Page 78 of Grift

My father stands up, rising to his full height and smoothing down his suit. “Well, it looks like we’re done here. Good talk, Patrick. You won’t mind if I tell you to fuck off and stay out of my sight for awhile. You’ll report directly to Callan now, for obvious reasons.”

A reasonable compromise, all things considered.

He’s already going for the whiskey when I exit his office. Callan follows me into the hallway, eyes wide and hands shaking. “What the fuck was that?”

“Standing up for what I believe in.” It’s as much as question as a statement. I crack a tired grin. “I told him if I put a bullet in his brain, you’d cover it up.”

Callan runs a hand through tousled light hair, and for the first time, I notice the stress lines around his eyes. “Jesus Christ, Patrick. Look, Jessica is in the gallery. I need to go sort things out with Dad. There are some things you and I need to discuss about the future, about what happened tonight. But I think that can wait for another day.”

He holds out a hand for me to shake. Very un-Callan. I grab it. “You trust me right, brother?” he asks.

There’s a long second where I consider those words. Trust isn’t something I give lightly. There was a time Callan wouldn’t have had to ask, but since the Trinity Casino project began all of our lives have accelerated and changed in unimaginable ways.

“What was he going to do to her?” I ask. The rage coiled in my chest has started to ease, and I’m coming back into my body. Feeling fear at what would have happened if she’d been hurt.

“I didn’t wait to find out,” he says simply. “I texted you and then was working on getting Calloway up here in case I needed backup.” The night security manager and my most loyal guy.

I grab his hand. “We’re good, Callan. I’ll have your back.”

“Things might get complicated for a bit around here,” he says, sounding hesitant. What the fuck does he call this? But one look at his face tells me that I should be grateful that I’m not privy to whatever he’s foreseeing.

“I trust you, Callan.” At the words, something eases in his face. He did the right thing, by me and by Jessica. Whatever he’s planning, whatever’s coming here at the Trinity or within the Carney family, I’ll back Callan and make sure it’s resolved before I make any big moves. But right now, there’s something else that’s far more important and needs my immediate attention.

My father’s already ranting as Callan opens his office door and slides inside. I make a quick stop to lock the gun in my office safe, and then set out to find Jessica. It seems like hours to close the distance to the gallery. When I slide my badge in front of the security scanner that protects the art gallery and the doors part, Jessica is pacing the length of the gallery. She spins, and her hand flies up to her mouth.

“You’re okay,” she lets out a relieved cry, followed by, “You didn’t…”

Without speaking, I close the distance between us and pull her into my arms. She feels soft and small and warm against me, and I want to lose myself in those curves forever. Her hair smells like lilacs. There’s too much ugliness in the world. I don’t want to be part of it anymore. I don’t want her to be part of it, touched by it.

“No,” I say against her hair. “We just needed to come to an understanding. He won’t bother you again.”

“He texted me. I thought it was you,” she whispers, still sounding afraid. “It came from the casino’s number and showed up under your name.”

He’d have done that – texted her from my office extension via the casino’s texting app – so it looked like it was from me.

Fury roars in again, but I tamp it down. We’ve made a deal, and I’ll make sure that he honors it. More importantly, Callan will make sure that he honors it. He’ll stay away from her, and keep her out of her dealings with her father.

I guide her over to the bench, and then lower myself down next to her. Something hits me then: I can feel the adrenaline draining away, and under it, the horror of pulling a gun on my own father. It’s so deeply fucked up. It’s the world that we live in. But still. The fact that Jessica had to see it happen. How close I’d been to lighting my entire life on fire just to make sure this woman was protected. And how, just a few months ago, I’d become so disconnected from my feelings I wouldn’t have known these if they hadn’t slammed me in the face.

Fuck. She changes everything.

“I need to tell you something,” I say.

Her wide eyes are on my face, bright. “I think you already said it, when you pulled a gun on your father to save me from whatever was happening there. I don’t actually think I was in immediate danger.”

I reach out and grab her hand. “That’s the thing, Jess. You might not be in immediate danger from him, but his manipulation and his interest and his focus, they’re toxic. They break you down. Make you forget who you are. He needs to understand you’re off-limits, living your life outside his influence.”

“Far away?” Her voice sounds small.

“I thought that was the right thing to do. I made a huge mistake. When I said you’re free to choose the life you want, I meant it. I just should have said that a life with me was one of the options that I’d really hope you’d consider,” I hate the aching note in my voice.

Vulnerability doesn’t necessarily mean weakness, and with the right person, it won’t be weaponized against you. Jessica is someone that I can trust.

She doesn’t throw her arms around me or say yes or anything dramatic, and hope starts to pull away, receding like a tide from the sandy shore. “Patrick, I’m pregnant.”

Holy shit.

I can’t get my arms around her quickly enough, and my lips are pressed to hers, warm and delicious against mine before I realize that I don’t know what that means. Not in relation to her life. Not in relation to us. And then, in a distant recess of my mind, I hear Rose harshly saying the words she’d said the first time that I met Jessica, “I was going to leave until I found out I was pregnant with you.”

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