Page 78 of Devious Lies (Cruel Crown)
Unbeaten.
I waited for her to say something, but she was doing that thing she did where she muttered words I couldn’t hear and drove me mad in the process. I studied her
lips, trying to decipher what they were saying until I realized I was just staring at her lips.
Meanwhile, the shower head worked above her, pounding out enough water to save California from its next drought.
Finally, her eyes locked on mine, and she pressed a palm against the glass door, right beside my cheek. “I like when you call me Jailbait, Prescott. It means you want me.”
My nostrils flared, eyes ticking. I had no idea where she intended on taking this, but she was playing a dangerous game. One I had no intention of losing. Part of me considered she had an angle, and I wanted to nip it in the bud.
“Careful, Winthrop, you’re looking at me like you want to fuck me, and we both know the only way that will happen is if you pretend to be someone else.”
“You haven’t changed, Nash.” Her belittling scoff dug at my ego—I hated myself for it. “A decade later, and you’re still picking fights for the hell of it.”
She looked at me like she knew me.
I needed to prove to her she didn’t.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” I unbuttoned my collar and loosened it, my words and movements unhurried. Let her sweat at the hands of water. “I didn’t get into fights for the hell of it. I went out and bruised my knuckles, spilled my blood, broke my bones for my dad. That is the kind of loyalty a Winthrop would never understand.”
You don’t know me as well as you think you do. Do you, baby?
The bravado dropped like a curtain closing. “Your dad?” She faltered in an instant, but I didn’t fall for her tricks. I’d sooner trust Bin Laden with national security.
“Color me shocked—something the all-knowing Emery Winthrop doesn’t know.” I unfastened the top three buttons of my shirt, hating the way she caved and stared, hating the way I liked it. Hints of my chest peeked out, coated with torrid mist in an instant. “Dad had a heart condition that required monthly medication. Medication that cost more than my parents could afford. I found out when I overheard Ma and Dad arguing over bills.
“I needed a job, but none paid well enough. We had no healthcare, and the pills cost three grand a month. Wealthy Eastridgers would drive up to Eastridge High School and pick up some poor public-school kids who needed the money.” Two more buttons. “I had friends who told me about the fights. Next thing I knew, I was in the ring night after night.
“I won often, made a lot of money for myself—and even more for the assholes who bet on me. I told Ma I’d taken a job to help out with the bills. I think she always suspected I made my money fighting, but she never pushed it.”
“Until you got arrested,” Emery finished, recognition dawning in those eyes. “Betty made you promise to stop.”
I’d met Fika that night at the station. He stood near the front, flirting with an officer, but he’d stopped when he saw me, a frail palm rubbing at his bald head.
“You’re Hank Prescott’s kid,” he’d said, nodding to me.
I armed myself with a sneer, ignoring the blood when it trickled from my temple down my cheek. “What’s it to you?”
“I see him often. At the hospital.” Oh. The fight deflated as he continued, “What are ya in here for?”
“Fighting.”
He nodded and fist-bumped my shoulder because my arms remained cuffed behind my back. I didn’t see him again until an hour later when he kicked at my legs, waking me up.
“Come on. Let’s go.”
I scrambled up from my seat when he pulled a key out of his pocket and dangled it in between us. “Just like that?”
“Just like that.” He uncuffed me with the grace of a horse on ice, jabbing my wrists with the key twice in the process. “I got connections here, kid.”
“You stopped fighting after that,” Emery added. “I remember.”
Actually, I’d fought once since, but I would hardly consider that a fight. He was severely outmatched. I didn’t tell her any of this as I unbuttoned the final two buttons and let my shirt slide down my arms.
Emery’s eyes widened. They took me in. I knew what she saw. I had to look at them in the mirror every day, knowing they weren’t enough.
Constellations of scars and cuts littered my chest and arms. Below my ribcage, a knife wound stretched from my front to my back. It had healed poorly, still raised and angry against my skin.
