Page 66 of Forged in Rain

“You have to tell Pam you’re not coming back,” Cyn says.

He’s holding my hand in plain sight of the others, and it gives me a small thrill. Maybe I’m foolish, but I will take this gift and hope like hell that it’s not a lie.

“Okay,” I whisper. Despite what I’ve recently learned, a lifetime of being told to obey your elders isn’t exactly easy to toss aside in one afternoon.

But if I don’t, I could be walking into—I don’t even know what. I’d like to think my own aunt wouldn’t toss me under the bus. Well, I’d like to think she wasn’t part of a crime syndicate and masquerading as someone named Cue either.

“What do we do now?” I ask, glancing around at the guys.

Cyn sighs and rubs his face before saying, “We need to know what the endgame is here. My father gave me Cue’s number and told me that’s who I’m accountable to. Which means if Cue is Pam, we’ve been working for someone else all along.”

“Why?” I wonder aloud. “Does my dad know?”

“Beauty, your dad’s been far away. Maybe he doesn’t know.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“I don’t know,” he says heavily, “but we need to know the damn history to figure out what Cue wants.”

“We could ask Oscar?” I say, which earns me three incredulous stares. “What?”

“Oscar’s dad is an enforcer for McCafferty. If Cue is staging a coup, we don’t need it to lead back to the fucking top.”

“It already has. Oscar said that McCafferty thinks I stole his money,” I say, dropping my head into my hands.

This is all so fucked up.

Cyn runs his hand down my back, and I start before leaning into the caress. The gesture feels good, and I’ll take all the comfort I can get.

“I need to talk to my dad,” Cyn says heavily, and Jig chuffs across from me.

“What?” Bastion growls in disbelief, and I glance between them.

“What?” I ask when no one says a damn thing, but Jig and Bastion stare at Cyn with matching frowns.

“There’s no choice. We need to know, and Dad’s the one who left me with this shit,” he growls, standing up and pacing away.

“No way,” Jig sputters, and Bastion nods his head.

“There’s no one else we can ask?” I say, uneasy in the face of Bastion and Jig’s complete abhorrence of the notion.

“No, beauty,” Cyn says quietly, and I search his gaze. I’m out of the loop on this, but he’s alluded to a poisonous relationship in the past.

“But—” I say, and he slashes his hand through the air.

“It was leading to this all along. The fucker set me up, and he knew I’d be right back at his fucking table to know why.”

Jig stands and stalks away, while Bastion looks on with a fierce scowl. Rubbing my aching head, I wonder if I can add this to the list of sins; I’ll be repenting until the day I die. I should have reported this to the cops and let the chips fall. Fuck me.

“What about Pam?” I mutter, “Should I confront her? Maybe she’s not aware of Iris’ crazy behavior.”

“No,” Cyn says firmly. “Not until I have more answers. We don’t know how dangerous she is.”

“But it’s okay for you to ask your dad—who’s in prison?” I ask softly.

“Yes,” he barks, his eyes flashing, and I shrink away. “Beauty, I’m not afraid of my fucking dad.”

“Okay,” I say quietly, watching him as he sighs and turns away.

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