“The less people in the know with that, the better. And she was worried. Worried you couldn’t keep your shit together. You’re sensitive. Shit bothers you. You wanted out of stuff, she was diggin’ in deeper. We had to keep you in the dark. She saw that shit happen to you and me, she and Gill were gettin’ it on, they were tight, things were intense, she knew your dad would shut that down with them. Took her a long fuckin’ time, but she got it sorted. For her and Gill and for you and me.”

All of this, all of it, was a surprise to me. My father, my sister, my ex-lover, none of them thought enough of me, my thoughts, wants, needs, even to discuss my own damned future with me.

That didn’t matter.

It was too late and Tommy needed to know that.

“I’m with Nick now and—”

“Right, Nick,” he interrupted me, spitting out Nick’s name furiously. “That’s a pile a’ shit you created, Liv. Now Georgia’s gonna have to deal with him and do it slick ’cause if he’s not dealt with right, that brother of his is gonna lose his mind, drag Sloan into it and Denver will be at war. We’re buildin’ up, we don’t need that kind of hassle.”

Unease started creeping.

“Georgia hardly has to—” I began, only to get cut off again.

“Babe, you don’t know, you would have totally fuckin’ lost it, Georgia fuckin’ lost it when she found out and that was when her plans went into hyperdrive. But when your dad got messed up in that human trafficking shit, it was not pretty.”

He’d been saying so much to me I couldn’t believe, I’d forgotten he’d said those words previously.

And I’d forgotten I’d heard them before.

Now I focused on them.

“What human trafficking shit?” I asked.

“The human trafficking shit the Feds were all over. Hawk Delgado was all over. It was so hot, only a moron would get near it. Plus, human trafficking? What the fuck? The guy won’t deal meth because it’s a poor man’s drug, but he’ll sell a human being?”

He didn’t expect an answer.

He kept spewing hideous words.

“Georgia nearly screwed everything after your dad ordered Gill to whack Nick and his Fed girlfriend…”

My lungs started burning.

“…and now she knows Sebring is biding his time for revenge. Fuck, we just found out he had bugs all over this fuckin’ warehouse and they been here a long time, Liv. Fuckin’ years he’s been listenin’ to everything that’s gone down here. Every-fuckin’-thing. Who knows the shit he’s got on us? We just know it could fuck us, all of us, including you.”

Nick had been listening.

For years.