Page 50 of Danger Close

But someone had come in and snuffed her light out. Someone had dimmed her fire, reducing it to nothing but the faintest glow. Maybe it wasn’toneperson at fault. Maybe there were many people. And maybe I was one of them.

“You can still make your own luck, Princess.” I threw back words that she’d said when she was young, hoping that I could reignite that spark I’d treasured.

“I’ve made my own luck,” she scoffed. “I made everything so much worse than an unlucky star ever could.”

I couldn’t handle it anymore. I went to her bedside and knelt beside her.

“Teri, I’m so—”

“I have not slept well in years, because I dread the darkness almost as much as I dread tomorrow.”

Teresa Guerro was a woman who broke my heart. She did it in a hundred different ways. Somewhere in that pain, there was this little flame that I remembered – a light that I’d adored. A light our daughter had inherited.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left,” I said, not sure if I was going to make it better or worse. “I was a stupid young man, chasing glory. I didn’t think about how hard it would be for you. I thought sending you money and writing would have been enough until I got back.”

I swallowed, because everything had gotten so absolutely fucked up.

“I never considered that you didn’t get them. I didn’t think it was a possibility.”

She finally turned her head, looking at me from above her slender shoulder. “You never sent money. I… I started having to work weeks after you left to afford that apartment. I worked customer service in the evenings with Trinity on my breast, and took a dozen odd jobs just to–”

“I know.” Frustrated, I ran my fingers through my hair. I knew too much. “I swear to God, I am hanging on by a thread trying to figure out what happened, and I’m–”

I stopped myself before I said too much. If she had any sense of self-preservation, she would have let my statement die, but she didn’t.

“You’re what?” she pried.

I scoffed, bitterness and jealousy roiling through me.

“I’m really, really trying to do the right thing here, Princess. I’m staying as far away from you as I can.”

“Why?”

I let my head drop backwards, hitting the wall with a thud. I grit my teeth.

“Because…” I sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. “Because I don’t feel any differently towards you now than I did back then.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that you should go to sleep, before I do something you hate me for.”

“Like what?”

“Jesus Christ, Teri. Don’t fucking ask me.”

She was quiet for just a moment. Just one brief respite from everything going on inside me.

Then, in a voice that sounded light and amused, she asked again, “Like what?”

Brat.

“Like crawl into bed with you.”

Chapter 21

Unlucky

Teri