Page 41 of Protecting Charity

The house door opened up, and Dad stepped outside, watching us with an unspoken dilemma, worrying his brow. I walked back towards him. “Dad—”

He held up his hand to stop me. “I want to know what he thinks is going on here.”

“I don’t have a clue. You know who Kandy is; I would never hang out with her.”

He scrunched his chin and nodded. “But you would break her arm. Don’t think I’ve forgotten your turbulent past. You may have gone to therapy, but that aggression doesn’t just leave someone with therapy. You needed an outlet… so what has been your outlet recently?”

I froze, uncertain what to say that would convince him to trust me instead of this agent’s words. Typically, the words came to me, and I could talk my way out of pretty much anything, but for him to bring up my past that happened after a trauma threw me off-kilter.

“Am I talking to my father or Detective Gibbons right now?”

“I’m your concerned father who thinks you’ve got yourself into a world of trouble if Agent Harding is sniffing around you. I’m a curious detective that wants to know how it is that a young girl such as yourself has garnered the attention of the FBI so quickly on his arrival.”

“Well,father,” I said, affirming who I wanted to speak to, “I didn’t break her arm, I—”

“Charity…” Nico warned.

I knew he was trying to protect me in the best way he knew how, but this was my dad. He wouldn’t cart me off to jail for self-defense. Not to mention if it was that terrible, Kandy would have pressed charges... if she was as stupid as she looked.

I placed my hand on Nico’s arm, trying to reassure him. “I dislocated it in self-defense.”

Nico placed his hands over his face and rubbed the irritation away.

“I see. And what is the nature of your relationship with Nico? And don’t think for a second about lying to me; I could see it the moment he walked in.”

His confession took me aback. My father was an observant man, and if he noticed that, just what else has he noticed but not shared? I sighed and hung my head, so I didn’t have to look at him when I said the words. Not that I was ashamed of Nico—that would never happen, but because he caught me in a lie, and I didn’t know how he’d react. This wasn’t exactly how I wanted to introduce him. We had a nice dinner planned, and I would bring him in as my fake boyfriend, and my mother would stop her ridiculous matchmaking. I never got the opportunity, and now, here I am explaining my real relationship that I suppressed because we weren’t ready… this is so fucked.

“We are in a relationship, sir,” Nico filled in, not giving me a chance to break the ice.

Was he afraid I wouldn’t tell him? I was going to tell him I just needed to take a second to breathe first.

“Okay. You need to go then.” He turned to go inside.

“Dad?”

Wait… What just happened? My throat tightened, and tears warned of their release if I didn’t reel it in. Did my father just turn his back on me? The one man I counted on in life to protect me from my crazy mother and the things life had to throw at me as a kid. The man that was the rock in my foundation. Was that all that it took for him to walk away from me?

“Wait, Detective Gibbons,” Nico said, trying to defend me.

My father kept his hand on the doorknob and glanced back but refused to look at me. “I’m not mad at you, Charity, but if they think…” He let out a heavy sigh and turned the doorknob. “I can’t protect you.”

He walked inside, leaving me on the porch with feelings of abandonment, like he'd squeezed my heart for all its worth, leaving me empty—both my parents, no matter what the reasoning, turned away from me, disappointed.

Nico placed his arms on my shoulders and hauled me up from the ground I didn’t even realize I had collapsed to.

“Come on.”

I shook him off, “Why did you do that? I was going to tell him. I wanted to tell him.”

He was quiet with understanding and sympathy, which made me want to melt into him and let him take me away from the mayhem that stuck its hideous head in my family life. I had been doing well, keeping my secret life from my visible one. Even though hardly anything became known through Owen’s minor revelations, it’s not to say he didn’t know everything and was waiting for evidence to come his way.

“I want to go home.” I wiped the rebellious tears from my face and tensed my jaw until it cramped.

“Okay, I’ll take you.”

“No. Bring your car. I just want to be alone for a moment.”

Nico wrapped his arms around me and gave me a gentle squeeze, then pulled away and rubbed his hands up and down my arms. “Okay. I’ll follow.” He placed a kiss on my forehead and released me.

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