Better when He's Bold (Welcome to the Point #2)(86)
“Did you sleep sitting like that?”
I yawned again and shook my head a little bit to shake out the sleepy fog that was gathered between my ears.
“Yeah. They only allowed one of us in the room with her and I let her sister stay. What are you doing here so early?”
He took a sip out of his own Styrofoam cup and looked at me over the rim. “Had to get the girls’ statements, and now that Booker is awake, I need to talk to him as well. Seems like a pretty cut-and-dried case of attempted kidnapping and attempted murder. I don’t see any issues shutting it down pretty quick as a self-defense shooting.”
I rolled my neck around on my shoulders until there was a pop loud enough that people on the other side of the hospital could hear it.
“Good. He was fixated on her. He blamed Brysen for her mom crashing into his parents while she was drinking and driving. His rage was totally misplaced and misguided. She didn’t have anything do with the reason he was so infuriated.”
Titus snorted and reached up to adjust his tie.
“Someone is always having to pay for the sins of their parents.” I didn’t know all of Titus’s history, but I knew his and Bax’s mom had a major drinking problem and had a history of going to bed with really dangerous men. Bax’s dad was a murderous, cold-blooded mobster, and Titus’s old man was doing life in prison for a killing spree that included three cops as his victims. My own father had left a legacy of deceit and dishonesty that I never wanted to be associated with, so I understood the point he was trying to make.
“It never seems to get any easier, does it?” He sounded gruff and I couldn’t imagine how much harder it was for him, constantly trying to fight the good fight and hold the moral high ground in a place that was steadily sinking into the rot and mire. He had already had to compromise his morals in terms of pretending he didn’t know exactly what Bax and I were up to, and I wasn’t really sure how much more tension could be added to that tightrope he was walking before it snapped under his feet.
Just then, Karsen appeared at the edge of the room pushing a disgruntled-looking Brysen in a wheelchair. She looked disheveled and messy, but her eyes lit up from the inside when she saw me. I got to my feet and clapped a hand on Titus’s beefy shoulder.
“No, it never gets easier, but there are some things and some people that make the fight worthwhile.”
I made my way over to the girls and first kissed Karsen on the cheek then bent down to drop a kiss on top of Brysen’s head.
“Are you ready to blow this place?”
She nodded and looked up at her sister. “We were just talking about that. Where exactly are we going to go? The condo is a mess, I don’t know if the bank took the house from Dad yet, and there isn’t enough room at the loft for all of us.”
I rubbed a hand across the back of my neck and thought about it for a second.
“You guys can crash at Bax and Dovie’s. They have a guest room big enough for both of you until I can get the condo back in order.”
Brysen immediately started to shake her head at me. “No. Where are you going to go?”
“Back to the garage for a week or so. I just have to get the blood and stuff out of the condo.”
Titus made a noise behind me and I gave him a look over my shoulder. He shrugged at me and gave me a smirk. “That sounds like it’s becoming your full-time job—cleaning up the blood.”
I definitely had to do it far more often than I wanted to admit to. Not that I was in any kind of rush to tell him he was right.
“Why don’t you take Karsen to your brother’s and I’ll keep Brysen with me in the city until I get things straightened out in a more permanent way.” I glanced at the girls. “Does that work for you?”
Brysen just stared at me for a minute and then looked at Karsen. “Bax and Dovie’s place is closer to the high school, so I guess it’s fine for now unless you want to see if Dad’s still at the house.” Her tone indicated that she didn’t have much faith in her dad still hanging around after the curtain had been pulled back on his selfish actions.
Once again, Karsen proved that she was too wise and too aware for someone of her young age. “No, I’ll go to Dovie’s for a while. I think I’ve had enough of both Mom and Dad for right now.”
Once that was settled, we all filed out of the hospital and went in opposite directions once we hit the parking lot. I helped Brysen into the Stingray and fielded her rapid-fire questions about Booker’s condition and about how Dovie was doing. She seemed far more concerned about everyone else’s well-being than her own, but she was alert and totally on point and claimed that even though she had a nasty shiner and an enormous bruise on her temple, she felt fine. She wasn’t shaky, didn’t seem to be stewing or gloomy over the fact that she had been attacked or seen a man murdered right at her feet. In fact, she asked me to take her somewhere to get her hair fixed and just seemed ready to keep on rolling like nothing major had just happened to her.
I didn’t buy it for a second. Dovie had done the same thing initially after being snatched and scarred by Novak. It only took a few days for the nightmares to set in and then the moment of silence when it became obvious that she was lost in her head and reliving her moments of terror over and over again. I was just going to have to brace myself for when the storm hit with my pretty blonde.