Page 70 of A Fine Line

She looks at him in horror, her gaze bouncing back to me as she cries, “What the fuck did they do to you?”

“It doesn’t matter. I came to terms with that shit a long time ago.”

“Who put you there?”

“His own father,” Dare interjects. “We tried to find him as soon as we realized he was missing, but we kept hitting one roadblock after another. So, finally, we said fuck it, and went after the one person we knew for sure was behind it. His shitbag fucking father.”

“He tried to tell us he was fine,” Tony says in disgust. “That he was out on some learning experience and would be back soon. And maybe in his twisted brain, he thought that was true, but I don’t believe he’d have ever come back if we hadn’t found it.”

“Did you kill him?” Carolina asks.

Tony shakes his head as he replies, “No, but I fucking wanted to. If nothing else, he was so fucking scared by the end of the conversation that he didn’t fuck with Jayme again for a long time. We made it clear that if he wanted to fuck with Jayme, he better kill all of us first, or we’d come for him. There would be a whole line of people that would come for him.”

“What the fuck is wrong with people?” Carolina sputters, then presses her lips together as she laughs bitterly. “But that’s basically exactly what he did to me, except I didn’t have Darius and Tony to save me.”

Tony stiffens beside her, his eyes going to her face as he moves his free hand to the back of her neck. He leans in and says, “Until now. No one will ever fuck with you again, Carolina. Do you understand me?”

Her eyes search his for a few moments and then she nods, her features softening as his fingers caress her neck before releasing her.

“He’s right,” I breathe. “No one will fuck with you or Flora ever again. Not as long as any of us or anyone that works for us is still standing.”

She presses her lips together and gives a short nod in acknowledgment of my words, and then we sit back in our seats, allowing silence to settle around us.

Soon, our quiet is disturbed by chattering coming from the doorway, and I look over to see Agatha enter the room with Lilith right behind her. All of our eyes fly to Mickey as we rise from our seats and migrate closer to see what his reaction will be.

Agatha stops in front of Mickey and Nettie, and Mickey’s eyes light up when he sees her. “Aggie, my sweet girl. So good to see you.”

She gives the old man a hug, and it’s right as they pull back that Mickey’s eyes land on Lilith, who’s standing there rather sheepishly, wringing her hands together. After a beat, she gives him a little wave and says, “How about me?”

We all hold our collective breaths, and you could hear a pin drop as we wait for his response.

There’s no shock or surprise on his face, no gasp of outrage, no wail of disbelief. The old man crosses his arms over his chest and says blandly, “So you finally decide to raise yourself from the dead?”

All of our mouths drop open, and Lilith looks at Matt and asks, “Did you tell him?”

“Not fucking likely,” Matt sputters.

Mickey rolls his eyes and says dryly, “Give me a break, girl. I’ve known you your whole fucking life, and if there’s one thing knowing you has taught me, it’s to never believe somebody’s dead unless you remove their head and set their body on fire yourself.”

Nettie pokes Mickey in the shoulder and says accusingly, “So you knew the whole time she wasn’t dead?”

Mickey shakes his head. “No, for a good bit of time there, I legitimately thought she was gone. But then I started hearing different things from Europe, things that sounded a little too much like my little viper queen. So, I started putting out feelers, and eventually, I knew there wasn’t a chance in hell it wasn’t fucking her causing all that havoc abroad.”

“Well, that was anti-climactic,” Dare mutters.

Nettie laughs, adding, “You ain’t kidding.”

“Now that that’s over, let’s get back to business,” Matt says as he walks toward the workstation he was standing at before. He starts pressing buttons and continues, “I’ve managed to pinpoint some locations around the world where there seems to be hive-like activity in human trafficking. I can’t figure out why Carolina is still a target with Vincent and Dmitri out of the way. The only thing I can surmise is that it may be someone closely connected to them who’s trying to run a business that they’re ill-prepared to run, and since they know that their position may be questioned, they’d feel more secure having her and Flora by their side as collateral.” He turns to Carolina and asks, “Dimitri have any other kids? Close associates that he treated like family?”

She shrugs in response, shaking her head as she answers, “Not that I know of. I spent a lot of time skirting around people, keeping my ear to the wall. Unless directed otherwise, most people stick to their own circle for fear they’ll end up with a knife in the back, and rightly so, because that’s how that whole organization works.”

Matt’s mouth twists, his eyes narrowing as he considers his response. He presses a few more buttons on his keyboard, then turns to me and asks, “How about you? Can you think of anyone in particular who’d be a direct connection between Carolina and your dad?”

“I imagine a lot of people know about her since it appears my dad didn’t hide her from anyone other than me. It was like his last middle finger before meeting his own end. Honestly, the list of possible suspects is too long to weed through.”

Mickey and Lilith join us, and Matt glances over, rolling his eyes as he says, “How about you two? Surely, you must know someone who could be involved in this?”

“We’ve been working down Carolina’s list of names that you sent us, but it’s taking longer than we thought because we’re being extra thorough. Sometimes, the initial name we got branches off to other persons of interest that we had to follow up on. I think if we continue along that line, we’ll probably come up with something soon.”

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