But she’d again mentioned Dustin which was strange and disturbing.

“Are you talking to Mom?” I asked with disbelief.

“We’ve both extended olive branches,” she shocked me by saying. “I’m not going to be taking her shit over martinis anytime soon but I’ve given her voodoo doll a rest.”

So it was Mom who’d shared about Dustin.

And likely Georgia who shared it with Dad.

“Georgia,” I called.

“What?” she asked, locating what she needed, a folder, and picking up a pen as she opened it and focused on whatever was inside.

“Georgie,” I said quietly.

She shifted her attention to me.

“You need to talk to Dad,” I advised.

She said nothing.

I kept advising.

“I agree with looking into expansion outside Valenzuela’s territory, but we should sell to locals who can distribute. We shouldn’t put our own men there. And please be patient. Don’t push too soon too fast.”

“I hear you, Liv, but, babe, got shit to do,” she replied.

I tipped my head to the side. “Is there something you aren’t telling me?”

“Outside the fact Dad lost his fucking mind at that shit David pulled, he’s eager to have him found and to put a line under that, including getting our fucking money back, and he was surprised and pleased you sorted that shit…no.”

There was no hesitation, no shift in her eyes.

I fancied Georgie could lie successfully to anybody.

But not to me.

So I relaxed.

Okay, maybe all was good.

“I should help transition the boys to Tommy,” I told her.

“It’s already done.”

I didn’t like that.

“Georgie—”

She lifted a hand my way. “You’re too easy on them, Liv. They’re good. They’ve got money coming in, product going out. And Tommy’s definitely watched you for years. He knows those boys and how to handle them. It’s already working.”

I could believe that.

“Right, then I’ll let you get to it,” I murmured, turning to leave.

“Thanks” she said to my back, but distantly. She was moving on.

I moved on too, only glancing at her marking on the papers in that folder before I closed the door to her office and moved to mine.

It had been weeks so it felt weird being there. Especially right then, with the unexpected but definitely not unwanted news that my job description had changed. Changed to something I greatly preferred doing. Something safer. Something that maybe in doing it, I might get an hour or two’s sleep at night, having a clear head and feeling moderately (but not completely, never that) clean.

It was something that should make me smile.

Hell, it was something that should make me twirl with glee.

I did not twirl with glee.

Because it was unexpected. And it was swift. There had been nearly zero discussion about it with me, and my sister could be decisive, but she wasn’t stupid, she knew I had the most level head of all of us and she talked things through.

She hadn’t talked it through about the labs before she put them in operation either.

Not with me.

Not with our father.

Something was changing and as much as I wanted it to feel right, it felt wrong and it did nothing to make me feel any less like the world as I knew it was shifting under my feet.

And, even more than usual, I was powerless to stop the results of that shift.

Even if it meant the earth opened up and swallowed the whole of me.

* * * * * *

10:42 – That Evening

“Hey.”

My eyes moved from their contemplation of Nick’s super-cool reddish-pink glow light to his face.

He was curled up, head and shoulders to a pile of pillows in his bed at his headboard, his chest on display, his lower body partially tangled in sheets.

Somehow, between orgasm and post-orgasm cuddling-esque maneuvers (as we did them, Nick didn’t cuddle, I didn’t either—we both still did) to now, I’d shifted position.

I had some of his sheets tangled around my legs, partially around my ass, but my back was exposed, including my scar, and I had my arm on his gut, my chin to my arm, and my attention to the doom I sensed hovering in my world.

When he got that attention, I decided first things first and shifted the sheet so it covered my ass and the scars.

I watched his eyes shaft that way briefly, his mouth tightening in what appeared to be mild frustration. This was something he did whenever I showed any indication of embarrassment about my scar. Though, I had to admit, me doing that was happening on a rarer occasion. It was just that I felt vulnerable right then for some reason.

It was also something he wiped clean from his expression when he looked back to me.

“You’re a million miles away,” he noted.

“I want you to be someone else,” I blurted.

He blinked before he smiled, his body faintly shaking, his smiling lips muttering, “And she knows just how to gut a guy.”

“Someone I can trust,” I explained.

His humor instantly fled.

“In fact,” I went on ridiculously and definitely stupidly, “it’d be good if there was a single fucking person on this godforsaken planet I could trust.”

Knowing that was ridiculous and stupid, but it feeling good to get out anyway, I decided that was enough and it was time to go home.

So I pushed up and twisted around to exit the bed.