Arranged love

EMILEE

I RIDE WITH Bones and Titan back to my house, and Luca and Nite follow us. Titan had called Grave and Cross over to his house to stay with my mother and Liv while we were out. It made me think that there is more going on than they’re telling me.

We pull up to the house and walk inside.

“How did he get in?” Titan asks. “There doesn’t seem to be any forced entry.”

“You guys didn’t check the cameras?” I ask.

Bones answers. “No. The security system had been disabled.”

I come to a stop. “George. He had to have done it.”

“As far as we know, he’s still out of the country,” Titan argues.

“How far back did the footage go?” I ask.

“To that night,” Bones answers.

I wrap my arms around myself. How had someone disabled the security system? How could they have known where to look? Or even what to do? I guess with the access to the internet now, it’s not hard to find out anything.

“Come on.” Titan takes my hand and pulls me into the office. It looks the same. Things thrown about. Glass broken. Computer monitors shattered.

“Did he have a weapon?” Bones asks me.

“Yeah, a gun,” I whisper. “He held it to the back of my head …”

I hear Luca enter the room, and I spin around to see him and Nite.

“He held it to the back of your head?” Titan snaps.

I nod. “Told me that if I didn’t open the safe, he was going to blow my brains all over it for Daddy to find.”

His eyes go from murderous to surprised. “He thinks your father is still alive?”

“I told him he was dead.”

“And?” Bones demands.

“And he didn’t seem to care about that. He was just indifferent. He wanted in that safe. He said he wanted the money.”

Titan runs his hands through his hair.

“Well, then let’s get in it and see how much is in there,” Luca states.

The guys go to work looking around the office. I go over to the bookshelf that sits on the back wall and run my fingers over the spines. They’re dusty. My father wasn’t much of a reader, but I was. These books were for me, but I hadn’t been home in two years. They had been untouched, left to rot on a shelf. It breaks my heart.

I come to the last one on the second shelf and pull it out. It was my favorite, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Opening it up, a piece of paper falls to the floor. I bend down and see numbers written on it, but I don’t recognize them. They don’t go with any birthdates or milestones that my father would consider important.

“I think I found something,” I say, walking over to the safe on the wall. I punch in the code and then hear the lock click. The door kicks open just a tad.

I reach in and see stacks of papers. But no money. “What are these?” I ask, opening up the black folder.

I read over the papers before me, and my heart picks up. “No.”

“What is it?” Titan asks, taking them from me.

TITAN

The first set of papers are of Nick and Nancy’s divorce. The second set is of Nancy’s marriage certificate to George. Along with a will. One that leaves everything Nick owned to Nancy who then would give to George.

“Emilee?” Bones asks, walking over to her.

She falls down into a chair and places her face in her hands. “No. This can’t be.” She looks up at me. “They’re not married. She would have told me.”

I look at Bones, and he sighs. “Emilee …”

She jumps to her feet. “Did you both know this?”

Fuck! “Yes,” I tell her.

“When did you find this out?”

“Weeks ago.” Bones answers that one.Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“What?” She gasps. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”

“Because who your mom chooses to marry is none of our concern,” I snap.

“How can you say that?” She sniffs, and tears fill her eyes. “This is why my father is dead!” she screams.

“You don’t know that!” I argue.

“And you can’t prove that it’s not!” She throws the papers at Bones. He tosses them onto the desk. “George wanted his money. Then he blackmailed me for sex in order to pay for my mother’s medical bills. And now there’s proof that they were already married! Then a man shows up, demanding money from a safe he knew was here. A safe that I had no idea about. And you want to say that this had nothing to do with it?”

“Em …” Bones reaches out for her.

“No!” She takes a step back. “This all started because you wanted what George owes you.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “Maybe you did this.”

I step into her, fisting my hands down by my side. “You better be careful what you’re accusing me of.”

She gives a rough laugh. “What are you going to do, Titan? Hire a guy to break in and knock me around?”

“Emilee!” Bones snaps at her.

“Fuck you both!” She looks me up and down with her lip pulled back, but I see it quivering. “Oh, we’ve already done that.” She tosses her arms out to her side, and her voice shakes as she announces, “I’m done.” Her watery eyes go to Bones. “With both of you. Get out of this house before I call the police!” Then she storms out.

Silence fills the room after the door slams shut. I fall onto the couch and run a hand down my face.

“That was … informative.” Luca speaks first.

I place my hands behind my head and look up at them. “Let’s wrap everything up.”

“You really want to go?” Bones quirks a brow. “We own the cops. Her calling them to the house isn’t going to slow us down.”

No, it won’t. I lean forward and lower my voice. “Let her think she’s getting her way.” I rise and walk over to Nite who stands like a statue in the corner. “I need a favor.”

He nods.