Page 10 of Echo (A Monster’s Prey #2)

My hands were right there with him.

Deep breath, Madison. Shake it off.

Once I was calm, I rubbed my eyes. My phone rang in my pocket, and I answered without looking. Only one person had this new number.

“Hey Daddy.” The words sounded breathless and strange in my ears.

“You okay? You sound shaken.” His deep voice soothed the last of the jagged panic.

“I think I had a bad trip in the middle of the woods,” I admitted to him.

He laughed at that. “What’d you take?”

“I didn’t take anything. I think there were some psychedelic spores or something.”

“Your mom used to talk about trippy things she saw out there. You may be onto something.”

That made me pause. Mom too? He hardly ever talked about her. I didn’t realize that she experienced weird shit too. “Hey.”

“What, Pumpkin?” The seriousness in his voice said that I’d been more intense than I’d meant to be. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Do you think we’re all crazy? Grandma Ruby, me… Mom.” Pearl.

He went silent for a moment that dragged on. “So you’ve started catching onto that, huh?”

“I’ve been wondering for a while. I guess I finally needed to ask.”

“You aren’t crazy. None of you.” He took a deep breath. “Your mother couldn’t do drugs either. She was a sensitive soul who saw the world for what it was and drugs turned that up to a ten. You’re so much like her. Come down and re-center yourself before deciding to book yourself a padded room.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’d be sober before I was even in the same zipcode as a padded room.” I took a breath. “Pearl might have had a mental break, if she didn’t realize something in the forest was poison. She’s out there, even for us.”

That could explain a lot.

Dad laughed.

The door opened behind me. Mark asked. “Who are you talking to?”

“My dad,” I answered, and the door shut without another word.

“I thought you were going alone.” His voice grew deeper. A tone he used to warn unruly patrons in his bar. No one fucked with that voice.

My pride wanted me to hide the truth, but if shit went sideways, someone needed to know the truth. “I did.”

“Do you need me?” One word and an entire army of bikers would be in my yard by the time the sun came up the next day.

“I’ll handle it.”

“Why isn’t it already?” he asked. “I taught you better than that.”

“Just need to find a work around.” I kept my answer vague so I wouldn’t alarm Mark if he was eavesdropping. “This isn’t your kind of customer. This is more delicate.”

“I’m sure the big wig lawyer has connections and friends in high places. Yours are covered in bloody trenches, don’t get so obsessed with your pride that you forget that.” Dad grunted. “Don’t let that pride you inherited from me get you killed.”

That pride had me running into isolation instead of the bosom of my connections. “I coulda used that advice a few weeks ago.”

“If you end up dead or in jail, I’ll tan your hide. You hear me?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“I love you, Pumpkin.”

“I love you too.” No matter how things went. I needed him to know that. Even though we had our problems, I never stopped loving him. I hung up and dialed another number I knew by heart.

“What?” a gruff, annoyed voice said on the other line with a thick familiar Italian accent.

“I need help.”

“Name it,” my ex-husband, Aurelio, answered.

“I need you to see if the Miami courts granted guardianship of me to a Marcus Nolan, due to non compos mentis, and if it was, I need it to go away,” I whispered.

“Done. Do you need someone to do the wet work and a clean-up crew?”

My eyes roved over the woods. I was sure there were plenty of ways to deal with problems out here. “No. But I need to make sure there aren’t any contingencies that would implement me.”

“You left me for a big shot lawyer, eh?”

I heard weight pressing on the door from the other side. Mark was definitely listening now. “No.”

“I’m teasing, baby. I know why you left.” Aurelio chuckled. “This guy is on my list.”

Aurelio was a flawed individual. We were both passionate people who fought with every bit of fire inside of us, and sometimes we took things too far.

We fought and loved hard, and even then we managed to not hurt each other like Mark did.

Sad part was that Aurelio ran the Miami chapter of the mafia, and was one of the worst men I’d ever met.

Even now, I could call him and ask for help and he would drop everything to help me.

“I shouldn’t have…” I stopped when I heard Mark shuffling behind the door.

If I’d never left him, I’d probably be throwing dishes across the house, because Aurelio did something thoughtless. Then a few hours later he’d show up with my favorite dinner and flowers in hand, and fuck me into the counter, until I forgot how much of an idiot he was.

I ended up here because I recognized how toxic we were and wanted to be better.

I cleared my throat. “I should have grabbed some fucking pistachio ice cream, man. The closest store is a whole tank of gas away.”

“Bad lie. You only keep that in your freezer as a comfort. If he doesn’t know you hate pistachio ice cream, then he’s trash.” Aurelio clicked his tongue in disapproval. “You were supposed to find a better man than me. Not worse.”

“Whoops.” I rolled my eyes.

“Tell me where you are. I’ll deal with him for you.” There was a dark promise that made me want to smile, but I knew better than to give him any foothold. We’d be right back to our old ways before the plane even landed. “I’ve got to get him six feet under, anyway.”

“No,” I whispered.

He chuckled. “You gonna make me hunt you down?”

“No,” I repeated.

“You know I’m not a fan of that word.”

I chuckled. If I’d have told Aurelio no to sex, he would have given me that panty melting smile and taken it as a challenge to prove himself.

“But I’ll let it go, because it’s you.”

“Thank you.”

“Let me see what I get on this. Hang tight.”

“Of course.”

I hung up before I said or did something I’d regret and deleted my call history. With another breath, I stood and turned to face the door, mentally preparing myself to pretend I hadn’t half lost my mind in those woods.

And I never even found those fucking bees.

My eyes landed on the bright, freshly painted white door. My breath caught in my throat again and all my thoughts stopped in their tracks.

I’d painted it black the day before.

I looked at my elbow where a patch of paint hadn’t come off in the shower. The paint on my skin was definitely black.

How the fuck was it white again?