Page 56 of Broken Promises

“Why should she? She’s living with me.”

“The little brat?—”

“Eat shit, dude.”

I was ready to just ignore him, hoping the lack of electricity would make him and his buddies leave so I could go home, but his next words stopped me.

“The mortgage company called. She’s behind on payments for that too. Can’t do shit if they take it from us and sell it.”

“What? We were up to date with payments. I haven’t been gone long enough to be behind,” I said slowly, panic rising inside me. Reid always paid it on time.

Why hadn’t he paid it?

“Fix it. Me and the boys are partying elsewhere tonight, so the lights had better be on when I get home tomorrow,” heshouted, stumbling back across the yard and vanishing out the hole in the fence.

I was already bending down to shove everything back in my bag, hoping it was just Dad being drunk and stupid.

“Where are you going?” Ander asked, taking the bag from me and putting it over his shoulder. Everyone was looking at us now, whispers starting about us losing the house and Dad being a drunk.

No one else could talk, half of them dealt with the same bullshit that I did, but I hated them knowing my business.

I practically dragged Ander out the hole in the fence and towards the car, his hand gripping my bicep to spin me around. My back hit the car and his hips pinned me in place as he spoke, his voice gentle. “Where are we going?”

“We have to go to the house. We?—”

“Why? To check if the lights work? If you want to check the bills or something, we can go to the Thieves and they can find out how far behind it is. When did you pay it last?”

“The electric? Recently. Reid did it. He always pays the mortgage on time too, so I don’t get why it’s behind enough to lose the house.” My voice broke, and he let out a sigh.

“C’mon, I’ll get Cruz to take a look. Your dad might be full of shit and he just wants you home so he can try to get money out of you for booze,” he suggested, calming me slightly.

It was possible, he was a fucking snake after all.

I nodded, and he opened the door for me so I could slide in. He definitely sped a little on the way to Rawson Grove, texting Cruz to let him know we were coming over.

Stone wasn’t happy when he opened the door for us, but he thankfully said Cruz was in the office and didn’t kick us back out.

“You’re racking up a tab with me, Lavaro,” Cruz joked as we entered, giving me his usual friendly smile. “Not you though. You know my services are free for you.”

“Thanks. This is for me though,” I blurted out. “Can you hack into people’s billing accounts? Like, the electric bill and the mortgage?”

He raised an eyebrow, slowly spinning his chair to face the monitors again. “I can. For your house?”

“Yes. Dad said we’re behind and the electricity was cut, but that’s impossible. We’d caught back up on the bills weeks ago, and Reid always pays on time.”

He clicked at the keyboard for a moment, pulling up random things that made zero sense to me, and he frowned as he found what he wanted. “What makes you think the electricity was shut off? It says it’s still on.”

I leaned over his shoulder to see, confused when I realized a new bill hadn’t been sent yet. It was definitely higher usage than normal, but it was still on.

“I bet the idiot overloaded something and it shorted,” Ander offered, and I shrugged.

“Possibly. We can go there and check, right?”

“I think you should let them figure it out themselves.”

“Ander—”

“I can take you if you really want,” he grumbled, crossing his arms. “How far behind on the mortgage are you?”

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