“That jackass calls you, Tess, it’s not nothing,” she snapped, her bright blue eyes flashing.

She was right. She didn’t know the worst of it with him but she never liked him either. Said from the beginning he was a bad seed. Told me while she was trying on maid-of-honor dresses that she was performing her duties under protest. She always hated Damian.

Which was why I never told her he hit me and raped me. She’d lose it and I needed her breathing free air, not serving time for manslaughter.

“You’re right,” I agreed.

“Damn straight I am,” she shot back.

I pulled in more breath. “Anyway, I told him, obviously, I wasn’t interested. But you know Damian.”

She shook her head then told the girl posse around the table, “Dick never gives up. Sinks his poisonous fangs in you and doesn’t let go until he injects all the venom.”

“Oo, lawdy, seems you don’t got good radar when it comes to pickin’ ’em,” Elvira muttered.

“No, her radar is beyond not good. Beyond malfunctioning. It’s straight out broke,” Martha agreed and I was wondering if perhaps Elvira and Martha were not such a good match. Denver was relatively peaceful. I’d never heard of riots or sieges or militant hostile takeovers of land and I was foreseeing this if these two got together and rallied the female population of the Denver metropolitan area as a protest to shelter all women against dickhead assholes.

“Go on, girl,” Camille prompted quietly and I looked around to see her, Gwen, and Tracy’s eyes gentle on me.

I nodded and went on. “It gets worse.”

“Oh boy,” Gwen whispered.

“Shit,” Martha muttered.

“You don’t say,” Elvira mumbled.

I kept talking. “Like I said, Damian is a drug kingpin who’s in jail, or was. Now he’s out on bail awaiting trial.”

Martha glared at me. She knew this. Everyone did. It had been in the papers. She’d only broached it with me once. I told her he wasn’t in my life, so I didn’t care, and she’d backed off about that too.

I kept going. “But since he contacted me and kept contacting me, the task force investigating him thought maybe I was involved in his operation.”

“Oh boy,” Gwen whispered.

“Shit,” Martha muttered.

“You don’t say,” Elvira mumbled.

I continued, “So, they, um… well, they sent someone in undercover to get close to me and that someone they sent was Jake slash Brock.”

“Holy fuck!” Martha shouted.

“Honey, keep it down,” I whispered, my body getting tight.

Martha leaned across the table, snatched the cocktail shaker out of Camille’s hand, and downed a huge gulp like it was Kool-Aid before she dropped her hand and her eyes cut to me.

I took that as my cue to keep going.