Ruin Me, Daddy novel · Chapter 6 of 32

Chapter 6: The Grate

The yard went quiet around me. Even the crickets seemed to stop.

"Give me the phone," I said.

Brady laughed and held it up over his head, the way he used to with the TV remote.

"You know what's funny? I looked her up. Honey Vale. Two million listens." He scrolled. "Episode twelve. 'Please, Daddy, I've been so good.' That's the one he had on, right? I could hear it through the grate."

My face burned all the way to my scalp.

"I thought you did car commercials," he said. "Two years. You let me think you did car commercials."

"You never asked to hear one."

"Well, I'm listening now." He lowered the phone and smiled. "Here's how it goes. I owe some people thirty-eight thousand dollars. Dad says he won't pay it."

"That's between you and him."

"Not anymore." He tapped the screen. "Either the old man pays it, or I tell the whole world what Forrest Ledford of Ledford Bourbon does in his study at night. Who he does it to. Whose voice."

"He didn't know it was me."

"Who's going to believe that?" He shrugged. "Master distiller gets off to his son's girlfriend's porn. That's the distributor gone, Jess."

"It's your name too."

"I don't own any of it." His smile went thin. "He made sure of that."

He opened the truck door.

"I'm texting him the number tonight. You might want to talk to him. You seem close."

The Ram tore two dark ruts in Lettie's lawn on the way out.

I stood there until the taillights were gone.

I went back inside and didn't tell Forrest anything at the table.

I didn't trust my voice.

At eleven I was in the cottage in my socks, staring at the woodstove, and I couldn't stand it anymore.

I walked up the hill in the dark.

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