Shelly-Ann gave her a puzzled frown. “What are you talking about?”
“You took the video of the setup. You gave the drugs to the investigator. My girls were taken away because of you. I would never have known but you’re still using the same stickers on your quarters.” At least she thought the bags held about twenty-five dollars worth of coke. She’d never made it close enough to the box in Shelly-Ann’s living room to tell.
Relief flickered across Shelly-Ann’s face so quickly Dawn wondered if she’d seen it. And then Shelly-Ann’s face twisted in a sneer. “So what? Who’s gonna know? You think I’m gonna testify that I helped Jimmy set you up? You saw what happened to that PI. Jimmy doesn’t give a damn that I’m his sister. He’ll kill me. He almost killed me when he found out his money was—”
She cut herself off with a sharp breath and leaned right up in Dawn’s face. “Give it up. Stop fighting, ’cause you’re not gonna win. Now get the hell out of my way.”
But Dawn wasn’t about to move. Not until she had the whole story. “Is that the money he’s after? Why does he think I have it?”
“Because I told him you had it.” Shelly-Ann’s voice rose in pitch. “I had to do something. I didn’t know that money he left with me wasn’t all his, so I started dipping into it. Once I started, it was hard to stop. I never thought he’d hurt me. He never hurt me before. And there was so much. Bags and bags of the stuff. I didn’t think he’d miss a few thousand here or there. But then I decided to treat my friends to a weekend in Vegas, and we had some bad luck at the tables.”
“You gambled with Jimmy’s money? Are you insane?” She would have felt sorry for Shelly-Ann if she hadn’t fingered Dawn as the thief.
“I made a mistake, okay? And I needed to make it good so I leaned on you, and I expanded my drug distribution, got a line into some political big wigs. I figured it wouldn’t take too long to make it up, but then the Sinners started putting heat on the Jacks, and Jimmy came for his money. Viper’s money. He said Viper had helped him sell a few crates of guns he’d stolen from the Brethren and they’d split the proceeds.”
“Oh God, Shelly-Ann. Viper’s money.” Now, she did feel sorry for her ex sister-in-law. Once Viper found out what had happened—and he would—he would show her no mercy.
“Jimmy went fucking crazy.” Shelly-Ann dabbed at her eyes with the sleeve of her fancy jacket. “He beat me in front of the girls. He was gonna kill me. I had to tell him something. So I showed him my busted door and told him how you and the Sinners came and took it.”
“How could you?” Dawn’s voice echoed in the small room. “You took my children away. You put us at risk. You set Jimmy on me. He destroyed my house and almost killed me.”
“How could I?” Shelly-Ann shouted. “This is the world we live in. It’s not nice. It’s not safe. It’s not all flowers and sunshine. There are no happy families. The world breaks you when you’re a kid and then you gotta deal with it the rest of your fucking life. You think Jimmy and I had it good? Our mom died of a fucking overdose and our dad drank himself to death after using us as punching bags and sex toys for a couple of years. We were bounced around from foster home to foster home because Jimmy wasn’t right in the head and he’d do scary shit like kill the family pets or try to suffocate babies. We were beaten, starved, and abused. No one gave a damn. So we learned to do what it took to survive. And that’s what I did when Jimmy came for the money. I survived. And if you don’t know how to do the same, then you deserve whatever Jimmy’s got coming for you.” She grabbed Dawn by the shoulders and shoved her to the side. “Now get out my damn way.”
“Don’t touch me.” Dawn’s hand curled into a fist and she punched Shelly-Ann. Not a tentative blow, like she’d given Stan, but a real-honest-to-goodness-wind-up-and-swing-full-force punch that sent Shelly-Ann to the floor. “That’s for me and my girls. And you will testify about the setup, because if you don’t, whatever Jimmy was going to do to you will be nothing compared to what I will do. No one fucks with me or my girls.”
Someone thudded on the door. She half expected it to be Banks, but when she heard Cade’s voice, her heart warmed.
“You okay in there, babe?”
“Yeah.” She stepped over Shelly-Ann lying stunned on the floor. “I got this.”
*
“Fucking hell.” Cade moved to the side as Shelly-Ann pushed her way past him in the hallway, her face swollen and red and her eye half shut. “You do that?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Proud of you, sweetheart.” He gave her a hug and Dawn laughed.
“You didn’t even ask why.”
“Didn’t have to. Knowing how you feel about violence, I figure she must have deserved it.”