injury, if necessary. I was now in this far. I needed to know exactly what I was into.
She sat down on the foot of the bed, her legs folded up Indian-style. She played with her fingers for a moment, studying them, avoiding my eyes.
“They’re friends of Evan’s,” she said. “David’s last name is Hanson. I don’t know Colin’s.”
It took me a moment to remember that Evan was Jackson’s father. “Friends?”
She shrugged, rolled her eyes. “Friends. Colleagues. Assholes. Whatever. They all worked together.”
“Together? Or they worked for Evan?”
An irritated smile turned into a smirk. “Truthfully, I have no idea. Evan was great at keeping secrets and those two are no different. When he was killed, David took over. I don’t know if that’s because he was next in line, or they were partners, or what. Colin, he’s just a dickhead who thinks he’s the enforcer. Wants to be bigger than he is.”
“But that was in Tampa, right?”
She shifted on the bed, pulling her knees to her chest. “David decided to expand the business.”
“To here.”
She hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. To here.”
I had yet to meet a dealer who wasn’t ambitious. It was inherent in their business. Once they got a taste of the money involved, they wanted more. But the problem with expansion was that they were always infringing on someone else’s territory. And that usually led to bloody problems.
“So what?” I asked. “Did Evan die owing them money? They want it from you?”
She shook her head slowly. “No. At least not that I know of.”
“So why are they bothering you?”
She ran a hand through her hair and rubbed at the back of her neck. “Because I’m stupid.”
TWENTY-ONE
I reached for the bottle of water and moved around a bit under the covers, trying to shake the stiffness from my joints and limbs, waiting for Bella to explain.
“Before Jackson was born,” she said. “I thought Evan was…fantastic. Like, could do no wrong. Even though I knew everything he was doing was wrong.”
I drained the rest of the bottle and replaced it on the nightstand.
“So when he wanted me to do something, I did it,” she continued. “Without thinking very much. If he smiled at me, whispered in my ear, I was his.” She smiled, shook her head. “I was incredibly dumb.”
“Doesn’t sound dumb. Sounds like you loved him.”
She shrugged. “Maybe. But I was dumb. I promise.”
“How?”
She squeezed her knees tighter to her body. “You should sleep.”
“You should answer the questions.”
She made a face and sighed. “Right. Evan would have me…do things for him.”
The way she said it, I had no clue what “things” meant. About twenty came to mind, none of them good.
“I ran for him,” Bella said. “Made deliveries for him.”
“Ah.”
“Like I said,” she continued. “He could get me to do just about anything. And I don’t want you to think he was forcing me. He wasn’t. I was happy to do anything to make him happy, you know?”
She unfolded her legs and stretched them out next to me over the blankets. “But when I got pregnant, I started saying no. Evan wasn’t pleased.”
“Why not?” I asked, irritated at the idea of a guy who would send his pregnant girlfriend on drug runs.
“Because I was the perfect delivery girl,” she said. “No one suspected me and no one was going to mess with Evan’s girlfriend. And I wasn’t going to rip him off. I was no risk.”
I could see that. It made sense. It didn’t make me dislike him any less.
“But eventually, he got over me saying no,” she said. “And he was cool with it. Particularly as I got bigger and my pregnancy was pretty obvious. There was no push-back from him.”
Something passed through her expression that I couldn’t identify.
“Then I decided to leave him,” she said. “And he wasn’t happy about that.” She laughed. “At all.”
“But you said he didn’t want to be a father.”
She smirked. “He didn’t. But he wasn’t happy about two things. The fact that I was the one making the decision to leave and the fact that he was losing his delivery girl.”
I tried to push myself up on the pillows, but pain rocketed through my head as soon as I moved. I settled back into them.
“So he cut me off,” she said. “Cold. No money, no nothing. Because he knew I’d need him.”
“What’d you do?”
“At first, I resisted,” she said. “I tried to find a job, but it was impossible. I was about to have a baby. And then I knew I’d have the baby and would need to take care of him. My options were limited.”
I thought for a moment. “So you went back to work for him.”
She nodded. “Yeah. It was easy, didn’t take much time and the money was more than enough to live on. Evan was pissed I left him, but he was fair. Maybe it was his way of being a father. I don’t know. But he paid me fairly.”
Bella sighed and rubbed her arms. “But then…I just didn’t want to. I'd been doing it for a few years and I just got scared, afraid something would happen or go wrong. And I didn’t want Jackson growing up in that world. Didn’t want him exposed to all of that. So I told Evan no again. This time for good. He just kind of shrugged and said whatever. He was killed a couple nights later.”
I looked for something in her demeanor or expression that indicated that she was sad about Evan’s death, but saw nothing.
“My parents wrote me off years ago. When I got pregnant.” Her voice stayed steady as she said this, indicating nothing. “So when Evan died, I had no one to turn to. I eventually moved out here, scrounging for money here and there, waiting tables, a bunch of other crappy jobs,” she said. “But I was getting it done.”
Her expression clouded over, a mixture of anger, fear and a few other things I wasn’t sure of.
“Then, about six months ago, David showed up,” she said. “Out of the blue. No idea how he found me. Showed up at the restaurant. Just sitting there with that obnoxious smile.”
“And he wanted you to go work for him,” I said.
She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Yeah. How’d you know?”
“Not hard,” I said. “Not many reasons for him to come find you. You said he wanted to expand here. And when you had me watch Jackson the other day, you left with a backpack, but didn’t come back with one.”
Her cheeks reddened.
“It’s okay,” I said.
“No, it’s really not,” she said. “It’s ridiculous. And I don’t wanna do it anymore.”
“Wait. Go back. Why were you doing it in the first place? When David came here, why didn’t you just tell him no?”
“I did,” Bella said. “I did. But he…wasn’t interested in that response.”
I shifted under the sheets, my back aching. “How did he leverage you?”
She looked away from me, her eyes staring at something I couldn’t see. “Jackson.”
TWENTY-TWO
Bella slipped off the bed and turned on the small lamp on the nightstand. I squinted into the light for a few
