Page 76 of The Voices are Back

Those three words felt like they were ripped straight from his soul.

Sunny’s eyes turned from me to Aodhan.

“I know,” he said. “I watched him come out of the building from the business across the street’s camera footage. We would’ve had him regardless of if we got the actual proof here or not.”

Aodhan’s hands were clenched into tight fists, causing the veins in his forearm to stand out, pulsing with his anger and despair.

“You gonna have to charge him?” I asked, hoping to hear that he wasn’t, but knowing in my heart that he was.

“Yes,” Sunny answered. “It’s unfortunate for him that he was caught, but he’ll have to answer to this crime.”

“It’s unfortunate not because he was caught, but because he thought he could do this and get away with it in the first place,” Aodhan snarled.

Oh, boy.

He was big mad.

“Aodhan…” I started, but he whirled around and nailed me to my spot with a hard glare.

“My son will have to answer to this one, Mama,” he growled. “And not even your mama-bear instincts will save him from this. He fucked around. Now he’ll find out.”

Oh,shit.

CHAPTER 16

68. You owe me one.

-Text from Morr to Aodhan

AODHAN

Shock. Despair. Denial. Shame.

Those four feelings were swimming through my bloodstream as I drove to the school to get my son. I’d already called Danyetta to meet me at home, and she’d said that she was already there talking with Wake and Dutch, Wake’s wife. Sunny was to meet us there after he was done at Morrigan’s shop.

Morrigan sat quietly in the seat beside me, going blue in the face as she tried to convince me not to do anything rash, and to just pay for the damages.

“I mean, I’ll bet if I don’t press charges…” she started, but I’d had enough.

“Mama,” I said quietly. “Even if you wanted to not claim this on your insurance, and allow me to pay for it, I couldn’t afford to pay for it. I have about thirtyKsaved up in the bank, and that’s it. Your store is going to easily cost at least seventy-fiveK, if not more, to fix. I just don’t have that. And neither does Danyetta.” And before she could come up with another argument, I said, “And even if we did have the money, we wouldn’t go that route. I fuckin’ hate that I have to let this lesson be learned, but it’s going to be learned. Not to mention, your insurance company, who is going to fix this for you, will want to charge Bowie.”

She grumbled something under her breath that caused me to smile for the first time in half an hour since I’d seen that fuckin’ video.

“Just…” Morrigan started, trailed off, then started again what felt like a whole minute later. “I was left quite a bit of money.”

I looked over at her.

“My grandmother on my mom’s side. I didn’t know about it until I was twenty-five and my grandmother’s lawyer called me to ask why I hadn’t touched that account yet. Apparently, it was something my dad was told about when I was a young girl. Then, when he received the statements letting me know how much money was in the account, and how much was invested in my name, he threw them away.” She paused. “I have a lot in there. It hadn’t been touched, and only invested, in the last how many ever years. There’s a good chunk in there. I can use that to…” I was already shaking my head.

“Not this time, baby. We’re not even going to finish talking about this,” I ordered.

She crossed her arms across her chest so cutely, then pouted the rest of the way to the school.

I parked and got out, leaving Morrigan to hold down the fort in the car while I went inside and got my kid.

The woman at the front desk called Bowie for me almost reluctantly after I proved that I was Bowie’s father with not one buttwoforms of identification.

The moment that Bowie stepped out of his classes, I gestured for him to follow me outside without saying a word.

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