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“And a margarita,” Chloe adds, making me laugh.

“Yeah.”

“Enough with the small talk,” Maxine cuts in. “What happened? We haven’t seen you since your wedding to the supreme overlord of crime, but I thought things were going well. Against my better judgement, I let you stay with him because he seemed to be treating you right. Or is he not?”

She looks like she’ll be grabbing a pitchfork and storming over to Damien’s house based on my answer. It makes my heart warm. That she’s so protective. That I have them both.

“He hasn’t done anything bad to me,” I assure her.

“Then what is it? Why do you look like you’re close to tears?”

For some reason I don’t want to admit the truth to them, my uncle’s suspicions that Damien killed my father. If he really did, that’s unforgivable. I would die before going back to him.

My shoulders hunch, “I just… I feel overwhelmed. So much has happened in the past couple of weeks.”

“Yeah. You just need to breathe,” Chloe agrees gently. “You made the right decision coming here.”

“Where were you before?” Maxine asks curiously.

“With my uncle,” I murmur. “We read dad’s will today. And then we had a conversation about the company?”

“You’re not interested in running it are you?”

I shake my head.

“So, are you going to hand over the reins to Miguel?” Chloe questions.

“I don’t know. Damien said something earlier when he was dropping me off. He got in my head and now I’m second-guessing everything. About the company, my uncle. And he could tell. He got angry at me and he said somethings. About Damien.”

“What? That he’s evil and a murderer? You already knew that,” Maxine points out.

“Yeah, I did,” I say my chest aching because it was already so hard for me to come to terms with that fact. I wanted to get past it and now… “He said he killed his mother. Damien shot her.”

Chloe sucks in a sharp breath beside me.

Maxine’s eyes widen, “That’s….”

The sympathy in their eyes makes my heart feel warmer and then I remember, they’re both practically my sisters.

“That’s not all,” I murmur, and this time I feel the tears in my eyes start to fall. “Miguel thinks Damien killed my dad. Dad, he was- he was shot. Murdered, and I had no idea until now. I don’t- I don’t know what to do.”

Chloe immediately hugs me, her arms acting like a cocoon, a place to feel safe, to get in touch with my emotions. None of ussays anything as I cry into my friend’s arms. It takes a couple of minutes before the tears subside.

I sniff, pulling away from Chloe and wiping my eyes. Crying always makes me feel so empty, spent.

Maxine looks like she’s on the verge of tears herself. She likes to act tough, but the truth is she’s an empath. And she hates to see the people she loves hurt.

“Cassie,” she says softly, then pauses like she has no idea what to say.

“Does he have proof?” Chloe asks, “That Damien was responsible?”

“No, I don’t think so,” I breathe.

“Do you believe he did it?”

The question has my heart clenching. Because I want with every fiber of my being not to believe it.

“I don’t know,” I say, feeling my eyes grow heavy with tears. “I hate that I’m so ready to accept the worst parts of him. Even this. It should disgust me. If he can kill his own mother, then what could he possibly do to me? If he’s responsible for my father’s death, then he’s truly a monster. But the things he says to me,” my breath hitches. “He makes me feel like the most important thing in the world and I have a hard time believing he would hurt me. And yet.”