Page 20 of Point of Infinity
“Dana is your younger sister.”
I blinked and inhaled a deep breath. “I have a younger sister?”
“You didn’t know about her?” He frowned but then relaxed. “Yeah, she’s fourteen. Sweet kid with a mouth like yours.”
I tried to speak again, but he interrupted with a raised hand.
“She’s beautiful, like you, too.”
I looked away.
“A lot of people have brown eyes.” I picked at a loose string on my pants. “And I don’t think attitude and intelligence are inherited traits.”
“True.”
“So why do you think I’m his daughter?” It was taking too long to get to the plot.
“Well, because I asked one of Sonny’s oldest friends.”
My eyes grew wide.
“Don’t worry, he and Sonny haven’t spoken in fifteen years. He’s not about to run off and tell him we spoke. Besides, I am good at getting the information I need without the other person knowing why I need it.” He gave me a cocky grin.
I sipped my water and remained silent.
“I have to take at face value that us walking into your diner a few nights ago was a coincidence, but I am assuming you’ve been working your way across the country to reconnect with family or with Sonny or both.”
“How do you know all this?” I tried to hide the panic in my voice. He knew too much.
“We all thought you were a rumor. Back when you were born, your mother and Sonny were a thing, and it almost broke up his marriage.” He shifted in his seat. “You and your mother disappeared when you were around six years old, and you ended up somewhere in Pennsylvania.”
“Okay.”
“But then a friend of mine, who is good with computers, did some research and after the age of fourteen, you no longer existed.” I felt his eyes on me. “That was right around the time your mother died, right?”
A shiver ran through me. I wanted to set the record straight about a few things but bit my lip and held back the urge to speak. Like my mother didn’t move away. We ran away to get out from under my father’s control, and how she didn’t die; she was murdered. I feared that if I opened my mouth, I wouldn’t be able to stop.
“The only question now is why?”
A tear dropped down my cheek. I’d like to say it was on purpose, but the tightness in my chest and my racing heart clued me into it being genuine. The whole situation made me sad and made me miss my mom. I drove across the country, worked at one shithole after another to get back to the place where it all began. I gave the most dishonest answer I could find in the swirl of words and emotions I had going on in my brain.
“Because I have no one else.”
But the line was delivered brilliantly.
I deserve an Oscar for that shit.
CHAPTER 7
REID (RATCHET)
Her performance tugged at my heartstrings, but it was an act. All of it was an act.
That was an inherited trait.
All the fucking O’Connors knew how to perform, and I was one of the few people who could see it for what it was—bullshit. But if this was how she was going to play it, I would play along.
“You want to reconcile with Sonny?”
