Page 61 of Graveyards & Greed

Drakos leaned back. “You need to deal with the source of your problem.”

Shit, he was right. I threw the fry down. “My fucking father. Ihatethat psychotic bastard.” He’d gotten more unstable and dangerous over the years as his drug use and bitterness ate away at the man he used to be.

Kilian folded his arms and leaned back. “Drakos is right. We need to take out Sylvie’s father and send a message. I have a few ideas.”

Fenn smirked. “I have a few too.”

I sighed, already knowing I’d like Kilian’s ideas better.

“Tell me what happened when you were fifteen,” Drakos murmured on the way back to the mortuary. We’d been riding in silence as thoughts of my father swam through my head. Drakos’s blue eyes flicked to me.

I let out a long, shaky breath. “I guess you have a right to know if we’re going to continue committing multiple felonies together. My biological father’s name is Jeffery Whitlock,” I began, watching the palm trees and desert landscape blur past my window. “He has the moral compass of a serial killer, and if he were ever shipwrecked on a desert island, he’d be the first to resort to cannibalism. When my mother died, I inherited some money and her interest in the funeral home.”

“Let me guess," Drakos shook his head. “Whitlock saw you as his golden ticket.”

“More like his personal ATM.” The memories still burned me. I’d been a young teenager and my mother had just died, but the fucker came to me and demanded money.

Drakos pulled up to the mortuary and turned to me. “Did you give him any?”

“Hell, no. I’d just buried my mother, and I was a mess. But Ezra and my cousins made sure I wasn’t an idiot. I told him to get away from me. He was stoned out of his goddamned mind at the time and cornered me outside of a chess meet. He looked like complete shit.”

Drakos growled. “It seems greed runs thicker than water in the Whitlock bloodline.”

I spent half my life afraid that I inherited my father’s psychopathic tendencies and cruelty, so his comment stung. “I’m not like him,” I muttered as I got out of the car and headed up to the apartment.

Drakos followed me inside and took my hand before I could escape him, pulling me over to the couch. “I wasn’t implying you were. If our parents determine who we are or what we’ll become, then I’m fucked. You mentioned your father tried to kill you. What happened?”

My leg started bouncing, and I pulled my hand from his, tucking my palms under my thighs. God, I hated remembering that day. “My parents separated when I was maybe three or four. I have a few hazy memories of my father at the beach or playing in the yard with me, but that’s it. Drugs and hatred twisted his brain, and when I inherited money and my mother died, he tried to bully me. When that didn’t work, he figured I probably didn’t have a will.”

Drakos nodded, instantly getting it. “So through intestacy laws, he’d be the one to inherit if you died.”

“Exactly. He’s like a vulture, always circling.”

“What about your mother? Luna briefly mentioned her too.”

I rubbed my sternum, a muted pain flowing through me. “She battled severe depression, and it was like an invisible parasite every day. Sometimes, she’d shake it off and decide we should go ‘make a memory.’ So we’d throw together a trip to a national park, the beach, or maybe a concert. For all her faults, she made sure I knew I was loved. I still miss her.”

He took my hand. “There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in grief.”

“That’s from… Aeschylus?” I guessed.

His eyebrow lifted. “I’m impressed. My grandfather liked to quote him. So why is your father in prison?”

“A few months after Luna came to live with us in Phoenix, Mom had a psychotic episode. A few weeks prior to that, my stepfather had finally left, and I couldn’t blame him. I don’t think he could stand watching her suffer anymore and not be able to do anything about it.” I fell silent.

“Who found her?” His voice was quiet.

“I did. She hung herself in her closet.”

He gently lifted me onto his lap, and I curled into him. In the shadows of my mind, I could still hear the silk tie creaking on the metal rod as her body swayed when I’d touched her.

She kept lavender sachets in her closet, and the smell could still trigger the trauma of that day. “I fell apart, and Luna and Ezra took care of me until I could put myself back together.”

Stroking my hair, he pulled me closer to him. “I’m sorry. Your mother obviously loved you.”

His voice held a faint wistfulness, and I suddenly wondered if Drakos ever felt that from his own mother. “Yeah, she did. She had such a funny, braying laugh, and always cheered for the underdog.”

“Something she obviously passed down to her daughter.”

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