Total pages in book: 36
Estimated words: 34081 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 170(@200wpm)___ 136(@250wpm)___ 114(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 34081 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 170(@200wpm)___ 136(@250wpm)___ 114(@300wpm)
“Thank you,” Dhalia said, then she surprised him by throwing herself at him and hugging him tightly.
At first, he didn’t know what to do. This teenage girl, hugging him. He placed his arm around her and tried to give her the comfort she sought.
“It’s going to be okay now,” he said.
Dhalia nodded and kissed him on the cheek.
He poured himself a mug of coffee and saw he still had forty minutes until Vicki would be home.
Sitting at the table, Betsy lifted from her drawing and looked at him. “Dhalia’s happy here,” she said. “I’m happy here. We’re all happy here.”
“Good. I’m glad.”
Betsy moved a picture to him. “There’s you and Vicki, and Dhalia, and me, and Pete, and Smithy. Frank’s there as well.” She climbed off her seat, and without waiting for an invite, sat herself right on his knee. He was going to have to get used to this. He hadn’t exactly been careful with Vicki, and there was a chance she might already be pregnant.
“Dhalia cried a lot in the old house. She hated Mommy. Mommy scared her. Mommy scared me.”
“She did?” Damion asked.
Betsy nodded her head. “She had strange boys around. They would stare. Vicki doesn’t know but she wanted Dhalia to be friends with one of the boys. Mommy slapped Dhalia when she screamed no.”
Damion gritted his teeth.
“Then Vicki came home, and she kicked the boy out. He wanted to be friends. Is it bad to be friends with boys?”
Okay, this was a fucking heavy conversation.
“No, it’s not bad to be friends with boys, unless they are staring at you weird,” Damion said. “Or ... you don’t want to.”
Betsy nodded. “Good, because I want to be your friend. You’re nice and you make Vicki happy.”
Kids were so different. He was used to dealing with manipulating piece-of-shit adults. Not kids.
“I think it is time you get ready for bed, okay?” he asked.
“Yes.” Betsy kissed him on the cheek and left. He took a sip of his coffee.
“That was when Vicki decided to move back in,” Smithy said.
Damion looked up to see Smithy and Pete in the kitchen doorway. “What?”
“Mom was an addict. That you know, and Dhalia was getting older, and some of the guys she brought home liked to look at Dhalia. This one day, the guy wanted to see Dhalia without her clothes on, and Mom tried to make that happen. She hit Dhalia. Well, Vicki came home and took care of it. Frank got there as well. They put a stop to it. From that day forward, Vicki gave up her apartment and moved back into the attic. She made sure Mom was never alone with us after that.”
“Fuck me,” Damion said.
“Thank you,” Smithy said.
“For what?”
“For taking us in. We know you didn’t have to.”
This was a lot. These kids had been through a lot. He knew there were kids out there that had it a lot worse, but also a lot of kids that had it a hell of a lot better.
He ran a hand down his face. “How was the church?”
“It’s all set for Friday. Everything is in place,” Pete said.
“Good. Good.”
“There is only one thing,” Smithy said.
“What?” Damion asked.
“We need to talk to Frank. It’s our sister and he should be there.”
“Frank is not going to be at the wedding. He is already starting his initiation process, and I can’t intervene with that.”
“Not even for Vicki?” Pete asked.
“He can’t,” Smithy said. “If he does, it’s going to cause a shitstorm, right?”
“Yeah, it is. I can only do so much. Even for your sister and your brother. This is now up to Frank. It’s not up to me.”
The two boys nodded. Then they left, and Damion couldn’t fucking believe everything he had been told. All of this was fucking shit.
Annette was a piece of fucking work.
Pulling out his cell phone, he dialed Neil’s number. He needed to make sure Annette was not going to be a fucking problem to any more kids. The woman had always been a piece of work, but after what he had learned, he now knew she was even worse than he could have imagined.
“What’s up?” Neil asked. “If you tell me you’re getting cold feet, I’m going to kill you.”
“You’ve still got Annette, right? You haven’t sold her.”
There was silence on the line.
“Damn it, Neil, that woman is a fucking hazard—”
“She’s dead,” Neil said.
Damion was silent. “How?”
“Simple, I had her in withdrawal, with the intention of cleaning her up. Figured that is where it all went wrong for her. She didn’t like what I was doing and broke into my supplies. Took the wrong stuff, and we found her dead from an overdose three days ago,” Neil said. “She’d rather get fucked up than consider being with her kids again.”
“Fuck.”
“I don’t know how to tell Vicki.”
“I’ll deal with it,” Damion said, and hung up the phone.