Page 105 of Seduction in Spades

I let out a sigh and close my eyes. “I’m worried you see me as a monster. A vigilante, not that they’re monsters. I’m not taking on side jobs. This was... personal.”

“I know. I get it. I don’t like it, but I understand. You put your life on the line for me. For us, Trey, Ryder, Drake, and even Nora. It’s who you are.” She squeezes my hand. “Thank you.”

The one-eighty shift in her demeanor is a nice surprise. “I... care about you. A lot.” Shit. I love her with my whole being, but she’s not ready to hear my declaration. It’ll only put more distance between us if she’s not there yet, which I don’t think she is.

In the past few hours, she went from worry to comfort, to fear, to confusion, to acceptance. At least, I think it’s acceptance.

“I was eight years old when I understood why we had so many people come by our apartment. I didn’t understand the severity of drugs, but I was a nosey kid and would pretend to have to use the bathroom when our parents sent us to our room.”

She slips her hand away from mine and curls it around her mug.

“Trey and I always shared a room. When my parents hadcompany”—she air quotes the word— “they paid me five dollars to keep Trey in the room. I’d read to him or do puzzles. One night, I heard my mom swearing, and she didn’t usually swear. At least not around us. I opened the door and saw bags of what I thought was sugar, and stacks of bills on the kitchen counter. I didn’t think much of it until we had a police officer talk about stranger danger and drugs at an assembly in school.”

I have so many questions, but I don’t want to interrupt. Avery takes a sip of her coffee and stares off into the distance. She’s no longer opening up to me. She’s telling her story, getting it off her chest.

“I picked up on what they were doing pretty quickly. I understood the subtext of conversations, and I did everything I could to keep Trey away from it. Our parents treated us okay considering. They didn’t beat us or anything. When I was nine, I learned how to make meals for Trey and me. Our parents would go out a lot, leaving me in charge. I shielded Trey as best I could. As he got older, he started to resent me mothering him. We saw our parents less. They’d leave cash for me to walk to the store to get food to make for dinner. Otherwise we wouldn’t eat.”

Avery pauses and picks at her nails. Whatever she has to say next, I’m not going to like. She still avoids looking at me.

“When I was fifteen, and Trey hadn’t turned thirteen yet, one of their dealers tried hitting on me in the hallway of our building. He... groped me. I spit at him and he slapped me. My dad saw it and hit the guy. Trey came out of the apartment, and I pushed him back in, not wanting him to see the fight between our dad and the guy. He’d always creeped me out. After that, our parents spent more time away from the apartment. I’m guessing it was to keep their dealers away from us. I grew boobs and suddenly creeps started looking at me.”

Fuck. If she tells me one of them did more than the first bastard, I’ll be on the first fucking plane to New Orleans State Penitentiary and kill her parents.

As if she can read the strain on my face, she shakes her head. “No one ever touched me after that. In fact, we barely saw our parents again. They’d stay out all night and would stumble home in the early hours of the morning. I’d get Trey and me ready for school. By the time we came back home, they were gone again. We’d go weeks never seeing them.”

“Did child services ever intervene?”

“No.”

“You never told anyone?”

She shakes her head. “I worried they’d take us away and separate me from Trey. At least they had the decency to wait until my eighteenth birthday to get busted and thrown into jail. I fought to gain custody of Trey. Since I could prove I’d pretty much raised him for the past ten years, they allowed me to be his guardian. I found a studio apartment not far from his school and worked three jobs to pay the bills.”

“I take it the police took everything your parents had?”

“Yeah. I didn’t care. I didn’t want anything anyway. Trey resented me for a while once he learned our parents were drug dealers and I’d kept that from him. He wanted to drop out of high school and work to help pay the bills, but I threatened him in to getting his diploma.”

“How did you threaten him?”

She smiles, the first one I’ve seen in weeks, and gives a light chuckle. “I told him I’d work at the topless bar and give all his friends free drinks if he dropped out of school. He was so mortified that he finished with better grades than he’d gotten in all his other years of schooling.”

I can’t help my laugh. “Thank god he didn’t call you on that bluff.”

“It was no bluff. Do you know how much a woman can make as a topless waitress?”

“Yes, and don’t you ever fucking think about switching careers. If you want to serve drinks topless, you can do that with me. I’ll tip you very well.”

Avery laughs, and my cock instantly hardens. We need the change of mood after the load she just got off her chest.

“Noted.” Her smile falls, and she pushes her chair back to stand. “I’ll start on breakfast.”

“I can make us—”

“I’ve got it. I’ve barely lifted a finger in four days, and I’m going out of my mind with boredom. Ryder waited on me hand and foot. Wait. He’s usually up by now.”

I can’t help but grow a little jealous of my best friend spending the past forty-eight hours with Avery. “He left when I got here.”

“In the middle of the night? Did he make it home safely?”

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