“Daddy, moving us to South Postings had nothing to do with this. Connor was going to do what he wanted regardless, that was just the avenue he chose,” I said.
“No,” my dad shook his head. “Not that promotion. The one that brought us to Maine to begin with.”
“W-what?” I said. “What do you mean?”
“Connor promoted me rather suddenly, saying that the transfer from our original office to the one in Postings was necessary. How ironic that you would end up near Deon,” my dad said.
“Cherri, you know that we think you are so much more than just how beautiful you are, but think of Alicia. You share similar qualities. You’re as pretty as a model and would look good on anyone’s arm. I’m beginning to think Connor handpicked you for his son,” my mom explained.
My dad looked up, weary-eyed. “And for some reason, when things didn’t work with you and Deon, he promoted me again, and suddenly you ended up with Nathan.”
“Deon told me that he went to live with Connor for a year, but he refused to stay and eventually came home. Ciara, Deon’s mom, had a bunch of information about all of the affairs that Connor had been having, and was able to use it to get him to back off of trying to take Deon from her. Shortly after that, we came here and I met Deon. Then this thing happened with this weird body and Deon getting framed for it, and then you got promoted and we moved,” I said. “That means…”
“Yeah,” my mom said. “Connor had to have had something to do with Deon getting framed.”
“He came to me,” my dad said, and then my mom looked at him confused. “He told me about Deon. He said he was a dangerous guy and that I needed to keep my daughter away from him. He told me that, eventually, we would see the kind of person he was, and then when Deon disappeared, he told me why and offered me a promotion and to move to keep you safe.”
My jaw fell slack. “What?!”
“Christian, how could you not tell me that?” my mom asked.
“I thought I was protecting my family.” My dad reached across the island and put a hand on mine. “Cherri, I’m so sorry.”
“Was it just because he felt scorned by Deon? That he’d be willing to do something so harmful to his own son?” I said. “He’s even more psychotic than I thought.”
My parents and I sat in silence for a while, and eventually I made an excuse to leave the kitchen. I couldn’t believe that my parents knew so much more about Connor than they’d let on. My mind was going a mile a minute thinking that every aspect of my life from the moment I arrived in Postings had been so manipulated by Connor and his games. He played with my life and the lives of everyone around me.
I was so angry I could breathe fire.
Just like I promised I would, I went up to Gus’s room and climbed into his bed. He was asleep, so I snuggled in behind him, and he turned without waking to curl into my arms. I held him close and thought about how much more damage Connor could do if we didn’t end him soon.
When I went back to The Royal Court the next day, it was going to be with renewed veracity. I wanted Connor Loche down, and I wanted him down for good.
18
Deon
From casual walks with Concrete to working in the backyard, all outdoor activities for me had come to a complete and total halt. If everything that had happened at the roadshow wasn’t enough to convince me that I needed to stay inside, Felicity felt she had no choice but to come clean to Venom about what we’d done, and we both got an earful.
“I mean, fucking honestly,” he snapped over speaker during his call with Felicity. “The two people I care about most in the entire fucking world are out there doing shit that could get them killed. I feel like I’m talking to my goddamn cell wall. Did I not tell you to let me handle this shit? There’s a reason I’m saying what I’m saying. It’s not to fucking leave you two out of it, it’s because I’ve seen Connor at work. He’s a fucking snake, and he wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet in either of you. And what, he wasn’t even fucking there? If he’d killed you, D, he wouldn’t have even been the one going down for it. I mean…” He growled. “Shit. Just stay fucking still. I’m not gonna tell either of you again.”
Getting really and truly scolded for the first time ever by the man I’d come to see as my father was equal parts upsetting and enlightening. There were people out there who cared about me. People were expecting me to be smart about the decisions I was making and ensure that I was still alive at the end of the day, and I let my hubris and wanting to end Connor for good get in the way of that. I imagined that if Cherri or Nathan knew what I’d done, they’d be just as mad.
I owed it to the people I loved not to be so dumb.
So I was sitting at home. My anxiety was through the roof, and I found myself peeking through the windows on a near constant rotation, because I’d managed to convince myself that I led the people chasing me back to Felicity. They didn’t see her face, and if I were to take a guess, they didn’t know it was her beneath the mask. That didn’t ease my fear. Venom was right, Connor knew how to dig shit up even if it was twelve feet deep. It probably wouldn’t take him long to figure out we were together if he was given the smallest hint. By now, he knew that someone was helping me, and he was probably already working his resources to figure out who.
“Deon?” Felicity called out as she walked back into the house. It’d become a bad—or maybe good—habit of ours to call out to one another whenever she was coming or going.
“I’m in the living room,” I called back.
I heard Concrete’s collar shaking, and a few seconds later he came bounding into the living room, followed closely by Felicity. If it weren’t for the fact that she had a job and Concrete turned into a monster whenever he didn’t get his walks, Felicity would probably be condemned to the house too, but she at least had a hidden identity, at least for now.
“How’s your leg?” she asked.
It’d been a few days since I got shot, again, but luckily the second time around wasn’t as bad as the first. “It’s sore, but other than that, it’s fine. It grazed me really. I took more damage from the fall and then giving it a goddamn seawater bath.” Just mentioning it made my wound sting, like the saltwater was still licking at the open sore. “I’m okay.”
“Did you change the bandages already?” she asked.
“I just did,” I replied. “I’m okay, mama. Really.”
She gave me a half-lidded gaze and then flopped onto the couch. Concrete jumped up next to her and curled up, falling asleep almost immediately. “I can’t get your father out of my head.”
“Me too. We really let him down and I hate thinking that, on top of everything he’s already worrying about, he has to add a fear that the two of us are misbehaving to the list,” I said.
“Well that too,” Felicity said. “But also because I’m not gonna listen.”
“What?” I said. “What do you mean?”
“I’m gonna go talk to Nico. Before shit went sideways at the show, I got a good lead on a vendor Connor may have used to secure locations in Postings to hide out. If we can get in touch with the man aiding him, we may be able to find where he is. It’s the closest we’ve ever gotten,” Felicity said. “I can’t just not do it.”