Page 39 of Oliver

So, he didn’t tell them? Hm.

“I fucked her. Big deal,” Oliver says, and he’s so matter of fact that I flinch.

Did he? Shit. Fuck. Damn.

“Penny,” Ramsay says, “we need more information. Who have you been communicating with? When? What did they say?”

Rubbing my aching brow, I mutter, “It’s on my computer at home.”

“Okay. I’ll send someone to get it. Are your parents’ home?”

Apparently, Oliver didn't tell them about my mother either. Every moment in this room while Oliver continues to deny me as a valid human fucking being presses at my chest until I can do is rasp, “Really? You expect me to give you shit when he’s been messing with me since the beginning?”

“Yes. We do things as a team now,” Ramsay says although I see him glance at Oliver with a frown.

Wisely, I refrain from rolling my eyes, but you better believe I did it in my fucking head. This dick still hasn’t figured it out. My veins burn to hurt the boy turned man who ruined my fucking world. Beyond that, the Sinners don’t control me, I do what I want when I want.

Whatever. It doesn’t matter anyway, which is why, I mutter, “There’s no one home.”

“Okay, when will someone be home?” Ramsay says and I look away into Oliver’s treacherous stare. His gaze scorches me with his disdain but I merely bare my teeth.

“Never,” I say, slashing my hand through the air. “They’re all fucking dead. My dad. Dixie. My mom.”

“What?” Maeve gasps, covering her mouth. Shaking my head, I press my fingers to my eyes because I will not cry in front of these assholes. I will not.

“She locked herself in the garage and sat in her car until…”

I know eventually the reality of her death is going to hit me like a ton of bricks, but I am holding it off as long as possible.

“Fuck,” Maeve whispers.

Pushing away the grief, I focus on the people sitting around me. Who are they really?

Last I heard, Ramsay’s father is being charged with murder in some weird shoot out at a cemetery. Diem’s father and by association his family belong to the mafia.

Oliver and Maeve’s dad, is sitting behind bars awaiting trial, accused of not only murdering my sister, for now, but dozens of others spanning a decade or more.

Willow is an unknown, beyond her sister being another victim of Mr. G’s, which is weird with Maeve and Oliver, but, whatever, if I judge her by the company she keeps, well…

This is madness. I shouldn’t be here, but I have nowhere else to go. Home is now filled with memories that I don’t have the strength to face.

Here, at least I’m not alone, although I don’t trust a single person surrounding me.

Oliver leans against the wall with his eternally enigmatic persona in place. Diem and Maeve are canoodling on one of the couches, while Willow and Ramsay take up another.

With a sigh, I drop into a plush chair and say, “I told you what I know.”

“Hm, you didn't say where the threat came from…” Oliver says and I glance up, meeting his fathomless eyes.

I don't know why I am withholding the information. Maybe because there’s still a part of me that doesn’t trust. Instead, I turn to Ramsay and ask, “Just what the fuck was your dad into?”

Ramsay cocks his head, his eyes focused over my shoulder. “Richard Yates trolled the downtown area for prostitutes and fucked them. When that wasn’t enough, he used his billion-dollar fortune to pay for them to be abducted and after fucking them, he sold them into slavery.”

A shiver crawls up my spine and I drop my gaze to the floor. The words are bad enough but the tone he spoke them in will be forever emblazoned on my brain.

Ramsay may be an asshole but the painful rage behind the softly spoken statement speaks for itself.

“Did he hunt them?” I whisper and Diem’s head whips around before he barks, “How the fuck do you know about that?”

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