Page 34 of What's Left of Us

When she straightens I catch her chin, blood be damned, and meet her gaze. “I didn’t give him, or anyone else, permission to watch you. Those tapes have to go.”

She hesitates. “Do you think they’re evidence? Do you think…”

Her voice trails off, and I look down at Dante again. “Did you ever record us with anyone else?”

Dante shakes his head quickly, but I don’t believe him. “No! Never.”

Looking at Jo, I know we need to make a decision. We need to grab the laptop, but if he recorded on his phone -

Her cell goes off, and it derails my thoughts. She pauses long enough to dig out her phone. “It’s Sterling.”

I nod, taking the laptop from her as she picks up the call. I hear her moving away, back across the street as she answers the phone.

Dante shifts and groans, struggling to sit up. He spits blood again, and I glance around to see if anyone is watching.

No one. No one outside anyway. No one who wants to know I can see them.

It doesn’t surprise me. People in Citrus Grove rarely intervene in something that doesn’t have to do with them. They will gossip afterwards, but I was beating on Dante. He wasn’t beating on Jo. The civilians who live here haven’t changed in nearly sixteen years, and no one was going to come out here and get in the middle of something when they could be nosy behind closed doors.

“If I find something on this that I don’t like,” I tell Dante as I turn, tucking the laptop beneath my arm to straighten my shirt. “I will find you. And you won’t be able to beg anyone in the family to save you from me.”

He ducks his head and doesn’t say much more. I thought Xeno picked tough guys to keep us safe, but Dante is more of a coward. Sure, pain is pain, but my Papa would probably shoot him if he saw him laid out on the ground like this.

I pause long enough to bend back down, dig through his pockets, and grab his phone. He hisses at me but doesn’t do anything else. “I will send this back to you through thecare of Xeno when we make sure you don’t have anything else important on your phone. Maybe something you wouldn’t want to share when you could fantasize about it instead.”

What little color he has left in his face fades and I turn away so I don’t start laying into him again. Jo is standing outside the house across the street, hip popped out, brows scrunched together as I approach.

“No, no, of course we won’t do anything rash,” she says, brushing back her hair. “No, I understand that we can’t just drop in.”

She hangs up then, eyes meeting mine. I gesture to the laptop but she waves me off. “Alastair is going to the hospital in Tallahassee again. For a check up.”

My eyebrows lift. “And Sterling told you that, because…”

She hesitates. “Well, I’ve been texting him since yesterday. Demanding updates. That type of thing.”

“And he decided to tell you this?” I ask, perplexed.

“Not exactly,” she says, crossing her arms. “He said explicitly to not just show up just to see Alastair.”

“But he still told you?” I say.

She shrugs. “He said… he said if we have a reason to be there, it might be the last time we get to see him for a while. Even in passing.”

Her words settle over me, and I realize what he’s done. He’s not supposed to share intel like that, it could get him in trouble if someone caught on.

But he knows, above all else, we’re dying to see Alastair. Glancing at my hand, I glance at the cut I got from busting Dante’s tooth. The skin is missing on two knuckles but it’s not really all that bad. I flex my fingers, studying the mess. “Maybe I need stitches.”

“Totally,” Jo agrees, reaching for the door. “You hit a tooth? It’s an open wound.”

I snort. “It’s an excuse.”

She’s back seconds later with her purse and my phone, keys in hand. “I’ll drive. We can leave the extras in the car, right?”

Like my gun?Nodding, we pivot and follow her to the car. I’m guessing if she wants to leave right now, we don’t have a lot of time to get there.

Chapter 9

The next time I get to breathe fresh air, it’s in a full restraint system, belly belt engaged, and back in the leg chains. The doctor who did my initial surgery wanted me back within two to four weeks to be evaluated, but we’re closer to the four week mark now than I’d like. I thought this issue would be fixed weeks ago.

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