Page 33 of In It for the Long Ride

Crystal tore her gaze away from the boy long enough to look between Carl and Eric.

“Uh–” Carl rubbed the back of his neck and his attention anchored on Crystal. “We should, uhm– We should sit.”

“Monty–” Crystal managed, but Eric took her shoulders and led her to the table.

Oak grabbed some beers and started passing them out. I never liked the taste of beer, so I left mine sitting on the table in front of me.

“You want some tea, Miss Daisy?” he politely asked but I gave a short shake of my head.

“He did it again,” Eric blurted out.

“Who did what?” Oak smiled.

“Demetri.” Carl expanded, knocking that smile right off of him. “He’s taken another woman.”

I wiggled my shoulders against the chill that threatened and fought back tears.

Demetri.

The monster.

My fucking son.

My fucking son was taking women and torturing them. He was tearing my world apart and hurting everyone I loved, and I’d never even looked him in the eye.

“Daisy?” Crystal gently pressed.

“He has your sister,” I blurted out.

Tears spilled down my cheeks and Carl’s arm instantly snared around me. He held me to his chest and I sobbed, taking in the story as the men told it around me.

“Kelli called. Said Joplin hadn’t been home in a while. We found a card for a recording studio in Chicago in her bedroom. It was laying right there on her bedside table… and it is registered to Demetri and Damien Valentino.”

Crystal shot back toward the kitchen, snagged her cell phone off the bar and immediately made a call.

“Crystal,” Oak stormed toward her. “Crystal wait…”

“He ain’t the type of man you seek out while emotional. Honey, he’s gonna torment you…” Carl warned.

“What if he don’t know…” Eric whispered.

“Know what?” I laughed.

“That she is Crystal’s sister… If he took something to hold over us, he’d fucking tell us. He’d rub it in. That bastard would never sit quietly on something like this.” Carl nodded and gestured toward Oak and Crystal. “Hang that fucking phone up, girl.”

“No.” Crystal snapped as Oak grabbed for the phone. “I have to call my supervisor, I have to–”

“No.” Eric’s denial carried such a crisp finality to it we were all left staring at him. “If they don’t know what they have, and you alert any type of police… You’re gonna get calls from Joplin the same as I do Trista. Her screams and pleas will fucking haunt you. It will make your soul shrivel and your thoughts spin so fast you can’t even latch onto them. Do not give him that ammo, Crystal. Oak, don’t let her, brother.”

They wrestled for it, but once Oak actually put some effort into it, his big ass easily overtook her and the phone made a bang when it hit the floor. My heart broke all over again as Crystal began to sob and slap at him and Eric both. Oak let her slap his back and head, not bothering to deflect it or defend himself from her kicks as he bent, fetched the phone from the floor and ended the call mid ring.

I glanced toward Carl, but he was staring past them all, his focus on the doorway Blaze was standing in. The boy wasn’t saying a word, just stood there and watched as his mother collapsed against her mountain-sized boyfriend and wailed like a wounded animal.

I got up and started toward him. He didn’t even notice, his attention not shifting to me until I got within reaching distance. His eyes rounded and he all but shot into my arms. I took him into the sanctuary of my hug and lifted him up. I didn’t know the layout of the place, but I ventured deeper into the condo until Ifound a good place to turn on cartoons and try to help him tune out all the shit he was far too young to deal with.

He didn’t deserve any of this. His life had been flipped upside down. He’d lost a father and found an aunt half dead, and now Demetri would take not one, but two aunts from the boy, leaving his mother a shell in the process. My precious, innocent boy was being put through hell and it wasn’t going to stop anytime soon. His childhood was being robbed and the fact that it was all being done to him by something that I’d brought into this world, rocked me with more guilt and pain than I’d ever be able to convey or apologize for.

It eventually quieted in the other room and Blaze settled with his head in my lap. I ran my fingers through his hair, teasing his scalp while the images on the screen came and went. The sofa shifted with Carl’s weight. At first, I couldn’t look at him, but the longer the silence stretched the more I drove myself mad trying not to. When I finally swallowed and glanced toward him, he was staring at me.

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