Busted

My fault—

Trying to silence that voice, she twisted in Trey’s arms, sitting with her back against his chest. Part of her wanted to move away, but the rest of her, it needed this. He still held her.

“It was six years ago . . . almost to the day. Next Saturday, as a matter of fact.”

*   *   *

Trey tensed, unable to stop it. Next Saturday—it was the a

Ressa looked at him, her eyes bruised. “What happened six years ago?” he asked, focusing on her and not the past.

“She got in trouble.” Ressa sighed, the sound tired and strained, like the things she was telling him just wore down on her. “I was at home when she called. It was probably around eleven. She’d been out with Christo—she told me she’d been working—that’s what she called it. And this guy . . . she was ranting about how he messed everything up and made Christo mad at her. There was a fight and the cops were called and Christo acted like it was her fault . . . It took me forever to figure out what she was talking about. But she’d tried to . . .”

She stopped, closing one hand into a fist. A moment later, she surged off his lap and he watched as she went over to her clothes. They lay in a tangle and his heart broke a little as she fought with them.

He went to his closet and grabbed the first thing that came to hand. “Here,” he said, kneeling in front of her.

She went still as he settled the black cotton on her shoulders, tucking her arms into the sleeves like she was a child. “I don’t know why you have to be so wonderful,” she said softly. “I just . . . I don’t get it. Why are some men like Christo and others like you?”

Uncomfortable with the way she was watching him, Trey shrugged. “I don’t know this Christo jerk, but if he’s the kind of slug I think he is, he doesn’t sound like much of a man.”

“No.” Ressa shook her head. “He’s really not.”

She reached up and closed a hand around his wrist and Trey sank down on the floor in front of her.

“She made money by sleeping with other men,” she said softly. “Sometimes they knew they’d be paying her. Sometimes . . .”

She looked away. “Sometimes they didn’t. Christo was a dealer. She got drugs from him, would slip it into a guy’s drink. He’d forget her—and everything else—by the time he woke up. That night, it didn’t go the way they pla

She smoothed her hands back over her hair and locked them at the base of her neck, staring at nothing. “The job—she picks up men, drugs them, steals from them and it’s a job. This time, the guy she tried to pick up in this bar hadn’t been into her. Christo said she must have fucked up—fucked up. Yeah, that covers it.” She bit her lip, her gaze skittering off to the side before she looked back at him. “They looked for marks who looked like they had it pretty good. Nice cars, nice clothes . . .”

Trey’s gut started to churn.

Fuck.

“This guy, she’d given him something and he’d been drinking, but he wasn’t going for it. Christo was determined, though. He was in trouble himself, owed people some money and I guess this guy looked like he was doing pretty well and each time Kiara tried to find somebody else there, he’d push her back to this one guy. Then the guy up and leaves the bar . . . there was some kind of fight, though. She took off and Christo caught up with her at their place. Hurt her pretty bad. She . . .” Ressa’s voice tripped. “She came to me. My cousin came to me, all battered and bloody and bruised. She had some stranger’s credit cards, his cash. She told me she just needed to stay there that night—she’d pay me. She offered to pay me. The idiot. Then . . .”

The words came out hard, flinty. “Christo showed up at my door. Banging on it, yelling at me. I told Kiara to never tell that son of a bitch where I lived, but she’d done it anyway. He kept banging . . . I called the cops. Kiara saw me do it and she hit me. There I am, trying to report somebody who’d beat her, somebody who was practically trying to knock my door down while a little baby slept in the bedroom upstairs and Kiara hit me. I almost hit her back. But . . .”

Trey waited. Her hands clenched and unclenched, her jaw went tight. Finally, she shook her head. “It wouldn’t have done any good. I told her that son of a bitch was not getting in my house—that the police would be there and I hoped like hell they arrested him. And she went to the door. I told her if she left with him, she’d better not keep dragging me back into her life—told her I was trying to take care of her baby, trying to take care of myself—I couldn’t take care of her, too. I was mad, I was scared . . . I . . . I shouldn’t have said it.”

“You were thinking about Neeci, it sounds like. About yourself and your safety and the fact that you had to take care of both of you. Kiara wasn’t going to worry about her daughter—somebody had to,” Trey said.

He didn’t think she even heard him.

“I don’t know much of what happened between the time she left and the next phone call. Kiara said he hit her again and she thought she passed out. When she woke up, he was gone and she was alone in a motel where they’d ended up. She called Ha

*   *   *

Ressa tried to think of the first time she’d met Ha

Ressa rarely saw her friend after she left school, but sometimes they’d have coffee and Ha

Ha

“She told Kiara to come over. Promised she’d help her. Give her money . . . whatever. Kiara went over. A couple hours later, Christo came looking for her. It turns out he’d put a GPS thing on her phone—she never went anywhere that he didn’t know about. He went over there, broke in. Had Kiara by the hair and was dragging her out when Ha

Trey thought he might be sick. For so many reasons—the mark. The fucking mark. A girl dead. His head pounded. Son of a bitch.

“Somebody heard the screams, saw them leaving,” Ressa said, her voice faint. “They released a sketch. I saw it on the news the next day. And I knew. I wanted to be wrong. But I knew. She came over that night, crying. She begged me to be quiet, said she hadn’t meant for anything bad to happen. Christo was sorry and he hadn’t touched her since and they were just going to leave . . .”

Her fingers twisted with his, clung tight.

He doubted she even realized how desperately she held on in that moment.

“She was going to just run away. It was like Ha