Devils & Thieves (Devils & Thieves #1)(18)

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“What did you mean?”

“You think it was easy for me to be with your dad? I loved the guy.” Her chuckle was laced with sadness. “So damn much. But he had power oozing from his pores, and I’ve always been…” She raised her arms, as if to say just look at me. “He never tried to make me feel bad about it.”

“But you did anyway,” I said quietly.

She gave me a sorrowful smile, and her thoughts were so obvious that I had to turn away from her. She didn’t want me to end up the same way she had—with a powerful guy, whom she had to watch from the sidelines. The idea stirred something rebellious and ragey inside me. I didn’t want that, either.

Was a guy like Darek, who was from a kindled family but had no power of his own to speak of, the answer? It didn’t feel right to make a choice because of that.

Or maybe I just had to admit to myself that I wasn’t ready to let go of Crowe quite yet. That I never had let go of the hope that he’d realize what an idiot he’d been, that he’d come back to me. “God, I’m so stupid,” I whispered, then buried my nose in my cup, breathing in the bitter fumes.

“No such thing. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders. Just make sure you use it.” She gave me that motherly look of hers that I rarely saw but always took seriously when I did.

“I will,” I said, and she smiled and nodded. The one thing I could count on my mother for was her ability to let secrets lie. Most people poked at them, prodding them from the shadows so they could see them standing naked in the light.

“Oh, by the way,” she said as she disappeared into the hallway, “your father will be here within the hour.”

“What?” I shouted, but she was already gone, her bedroom door clicking shut behind her.





I couldn’t believe my mom hadn’t given me more advance warning. Then again, the last time he’d visited, I’d hidden out at Alex’s, and when he’d done a locator spell to find me, I’d refused to speak to or look at him. Yeah, I’d been a typical pissed-off fifteen-year-old girl, but I guess Mom didn’t trust me. “He’s trying,” she’d told me.

He hadn’t tried much after that, but now he was coming to Hawthorne. It must be for the festival—the big party tonight was the kickoff and day one of the three-day event that would bring thousands of kindled to our town, and I guessed it made sense that the Syndicate would send someone to check it out. Just my luck, my dad was the law now. As if being basically powerless wasn’t enough, this would cement my status as the most popular girl at the festival.

Ugh.

He arrived an hour later in his ridiculous and totally not inconspicuous black Audi. I peered at him through a crack in the curtains, torn between locking myself inside my bedroom or climbing out the window and trying to sneak into the woods behind the house. He paused halfway to the door and looked at my curtained window like he could see me spying. His mouth twitched into a little smile, and I lurched back, my eyes stinging, my fists clenching.

“Mo?” he called as he let himself inside.

“Don’t call me that,” I blurted out, loud enough for him to hear me through my closed door.

Mo was the nickname Dad had given me when I was a kid. It was short for mo ghrá, which was Irish Gaelic for “my love.” I used to like the name. Now I hated it. If he loved me so much, he would’ve stuck around.

“Come out here and say that to my face,” he said, humor infusing his voice. “Or else I’ll never call you anything else!”

“Big threat, considering I hardly ever see you.”

I listened to the sound of his footsteps coming up the hall. He knocked softly on my door. “Come on, Jemmie. I’m here now.”

I could barely speak past the lump in my throat. “Yeah, for the festival, right? Did you draw the short straw to get this assignment?”

He was quiet for a moment. “Not exactly. Will you come out, please? I don’t care if it’s just to punch me in the face. I want to see my little girl.”

“A funny thing happens when you barely stay in touch. Little girls grow up.”

“If you come out, I’ll take you for ice cream. If you don’t, I’m just going to wait until you open the door. You’re going to have to come out at some point.”

Especially because I’d had all that coffee. “Ugh. Fine.” I whipped open the door.

Dad looked startled. “Whoa. You’re a lot taller than you used to be.”

“Screw you,” I said, stalking past him and heading into the bathroom, where I slammed the door.

“Trying to sleep,” Mom shouted from her bedroom. That was probably a lie, considering she’d gone in there with a cup of coffee, but she hadn’t come out to see Dad, and he wasn’t trying to make her.

“Sorry, Gina,” Dad called.

When I came out of the bathroom, he was rummaging in the fridge. “Does your mother not feed you?”

“I’m eighteen, Dad. I can feed myself.”

“Mostly prepackaged garbage, from the looks of it.”

“Is that why you came over here? To lecture us on proper nutrition?”

The fridge door squeaked shut. “How about we go grocery shopping?”