Page 76 of Playing With Danger

Valentine got out of the Rover.

I disobeyed his previous order and got out to follow him.

I knew he’d be pissed but there was no way I was letting him deal with this alone.

I’d known it was going to be bad after he’d ignored the first two calls from his dad but picked up the third, and when he did everything about him changed. The change wasn’t good, it was hideous.

We’d been on our way to lunch. It was three days after my hospital visit and I needed real food. That first night he’d stayed over at my house. The next two nights I’d stayed at his. Going to sleep without Valentine but waking up with him next to me. He’d fed me toast, grilled cheeses, pasta, and plain chicken.

I’d wanted real food.

That was the only reason I was here with him running this errand to his father’s house.

He’d told me it wouldn’t take but a few minutes and for me to wait in the Rover.

Thinking he didn’t want his father meeting me had stung.

Now I understood.

Something was very, very wrong.

“Car, Sophie,” he clipped.

His father stumbled, missed the first step down, and lurched forward. Valentine got to him before he could take a header. I quickly maneuvered around the men, opened the storm door, and held it open for Valentine.

The first thing that hit me was the putrid smell wafting out of the house.

I waited until Valentine cleared the threshold, found the doohickey that held the pneumatic mechanism open, and slid it into place.

Then I watched in abject horror as Valentine looked around the living room. His face the picture of disgust and agony.

I swallowed down the sob threatening to break free.

“You coulda answer…two…ago,” Valentine’s father drunkenly slurred. “Called…yous fault.”

Oh my God.

“Sit, Pop,” Valentine demanded.

The man swayed and dropped his ass into a recliner.

“Let me see.”

Valentine didn’t give his father a chance to lift his blood-soaked hand before he reached down and grabbed it.

Not wanting to see what kind of injury would cause that kind of bleeding, I glanced around the living room. Old ratty furniture that needed to be thrown away ten years ago filled the living room. An old box TV sat on a stand. The walls were decorated in pictures. A huge family portrait hung on the wall above the couch.

No. No. No.

Valentine. His sister. His mom. His dad.

All of them together.

A family.

It was one of those professional studio pictures. The men in jeans and white button-ups. The girls in jeans and pretty white blouses. Valentine’s mother was behind him. He was sitting on a stool, feet up on the rung, her arm around his shoulder, his arm bent at the elbow, his hand holding hers mid-chest. Vienna stood next to him, her father’s arm around her, holding her hand in an identical pose as mother and son. Valentine was probably sitting because he was already taller than his mother.

It would’ve been beautiful, if it hadn’t been hanging in a room that smelled like throw-up and rotting food. It would’ve been a lovely memorial to a beautiful family if I didn’t suspect the man who lived in that house stared at that picture while he drank himself sick.

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