Page 61 of Bullet
“I brought Celia back here when I came in to write the check yesterday afternoon. I didn’t want to go through the bar, because I knew we’d get distracted and we had to get to dinner with my dad and his girlfriend. Celia was standing here with the books on the table. Nothing in me didn’t trust that she’d just leave everything alone. I don’t know why she did this, but it doesn’t matter, I never should have compromised our information by bringing a non-member back here.”
“She was just using you to steal from us?” Nick said. “That’s cold.”
It was hard to believe. Everything played back in my head. The jazz bar, the theme park, dinner with Laura, dinner with Cameron. All the coffee dates we’d had or dumb times I spent doing nothing but texting her like some lovestruck teenage boy. All of it had been a lie? All of it?
“I’ve got fifty grand,” I said. “I’ll go withdraw it tomorrow and bring it in to cover the debt. We already gave the check for the club expansion, and I don’t want to go back on that now.”
Seth had gotten back up in his chair and was holding his face, while looking at me sadly. “What about your sibling?”
We’d been searching for months with no luck anyway. Maybe this was the world’s way of saying it was time to give up on that. “I’ll figure something else out.”
I stood up and pulled my jacket off and hung it around the chair. “I’d like to nominate Seneca for membership. When the time comes, consider it my last act as VP. She’s good with her bike, she can fight, and she has honor that’s hard to find. She’ll be a good addition to the club.”
“Come on, Bullet, don’t do this. I’m sorry. I should have made absolute certain before I blew up. Don’t leave the club,” Nick pleaded.
“I put all of our hard work at risk. I don’t deserve this role.” I looked over at Seth. “Don’t let this throw you off. You’re a good accountant. Anyone would have missed that.”
With a final look at them, I made my way over to the back door of the warehouse. I didn’t want to face anyone else at the time and could just say my goodbyes later. Before I got on my bike, I sent Celia a text telling her to call me immediately and then drove myself home to sit and wait.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Celia
I was sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for Darrien to come up for the day. In front of me, still unopened, was the box of things that Darrien often referred to when he was trying to guilt-trip me about the accident he’d been. I hadn’t yet opened it, because I wanted to see if he would be truthful with me first, but that didn’t stop me from staring down at it and wondering what was inside. A few of the things I knew, the ones he always threw in my face, like my father’s obituary or his medical bills, but what else? He never allowed me to go through the box myself, but always kept it off to the side on the kitchen counter as a reminder. He banked on me being stupid enough never to look in there myself.
And I was.
“Good morning,” Darrien said as he rolled up the ramp from the split-lower floor of the house where his bedroom was. “I’m surprised to see you home.” He rode into the kitchen and up to the dining room table, but then sniffed the air and realized nothing was cooking. “Are you not working on breakfast?”
“No,” I said. “I’m not.”
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “You seem angry.”
I decided to start in the easiest place to start, with the truth. Pulling out my phone, I unlocked it and it was still sitting open to the article that I had looked up the night before, after I got home. Once again, my uncle had done a great job of convincing me that he was telling me the whole story so there was no reason to go in search of the contrary. I never even thought to look anything up on my own, because in my naivete, I truly believed my godfather would never lie to me about something like that. He told me that researching articles about the accident would show me marred images of my father and only bring me pain, and I believed him. If only I’d let my curiosity beat out my fear. All it had taken was a quick Google search and an article on a small news website popped right up.
One that confirmed Harry’s side of the story.
I slid my phone across the table to him, and he picked up and then his eyes slowly started to widen. He swallowed hard before looking up at me. “Where did you find this lie?”
That made me angrier. He was prepared to lie to my face. To act as if I couldn’t see what was right there. “That’s just one article of fifty I found,” I said. “Don’t. Don’t lie to me anymore.” I set my hand on top of the box and he lurched forward a bit. “What’s in here?”
“You already know,” he replied. “Your dad’s obituary. My thousands of dollars in unpaid medical bills.”
“How was I so goddamn dumb? Is it because you’ve been lying to me since I was fifteen? I just didn’t put the pieces together?”
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“You’re lying,” I said. “About all of it. Medical bills are usually paid in car accident settlements, aren’t they? In situations like yours, people can be paid out extra for anticipatory medical costs.”
“All the money I got I spent on—”
“That’s a lie!” I screamed. “I called my school, they told me they’veneverreceived any large payments on my student loans. I thought I was paying back twenty-thousand dollars but I’m actually paying back sixty-thousand dollars. You told me you got a settlement, that my dad had gotten one, too. What money do I have if it’s not a settlement from the car accident?”
“It is,” Darrien lied again.
“No, it’s not.” I folded my fingers under the lid of the box to lift the top off, and to my complete shock, Darrien jumped up out of his chair. He came to stand on his feet and my jaw dropped. “You’re not paralyzed.”
Darrien froze for a second before slowly lowering back down into his chair. “I have some mobility, but not full mobility.”
