Page 23 of Room Twenty-Four: Under Their Hands

I huff out a breath and cross my arms. “ really hate that you can do that shit to my head. Fine. I’ll move in with you guys. But I really don’t like the fact that Bruno and Marco are going through my underthings.”

Seth chuckles. “Baby. Trust me. After everything we did last week, your underthings aren’t that surprising. We’ve seen it all. And we like it!” His brows wiggle at me and I can’t help but giggle.

“You are so bad.”

He sits down beside the bed. “Can you tell me about yourself? What was it like when you grew up?”

“That’s actually why I’m so careful about money. I grew up without any. My mama died when I was only about twelve. But she wasn’t in a good place before that. She worked all the time and I stayed at the neighbors after school.”

“What about your dad?”

“He wasn’t in the picture,” I say abruptly.

“I’m sorry, baby girl.”

“It’s okay.” I shrug and let my eyes drift back to that old apartment. “My mama died from a drug overdose. She tried all the time to get off the drugs but she just never could. That’s one of the reasons I hate drug dealers so much.”

A stricken look crosses Seth’s face. “I’m so sorry, baby girl. I need to go take a call.”

CHAPTER12

Bruno

“Seth’s calling.” I answer the phone and he whispers something to me.

“What the hell are you talking about, man?”

“The drugs. We’ve got to get out of the drugs. Now. Vi’s mother died from a drug overdose. There’s no way she’ll forgive the fact that we sell drugs.”

“Oh shit,” I pale and stare across at Marco. We all planned on getting out after his mother’s death but it was complicated.

“What?” He says, his fingers tangling in Vi’s silky underwear.

“Vi’s mother was killed by a drug overdose. She hates drugs. If she finds out that we sell drugs she’ll never forgive us.”

“Call Cannon and tell him to get the guys together. I want all of our drugs emptied out and sold to one of the other families. I refuse to do something that will hurt our little angel.”

It takes us all night but we get rid of every last bit of drugs. Several of the families really enjoyed our little emergency sale. But we all breathed a sigh of relief when we had empty warehouses with no product at all.

“Now what do we do?”

“We’ve still got the clubs and the girls.”

“I have a feeling that will be changing too.”

“Do you think we should tell her what we did? It’s not good to lie to our girl.”

“I don’t know what to do. Let’s just go see her. I miss her.”

We troop back to the hospital and get there just in time to help her get ready to leave.

“Are you sure that you’re ready to go? You might need to stay in here another night or something.”

“You guys are worse than little old ladies. I’m a lot tougher than you guys seem to think. I grew up in foster care and I’m worth a million dollars now. That takes work.”

“I know. I’m just worried about you,” I say to her.

“We’re all worried about you.”

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