Secrets and Lies (Cassie Scot) Read Online Free PDF Page A

Victor was the last person I had expected to see in the diner that morning, then my former father was the last person I wanted to see. Even now, with Victor explaining my part in his unusual scheme for revenge, I didn’t want my former father nearby. I didn’t want his help. I only hoped Nicolas and Juliana hadn’t broken their promise and told him about the life debt, or I would never hear the end of it.
    The air crackled with visible tension. Sparks of shimmering red fire danced around my father’s head. Behind the counter, Mrs. Meyers twisted her hands together anxiously, as if afraid her diner might burn down. Her fears were not unjustified.
    I stepped boldly between them, facing my father. “What are you doing here?”
    “We need to talk,” he said.
    “I have nothing to say to you. You disowned me, remember?”
    The color seemed to drain from his face as he stared past me, at his oldest enemy.
    Victor raised his water glass in a mock toast. “I’ve known for some time. If it makes you feel any worse, so does everyone else in town who hasn’t been asleep for a week. Or at least, they guess.”
    “I don’t care what you think you know. Stay away from my daughter.” With that, he grabbed my arm with a hand hot enough to leave a reddened imprint on my skin, and dragged me through the kitchen to the employee room at the back. Only then did he release my injured forearm.
    “Ouch.” I rubbed at the red mark, though it didn’t hurt nearly as much as my roiling insides. I just wanted him to know he had caused me real, measurable pain.
    If he noticed, he didn’t say anything. He closed the door, and then spent a minute releasing a spell from an amulet that would cloak the room in silence, keeping anyone from eavesdropping.
    When he finished, he rounded on me. “What were you thinking, announcing our private business to the entire town?”
    Indignation welled within me. “What’s this our of which you speak?”
    “Cassandra Morgan Ursula Margaret Scot!”
    I blinked a few times in surprise. I hadn’t gotten the triple middle name since middle school.
    “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? I couldn’t believe it when I found out you ran straight to Evan Blackwood, of all people!” His hands rose and fell with his words, barely contained sparks dancing from the fingertips. “But there he was, the very next day, full of arrogance and false apologies.”
    I tried to speak, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. Was it possible he had intended to pretend to everyone that nothing had changed? Thinking back to the conversation we’d had before I had run out of my childhood home forever, it seemed possible. Beneath all his assurances that they would always love and protect me, had this been his intention? To use a veil of secrecy?
    “And now, Evan is telling everyone you’re under his protection.”
    “Did you think no one would find out?” I asked. “How were you going to explain the fact that I never called or visited, that I wasn’t taking money from you, and that I had to take a waitressing job to make ends meet?”
    “I didn’t expect any of that to happen. I told you, we’d still protect you and take care of you. What did you think I meant?”
    “I think you want it both ways, and you can’t have it.”
    He closed his eyes tightly. “I’m just trying to keep my family safe, the best way I can.”
    I shook my head. “What’s the danger?”
    “The Blackwoods.”
    “Oh, please!” I threw up my hands in disgust.
    “This isn’t just me. Grace Blair saw it, too.”
    Grace Blair, the mayor’s mother, was a powerful seer. I had never trusted her, or her prophecies. They often struck me as being manipulative, and this one was no different.
    “Can you say, ‘self-fulfilling prophecy?’”
    “Cassandra, stay away from Evan Blackwood.”
    I shook my head. Not that I had any choices where it came to Evan, but it felt good to defy my father on this.
    “What is between you?” Dad asked.