Free KNOX: Volume 2 by Cassia Leo Page B

three weeks from her parents’ house in Poughkeepsie. Since my father’s arraignment was broadcast on national television. She would have come back to Manhattan sooner if it weren’t for my insistence that I really am okay.
    Lita and her purposely frizzy light-brown hair attack me the moment I open the door to my apartment.
    “Rebecca! I’m so sorry I left you!”  
    She shakes me like a child hugging a rag doll. At five feet eleven inches tall to my five-foot-seven stature, this is a very accurate simile. I laugh as I hug her back. Though my laughter sounds a bit strained by her crushing hug — and my suspicions of her.
    She finally lets go. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here when it all went down. Especially since August turned out to be a total prick, as I suspected.”
    She takes a seat at the small metal table with the formica veneer. I take a seat across from her and push a glass of iced tea toward her. Lita doesn’t drink often. One of the many things I admire about her. She has an insatiable need to control a situation and alcohol works against that need. I have to figure out how to control this conversation. How to steer it toward the truth about whether or not Knox has involved her in his vendetta, while also steering clear from the truth about my involvement with Knox.
    She sniffs the air dramatically. “You had sex in here, very recently.”
    “What? No, I haven’t.” I grab the sweaty glass in front of me and take a sip of my iced tea.
    She glances over her shoulder at the unmade bed. “You’re lying. Who was it? It wasn’t August, was it? You’re not back with that cheating prick, are you?”
    “No! August makes me sick. He was probably cheating on me for months.”
    “So he admitted to it? Just like that?”
    “No, I’m just assuming because….”
    I take a long sip from my iced tea, trying to stall. I don’t want to lie to Lita about August and his involvement with Knox. Lita has enough trust issues without me piling more on.
    We’ve all been betrayed by someone at some point in our lives. Someone who made us despise people who lie. For Lita, that person was her mom.  
    When she was seventeen, the woman she thought was her mother introduced her to her real mother. It turned out the woman who raised Lita was a neighbor of Lita’s biological mother. Lita’s biological mother was young when she had Lita. She literally left Lita on the neighbor’s doorstep with a note and took off.
    Now Lita spends three weeks every summer in Poughkeepsie with her biological mother, to make up for lost time. Her relationship with the mother who raised her is still strained. But I understand how difficult it is to recover from such a complete betrayal. When I saw my father murder “Uncle” Frank, I felt as if I was finally seeing the real John Veneto. Not the one who pretended to be my loving father.
    Then, of course, there’s the possibility that Lita already knows about Knox. Why else would she ask about August on the very day I’m abducted by Knox and this whole scheme between August and Knox blows up in my face? It can’t be a coincidence. Can it?
    “Lita, I have —”  
    I stop myself when I have a sudden realization. Knox probably has my apartment bugged. When I asked him if he has me bugged he claimed that none of the surveillance is conducted in my apartment. He said he didn’t want his men watching me get dressed. Or listening to me scream his name in the throes of passion. But I’m not sure I believe that my apartment isn’t being watched.
    “You have … what?” Lita’s round gray eyes don’t blink as she waits for me to finish this sentence.
    I lean forward to whisper in her ear and she giggles like a schoolgirl. “I’m seeing someone new.”
    “I knew it!” she shrieks.
    “Shh!” I almost clap my hand over her mouth. “Please don’t say anything … aloud.”
    She looks at me like I’m crazy. “You’re acting very weird. Are you dating that creepy guy from work? What