Her Forbidden Threeway

“A chance at a new life.”

Reade snorted with laughter and for a moment, she thought the milk from her milkshake seeped from her nose. “I don’t need witness protection, thank you very much.”

“You might need it if people start putting facts to their speculations,” Scott answered as he leaned closer, his lips inches from her ear. It brought redness to her neck and cheeks. “You’re carrying the best known secret in the world in that cheap purse of yours, do you know that?”

Reade swallowed thickly. She didn’t know that.

“It’s just a lousy book,” she shrugged. “It was found among my father’s things, along with family photos and a china vase from my Aunt Hilda. You’re crazy obsessing over this thing, and if I were you, I’d drop it.”

“Yet, you’re the one who brought it into the shop. You’re the one who wanted to know more, to find out what was happening,” Scott challenged her. “To find reason in the dream you had.”

Reade snapped her attention to left, almost crippling herself in the process. The trauma in her green eyes was almost uncanny. A frightened girl replaced the sarcastic woman she was just moments ago as she thought back to the nightmare she suffered through.

“How did you–?”

“Your father is leaving,” Scott interrupted as he rose from his seat. “I’d catch him before he goes on another hunt.”

Reade whipped her head in the other direction and watched as her smoky haired father was collecting his briefcase and coat. He abandoned the pleased stranger at the table and dodged a group of demanding customers who were waving their wallets for a cup of coffee. Reade grasped her purse tighter to her chest as she made a quick move to meet her father, though giving a quick twist of her head to ensure Scott wasn’t following her.

He was nowhere to be seen.

Just as Clyde was about to break into the rain under the safety of his makeshift briefcase umbrella, Reade caught up with him and grasped his left shoulder. “Dad!”

Her father spun on the spot, guarded with a look of defense imprinted on his features. “Reade, what are you doing here?” He asked, his aggression quickly washing away, only to be replaced with concern.

“I was having dinner with some friends and I saw you leave,” she lied, opting out of the truth that seemed too heavy for a talk in the rain.

Clyde nodded his head and pulled on Reade’s arm, leading her to his car. When they arrived at his truck, Reade realized that the tires were fully intact with not even a slight puncture and her brows pulled down in bewilderment. Reade shrugged inside of the truck after her father and she pressed the bag tightly against her chest, protecting from his suspicious mind that seemed to work on overtime.

“If he knew something was up, he wouldn’t make it a secret,” she comforted herself.

The drive home was spent in silence and the rain continued to beat down, distracting the both of them from the estranged tension between them. Never had her and her father had secrets, it bred a bad relationship, or so her mother had quoted and Reade wondered what she would think if she had been around to see it.

Clyde turned off the engine to his truck after he pulled into their driveway and he sat for a moment, as if he were pondering whether or not to say what was on his mind. Reade could tell that he wanted to say something and she wanted to prompt him, to demand someone, anyone, tell her the truth for once. It had become unbearable, all the secrets and the lies. The dishonesty. She just wanted to know what was going on and she didn’t believe it was too much to ask for.

“What’s in your bag?” Clyde asked suddenly.

“What do you mean?” Reade stammered, unable to help her nerves or suppress the flush of embarrassment that turned her to an unknown shade of red. “Why do you want to know what’s in my bag?”

“You’ve been clutching it since you left the diner,” her father replied. “Are you hiding something from me?”

Reade opened her mouth to speak, though before she could protest, he had his hand outstretched for the bag and she reluctantly handed it over. She hoped that maybe his reaction wouldn’t be explosive or angered. Maybe it would cause her to get the answers she’d been looking for.

“Reade,” Clyde sighed as he reached inside the bag, pulling out a business card with the name ‘Drakon’ on it.”

The book was gone.

“I’ve told you what I think about that side of town,” her father shook his head and crumpled the card in his fist. “I’d rather you tell me in the future before you venture out to places like that. Never keep anything from me, okay?”

Reade could only nod her head in response. She swallowed thickly as she watched her father slip out of the truck, leaving her by herself. Reade expelled the breath that she didn’t realize she was holding and began searching desperately through her bag for the book. Her brow furrowed and panic began to set in as she found nothing but a napkin with the diner’s logo printed at the bottom.

“Fight me for it.” It read.

Scott had the book.