“Did you think faking your death would get rid of the debt?”
Charlie pushed his small wire-framed glasses farther up his nose. “That’s not why I left. Because I choose to live in the human world, I have to fake my death and move on when the time is right. My Creator made me over four centuries ago, and not by my choice. I was an educated man, and he had a desire to learn. When I gained my independence, I broke ties with the Breed world. Years ago, your brother came into Sweet Treats asking for a job. Not for himself, but for his little sister. That’s an admirable quality for a man to have, looking out for his family that way. I’d seen you in the store a few times with your friends and sensed you were Breed, so my curiosity was piqued as to why you were living with humans.”
“I didn’t know I was a Shifter. That’s a long story.”
“Most stories worth telling are long.” He took another sip of coffee and warmed his hands around the cup. “I liked mentoring you, Lexi. You always had a good head for business; you just didn’t give yourself the benefit of the doubt. That kind of confidence comes with age and experience, but I saw enough potential to know that you would never get too comfortable in a job that didn’t challenge you. Maybe I wanted to help because I sensed you were a Shifter, though I couldn’t tell if you’d gone through your first change.”
“I thought a Mage couldn’t sense what Breed people were?”
He shrugged. “It depends. Some of us have learned to read energy, but mostly it was in your personality. Shifters have remarkable qualities that separate them from others, traits I find most amusing.”
I folded my arms. “Glad you kept me around for your amusement.”
He pursed his lips and sat back. “Maybe I wanted to keep an eye on you since you seemed a bit lost. Your energy wasn’t as strong as the other Shifters, so I thought you were a defect. Without a pack, you’d have to work twice as hard to support yourself through the years.”
“Why did you leave?”
Charlie pulled the collar of his shirt away from his neck. “I had a conversation with April one morning while setting up the displays. She mentioned her father’s car going over a bridge when she was younger. It’s funny how you can run away from your mistakes, and yet they always seem to track you down.”
“What does her father have to do with you?”
I turned to look at the front door when it suddenly opened.
“Jeez, it’s like winter out there!” April exclaimed, tucking her hands back into her thin jacket. “I should watch the weather channel more often. So why did you call me over? Car trouble?”
Impeccable timing, I thought to myself. If Charlie walked out and I never saw him again, I would have regretted not having called April to witness this unexpected appearance.
It took her a minute before she recognized Charlie, and her smile withered, replaced with shock. When she didn’t speak, he stood up and cleared his throat.
“April, you’ve grown into a beautiful woman. But I can still see that young girl who used to hide her romance novels in the cabinet beneath the register. You’ve embraced the natural beauty of your hair. I much prefer it that—”
Without warning, April threw her purse at him, and he flinched. “How dare you!”
He held his hands up. “Let me explain.”
“Explain how you pretended to have cancer and die? Now you show up and want to compliment my hair? I don’t understand. You lied to us! I cared about you, Charlie. I looked up to you like a father.” Tears swam in her hazel eyes, and her lip quivered.
Trevor approached her with open arms. “Come here, babe.”
She tried to fight him, but he stroked her upper arms and calmed her down. A smudge of eyeliner crawled down her cheek with a teardrop, and he wiped it away. When Reno wasn’t around, Trevor guarded April like a watchdog.
Charlie’s feet were rooted in place, and I remained seated, still reeling from shock myself. Maybe I’d whacked my head on the floor harder than I thought.
April pushed Trevor out of the way and approached Charlie with alarming speed.
He backed up a step. “You might want to hold on to that anger, because what I’m about to tell you will change everything you thought you knew.”
She hesitated, her hands clenched. “What do you mean?”
The tension in the room crackled like fallen electrical wires.
Charlie locked eyes with her and kept his voice steady. “I’m the one who hit your father’s car.”
April blanched.
“What the fuck?” Trevor hissed.
“It was an accident,” Charlie admitted. “I was stupidly driving drunk and had a collision. He died instantly; there was nothing I could do. I panicked and called the only person I knew who could make the scene look like an accident. You have to understand that the last place a Mage wants to end up is in a human jail.”