“Actually, it’s not.” I retrieve the photo Dad wadded up of Marco hugging me and unfold it. “These boys don’t have anyone to take care of them. They’re just trying to survive. And I’m not ‘hanging all over’ Marco in this picture. He’s helping me through one of my flashbacks, a really bad one.”
I pluck another photo out of Dad’s hand. “I don’t really know Deacon. But I do know that he crawled through a shattered windshield to pull Marco’s sister out of a car wreck. He even has the scars to prove it. That sounds pretty black and white to me.”
“Do you know what else your friend Deacon Kelley has to go along with those scars? A record. His most recent arrest was for robbing a 7-Eleven.”
Shit.
So much for my brilliant argument. “I just told you that I hardly know Deacon, and Marco is nothing like him.”
“But he’s friends with Kelley, isn’t he? ‘As close as brothers,’ some of their old teachers said. Honest kids don’t hang out with convicted felons. What does that tell you about Marco?”
Nothing. But it tells my father everything. “It tells me Deacon saved his sister’s life,” I say, but I know it’s useless.
Dad lives by a code. It’s the foundation of everything he believes, the way he has survived working on the streets for the last eighteen years. Asking him to believe it’s possible for somebody to hang out with a criminal without being one themselves is asking him to take a sledgehammer to that foundation.
He points at me. “You are not seeing Marco Leone again. Are we clear?”
Something inside me snaps.
I’m falling for Marco … maybe I’ve already fallen. I can’t pretend he doesn’t matter anymore.
I only have two choices now—deny the way I feel or admit it.
Run away again or fight.
The old Frankie wasn’t a fighter, but I’m not that girl anymore.
Marco matters to me.
We matter.
I won’t let my dad take him away from me. I’ve already lost too much. I’m done losing.
“You can’t order me around like a child.”
“I am your father,” he roars, the anger boiling over. “And you are my child. So you’ll do what I tell you.”
“You should’ve spent more time with me if you wanted to pull the dad card,” I fire back.
Dad stares at me, looking defeated. “Dammit, Frankie. I know I haven’t been the best parent, but you can’t just clock out when you work undercover. And you’ve always had your mom.”
“Bullshit. The only person who has Mom is Richard.” I’ve never cussed at my father before—or told him how I felt about anything. But I’m not letting him off easy. Not when he’s tearing my life apart.
Dad leans against the dresser. “I get it. I’m a shitty father, and you want to punish me.”
“Excuse me?”
He sighs. “I spend every day trying to bust guys who steal cars, so you decide to go out with one of them?”
Them.
Dad says it like he’s talking about serial killers or mass murderers. Not a seventeen-year-old former AP student trying to hold together what’s left of his family. Dad must not have any real proof that Marco steals cars, or he would’ve arrested him or thrown the information in my face by now. But he’s already decided Marco is guilty.
“If you want to punish me, I can live with that,” Dad says. “But don’t punish yourself by dating a piece of trash like Marco Leone. Haven’t you hurt yourself enough?”
Knowing how my dad feels about Marco makes me wonder what he really thinks of me.
“You’re right about one thing, Dad. I have hurt myself, and I’ve made plenty of mistakes, like driving drunk—which on your ‘everything is black or white, right or wrong’ scale definitely falls into the black category.”
Jimmy Devereux the cop knows I’m going somewhere with this, but when his shoulders sag, I know James Devereux the father won out. “Frankie, you’ve always been a good kid. But you’re going down the wrong road, and hanging out with criminals won’t help you get back on the right one.”
“Is it even possible for me to get back on the right road? If we’re working from your definition, I’m a criminal. Not ‘strong enough or honest enough to do the right thing.’” I do a bad impression of his voice. “Isn’t that what you said?”
The color drains from his face. “That’s not what I meant.”
I look him in the eye. “I don’t believe you.”
CHAPTER 26
NO GOING BACK
I con Lex into driving me to school early on Monday, and I head straight for Lot B, where Marco hangs out with Cruz and the other street racers who idolize them.
I’m all raw emotions and exposed nerves, playing a torturous game of what if with myself. What if Dad and Tyson are wrong about Marco, but there’s no way to prove it? What if Marco thinks I gave them information, and he never wants to speak to me again?
This situation must be some kind of mix-up, a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time—or, if you’re Marco, having the wrong best friend. But I need Marco to tell me that himself.
I need to hear him say he’s not a thief.