Page 112 of My Rose

The anger from her was palpable. And adorable. “Whatelsehave you done while—no, never mind. I don’t want to know.”

“Let’s just say I really like my midnight snacks.”

Her cheeks blushed, and Jasmine groaned. “I’m leaving. Food is ready for you since neither of you know or care to learn how to cook.” She checked her nails. “Getting Rhonda here was one of my better suggestions.”

“Telling Rose to tell me to pull my head out of my ass was the better one,” I replied, staring down at Rose.

Jasmine groaned louder, the door clicking shut behind her as she left the room. I reached over and grabbed Rose’s thigh, pulling her leg over mine. “Now, where were we?”

Rose tapped on my chest. “Not doing that.” She sat up, reaching for the box. “They couldn’t have been friends for that long.”

“Your mom and mine?”

She sighed. “Yeah. Otherwise, my grandparents would have told me about her while they were chastising me for my choices in friends.” I snorted, and she rolled her eyes. “Really? Still not over that one?”

My jaw tensed. “I will never be over it. He tried to hurt you. Multiple times. Almost—” I stopped my words as a rush of realization surged through me. A sour taste filled my mouth.

“What’s wrong? Why are you making that face?”

I pulled her flush to me, pressing my lips to the crown of her head. “It’s nothing, baby.” I tried to ease the rapid thumping in my chest, hot anger filling my veins as I maneuvered her in my hold to type out a quick message. “Tell me what else you’re thinking.”

“I don’t know. I know my mom looked like she had been crying or really mad after your mom left in my dream.”

“Your dream is your memory of that event. It’s not just a dream, baby.”

“Right.” She worried her lip as she thought. “Whatever they found might have been too big for my mom to take down. She hadn’t been a lawyer for that long going off the graduation dates from her photos.” She loosed a deep sigh. “What if what we find, if we find it, is big enough to take down your father and the company? You really won’t care to lose all of that?”

“Not at all.” Losing the company I could handle. Rose? No chance.

“What if your dad tries to take you down with him?”

I shrugged. “He wouldn’t because it would point back to him. I started—” I paused, thinking if I should finish. But hiding my pastfrom Rose was off the table. She needed to know it all. “I started when I was a minor. I could easily and rightfully say I was persuaded and threatened to do it.”

Her fingers reached up to caress the edge of my scarred brow. “Youwereforced, Briggs. Even if you found a way to justify it by finding the awful things they did that didn’t relate to the business and using that as your fuel—he still made you do that.”

“I know,” I said, twirling the ends of her hair. She made that knowledge possible. “Beyond that, I’m the only one he’d want to head the company if it didn’t fall. He wouldn’t risk his legacy.”

I threaded my fingers through hers over my rose tattoo, calming her breath. “I wish we could just ask one of them. We’ll probably never find her, though, will we?” I hummed a response, one she thankfully didn’t ask more about as my mind wandered.

Years had gone by since she left Beck and me, not even showing up for his funeral. I doubted she knew he was dead. Her child died, and she wasn’t there. My father wasn’t the only guilty party, in my mind. Yet there was another who needed to pay the price for what they did. Someone I couldn’t wait to watch suffer for the pain they caused.

Chapter 40

Rose

“But if my forces are not enough, I am hardly the one to relent...” ? Virgil

Minnie was waiting on the back porch overlooking the lake, two cups of coffee on the small, wooden table in front of her.

“Hey.” I stepped out, taking a seat beside her. “Sorry, I had to take a shower.We were—”

“I know. I get it.” She laughed. “If Dean were here right now, I wouldn’t be out here. The man has more stamina than anyone else I’ve ever been with.”

I shifted the blanket I had wrapped around me and reached for the mug. Jasmine’s eyes grew wide. “What the fuck is on your wrists?”

“Nothing.” A sly smile tilted the corner of my mouth, and I took a sip to cover it.

“He better not be beating you, is he—oh, shit. He reallyisrough, isn’t he?” she whispered, glancing over her shoulder through the glass like he’d just pop up after having left over an hour ago.

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