Page 105 of The Wreckage of Us

“He didn’t listen—that’s what happened to him.”

I turned around to see Charlie standing next to Rosie’s car seat.

Every hair on my body stood up as he bent down and lifted Rosie into his arms.

“Put her down,” I ordered, charging toward him, and he released a sinister laugh.

“What makes you think you can tell me what to do?” he hissed. “After the shit you pulled, getting me locked up for all that time, making my business suffer, you think you can order me around?”

I tried to control my trembling, but watching him hold Rosie sent a wave of panic through me.

“Looks like you built yourself a nice life out here,” Charlie commented. “Living the dream, are we? I heard rumors about you dating Eres’s own rock star too. That must be great.”

“What do you want?” I asked, wanting him to get to the point. Rosie began crying, and Charlie sat down on the couch with her and began bouncing her on his knee.

“What do you think I want? What’s mine. I lost thousands of dollars because of that stunt you pulled. I lost clients. I got the uppers chewing my ass out because of you. If it wasn’t for your mom, I’d still be locked up. So I’m here to collect. Every cent you have is mine. Every paycheck that you get from this lame-ass job comes to me. And your happy ending you think you got? The love story with your rock star? That comes to an end.”

“Leave Ian out of this.”

“Oh, no way. You see, my other half is locked up because of you for the next two years. Why should you get a love story when I don’t get mine?”

“You don’t love my mother,” I barked. “You never did. You loved controlling her, just like you love controlling everything. I mean, look at what you did to your own nephew!”

“He betrayed me!” Charlie shouted, standing up and gesturing toward Garrett with one hand and holding my screaming sister in the other. “The asshole betrayed me when he helped you get Rosie, and he’s going to be paying for it each day until he proves I can trust him again.”

“He did the right thing.”

“Fuck the right thing. Do I seem like someone who cares about the right thing?” he argued. He took a deep breath and sat back down. “Sorry. Sometimes my temper gets the best of me. I took a meditation class while I was locked up—I’m working on my breathing techniques. Anyway, as I was saying. You break things off with that boyfriend of yours.”

“Why are you being so cruel?”

He snickered. “Because I think you’re right. I think I like controlling things.”

“I won’t do it,” I said. “I won’t break things off with him.”

“That’s too bad. You know what else would be too bad?” he asked. “If this nice old ranch burned down. Or even worse, if something happened to this little sister of yours.”

I knew he said those things as threats, but I also knew that Charlie’s threats normally ended up as promises.

“So here’s what we are going to do. You’re going to give me money every two weeks, you are going to break up with your superstar, and you are going to live a miserable fucking life, because you don’t deserve to be happy. You got it?”

“Just say yes, Hazel,” Garrett choked out.

“How about you learn to shut the hell up,” Charlie called out toward his nephew. “The grown-ups are having a meeting. So Hazel, what do you say? Do we have a deal?”

I nodded slowly as tears slipped from my eyes.

He walked over to me and placed a finger beneath my chin. He raised my head until I locked eyes with his. “I need a verbal agreement, sweetheart.”

“Yes, we have a deal,” I said, shaking from his touch.

“Now, pull out that cell phone of yours, and make a call to the guy, and let him know you’re over.”

“What? Can’t I—” I started to argue, but the fire in Charlie’s eyes was enough to terrify me. I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and dialed Ian’s number.

Please don’t answer; please don’t answer; please don’t—

“Hello?”

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