Page 120 of Broken Daddy
“It’s not nice to make me wait for punishment. It’s . . . it’s against some sort of law, I’m sure.”
“Ahh, I see. Got it. Thanks for educating me.”
She nodded solemnly. “You’re welcome.”
“Next time that happens, I’ll just put you over my knee and spank you. No matter where we are.”
“You can’t do that!” She stared up at him, aghast.
He smiled. Lord, had she seen him smile before? She guessed he didn’t have much to smile about.
“You’re so gorgeous when you smile,” she told him.
“Hmm.” He gave her a surprised look as he reached up to touch his mouth. “Can’t remember the last time I smiled.”
Well, he should do it more often. She hoped that he had things in the future to smile about. Devi obviously hadn’t known May, but from the way he talked about her, she sounded special and lovely. And she was certain that she wouldn’t want Hayes to live his life in misery.
“What happened? You said you had fallen asleep?” he asked.
“Ahh, yeah. I hadn’t been sleeping well.”
“Because of Derick?” he asked.
“In a way.” she trailed off. How did she explain Vega? Should she? No. That would be too dangerous. She’d keep it vague.
“It seems that Derick hasn’t just been drinking himself stupid, he’s been gambling too.”
“Fuck. He owes money?”
“Twenty grand. Not sure how much of that is interest and how much is what he actually lost. Derick came home last night, looking for cash. He thought he had some stashed under the sink and that I’d taken it. There was no money there, I’m not sure what the heck he was doing. But he was so mad when he couldn’t find it. He . . . he hit me.”
“That motherfucker.”
“He’d never done that before. Never hit me. I’ve always hated violence. I’ve always tried to spread positivity and smiles, you know? Even in the face of Aaron’s meanness and my father’s drunkenness. But where has that gotten me? Nowhere.” She let out a bitter laugh that pulled at her cheek. That was weird. She couldn’t feel any pain, but it was super uncomfortable.
God. What did she look like?
Don’t think about it, Devi. You just have to get through this.
Right.
“I ran into my room and he followed me, he pushed me to the floor and started ripping up my room, searching for money. I was so angry. I was so sick of him pushing me around. So I picked up the baseball bat and jumped to my feet and hit him in the arm. I don’t know what I expected him to do, but I guess I wasn’t expecting him to scream and fall on the floor, claiming I’d broken his arm. I ran out of there, but when I opened the door there were four men there. They walked into the trailer, pushing me back.”
“What the fuck?” he snarled as he started pacing up and down the room.
Devi watched him warily. “Are you all right?”
“Am I all right? Am I all right? Devi . . .” He stilled and ran his fingers through his hair. “Yes, I’m all right. It’s you I’m worried about.”
“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be okay.” It was said automatically. She was so used to glossing over everything terrible in her life.
It had started when her mom got ill, then with the stuff at school, her father, her brother . . . God, was she honest with anyone?
“You will be. Because I’ll see to it,” he told her. “Not going to let anything bad happen to you again, Devi.”
It was a nice thought . . . but she knew that he couldn’t make certain of that. Bad things happened to people every day.
And she was lucky to be alive.
