Page 40 of Pocketful of Us

"Cal Dillon," he explained. "The common interest we share."

"RomiDillon," I corrected. "I couldn’t give two shits about your dirt bag dad, dude. No offense."

"You have no interest in avenging the family he took from you?" he asked, sounding genuinely curious.

"Of course."

"Then why not take more pleasure in this?"

When I didn’t respond, Seth let out a surprised laugh. "Oh, you mean my sister, don’t you? She's the only family you're interested in? You do not care about the mother and brother he slaughtered?"

I stiffened, but didn’t respond.

"Hmm. I cannot decide if I envy Ramona for having a man who loves her this fiercely or pity you for the weakness she exposes in you."

"Neither," I deadpanned. "You don’t know shit about me, Seth, so don’t bother trying now. We won't be in each other's company for much longer."

"And after tonight, you and I will never run into each other again, right?" Humor filled his voice.

"With any luck."

He chuckled. "You are fascinating."

"And you are fucking annoying."

"Don’t let many people in, do you?"

I rolled my eyes. "Wow. Nothing gets past you, does it?"

"Who taught you how to shoot?" Seth asked then, steering the conversation to another random topic. "My ear is not very grateful."

"Be glad it wasn't your brain," I muttered. "And it was my dad."

"You mean –"

"I mean my dad, jackass!" I snapped. "As in the man that raised me. You got it?"

"Well, he taught you well," he replied, thankfully not pouring salt on that particular open wound. "To shoot, that is."

Relaxing, I nodded. "Yeah, he dragged me and Chris down to the shooting range every Saturday for twelve years." I shrugged. "Hunting trips, too. Hell, he even used to send us to these super intense, month long survival-training boot camps each summer.Character building, he used to call it." I smirked to myself. "More like hell on earth."

"Sounds to me like he was training you to be the warrior you were born to be," Seth offered in a mild tone.

I had no answer to that.

The thought had crossed my mind a time or ten in the past few weeks.

Before I could think about it anymore though, a piercing light shone in our direction. "Who's out there?"

"Busted," I groaned, dropping my cheek to the earth when I recognized Giuseppe's croaky voice. "Motherfucker." In all my years of slipping in and out of here, my father's ancient guard was theonlyperson that had managed to catch me out. "Fucking figures."

"Holden, is that you?" he continued to call out. "Boy, you better show yourself before I take my gun out."

"I'll take this," Seth whispered before springing out of his spot.

"Seth, wait!" I hissed. "No, he's one of my dad's. You don’t have to –"

My words died on my tongue when Seth lunged towards our family's elderly security guard and plunged a knife into his throat.

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