad and itching to shout, and if whoever that was so much as lifted their voice, I’d?—

“Brooks?” a soft voice gasped.

That stopped me in my tracks.

I turned to find the owner of the voice, my gaze snapping from one side of the hall to the other and finding...

Not some goon of my father’s. Not my father himself.

But my cousin and original partner in crime. Camille Landry. Gorgeous and sunny, all blond hair and blue eyes. Fair skin, freckles, and a smile that could melt your fucking bones.

She didn’t look anything like the rest of the Landry clan, and I’d always loved her even more for that. The rest of them were dark and threatening, black hair and eyes like coal. Secrets and threats and forbidden thoughts. Camille was sunshine and rainbows, her blond hair close to my natural color and her blue eyes incapable of hiding secrets.

At least that was what you thought when you first saw her. The truth was, the girl was better with a gun than almost anyone I knew, and she and I had been running cons together since we were kids. No one had ever looked at me and thought I was anything but a schemer, but Camille, with her prissy, angelic face?

She’d been the perfect partner when it came to making mischief. The only person I’d trust with my life—until I met Sloane Brennan.

Right now, though, Sloane wasn’t here. I didn’t have my girls or my foundations around me, and I barely even had a plan. I knew where I was going and what I was going to ask for, but I didn’t have a damn clue whether it would work or even how I was going to talk my way into the next house.

Having Camille along for the ride would go a long way toward guaranteeing my success, though.

“Camille,” I breathed, pulling her into a quick hug. “You’re exactly who I need right now.”

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