Page 76 of Power Play

“Know what?” I asked. “Jesus, Dillon, get to the point!”

“What do you know about her?” Dillon asked, sitting back. The old guy was a little thicker than he’d been. Grayer. Slower. But when he turned those ice blue eyes on you, it could freeze you to your bones.

I thought about Nashville and the way I’d fallen for Kit so hard, so fast. Her eyes, her face, her body, her…spirit. Showing up to a black and white event in a red dress.

The fucking sex that I’d never, not once in all these years, been able to replicate.

“If you’d asked me a week ago, I would have said I knew all there was to know about her. She was a liar and a cheat. Just like her dad.” I shrugged. “Now, I’m beginning to think I don’t know anything about her. So if you’re going to enlighten me, get on with it.”

“She came here after the trial and tried to pay me back and I told her, her father’s debt wasn’t hers.”

“But she helped him,” I said. She’d basically all but admitted it. “Why offer to pay anyone back if you weren’t guilty?”

Dillon’s face hardened. “Because her sorry excuse for an old man made her feel that way.” He looked back over his shoulder at his kids. “Kids, when you’re done, take your plates into the kitchen and go find Aunt Wendy. See if she needs help with anything.”

“Yashh, Dad,” was what it sounded like when your mouth was stuffed with pancakes.

Dillon lowered his voice and leaned in closer. “You know I was a witness at the trial. Well, I stayed to watch it every damn day. I was pissed. Not only had he taken my money, but he’d encouraged me to spread the word. And since it was working so damn well for me at the time, I did. I was the one who’d talked these kids, and yes, they’re professional athletes, but they’re also dumb kids, into investing with him. I wanted to know everything that went down. Well, Kit also took the stand.”

“To defend her dad?”

“For the prosecution.”

“Fuck me,” I muttered.

“You really didn’t know?”

I shook my head, feeling queasy.

“She told the jury everything that happened the night she found out who her father really was. How she got a series ofurgent texts from him and when she called him back, he told her to empty all the bank accounts and bring it to their suite. That he was in serious trouble. So, she left a party in the middle of the night to do what he asked and when she went to their hotel, he’d been beat to shit. His thumb was broken. And two guys were there threatening to do worse if she didn’t get them their money.”

“The gambling?” I asked. I knew that part.

“He was in deep with some serious players.”

“But…what party?”

“That Move On event in Nashville.”

The floor fell out from under me. She didn’t leave a party. She left me. Alone in a hotel room. To go toe to toe with fucking thugs? A cold sweat trickled down my spine.

“I try to picture it,” Dillon said, shaking his head. “A twenty year old kid herself, pulling together anything she could get her hands on to save her dad from being kneecapped by the guys he was in deep with. How fucking courageous. All while learning, he wasn’t who she thought he was.”

“How did he get arrested?” I wasn’t sure why that fact was important. It felt important. Like a piece to the puzzle I was now just putting together.

“She got her father out of that situation, but by that point the Feds were already on to him. She turned him in.”

Oh Shit..

“They must have asked her,” I said. “While she was on the stand, if she actively targeted some of his victims.”

“Oh, the defense did.” Dillon growled. “Over and over again. She said she had no idea what her father was doing. That she believed his investment firm was real, and that he was just teaching her the business, in case she ended up not pursuing a career in education. She said her only role was to provide background information about the players.”

What had she said that night – about her dad’s bad memory?

“And you believed her?” I asked.

“What the fuck?” Dillon looked at me like I was the asshole. “Of course I believed her. She was fucking heartbreaking on that stand. I’d never seen a person so betrayed by a parent.”

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