Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 84913 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84913 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
"My girl has a black eye," Reign told me, moving in at my side, jerking his chin toward his daughter who was catching up with one of her cousins.
"Yeah," I agreed, nodding.
"Caught the news about an old coffeeshop getting burned down and finding bodies inside."
"Imagine that."
She hurt anywhere else?"
"Just a couple bruises. She handles herself well, Prez."
"She always did. But I'm glad you were there for her."
With that, he went to walk away, making me realize it was now or never. "Hey, Prez?" I called, making him turn back, a brow raised over his green eyes.
"Yeah?"
"Plan to be there for her a lot in the future."
Reign was not a man of many words, so he didn't exactly need it all spelled out for him. He knew exactly what I meant.
"Yeah? So that's the way of it?"
"That's the way of it," I agreed, nodding.
A deep breath strained his chest as he looked at Ferryn, then back at me, eyes unreadable as they often were.
"Guess that makes sense."
And that was it.
In a way, that was his approval.
Reign didn't need to issue threats. He knew his existence was threat enough. If I hurt Ferryn, I knew my body would never be found. That was the way of it. And that was alright by me. Because I didn't have any plans on hurting her. Occasional bruises from extracurricular activities aside, of course.
Everything was going well.
Ferryn seemed to be thawing out, warming up, smiling more, losing that tension that tightened her shoulders around seeing her family again.
And then the door opened.
And shit got real.
Thirteen
Ferryn - Present Day
I don't know who I had been expecting when the door opened. Another aunt, another uncle.
Not her.
"Why the hell didn't you tell me you were coming back to Navesink Bank?" Chris demanded loudly, making all conversation silent immediately.
Because the secret was out.
"Excuse me?" Aunt Lo demanded, voice deceptively calm. A woman who made her life's work the way she did, she wasn't quick to outward emotions, knowing that for a woman in a position of power, she had to be ten times colder than men in similar positions just to be taken half as seriously.
So calm, in this situation, was not a good thing.
"Aunt Lo," I started, trying to reason with her, trying to take some of the focus away from Chris.
Though, to be honest, that was where my focus was as well.
The last time I had seen Chris, she'd still been in that dingy t-shirt she'd lived in for months. She was greasy-haired and malnourished. Her mind and body half-broken from months of rape and torture.
I had gotten her out of that basement with me.
I had made sure that when I left, she would be taken care of.
From what Vance told me, my Uncle Cash and Aunt Lo had taken her in, had adopted her, had helped her heal—body and mind.
And healed she looked. From the outside. Of course, I had no idea what her head was like. But where she'd been this frail, breakable girl in that basement, good food and freedom and lack of fear had thickened her up. Not overweight, but thick—rounded in the thighs, hips, ass, bust. Her blonde hair was clean and waving around her face that had always been a bit hauntingly beautiful.
She looked amazing.
A part of me felt bad for always viewing her as I last remembered her instead of this much stronger, much more vibrant woman before me.
"No no," Aunt Lo said, holding a finger up to me. "We will get to you. Chris, I am going to need you to repeat that. Did you just ask her why she didn't tell you she was coming back? Like she's been in contact with you before she got back here?"
To her credit, even with Aunt Lo being at peak boss-bitch, Chris's chin lifted and her gaze was unwavering, not intimidated. "Because she has been."
"For how long?" Lo demanded as my mother cast devastated looks in her adopted niece's direction.
Which was exactly why I had told Chris this needed to be something we kept to ourselves, that no good would come from this particular truth coming out.
"Six years," Chris told her, making my stomach drop.
"Six. Years. You've been in contact with Ferryn for six years without telling me?"
"Yes."
That was it. No explanations. No defense. Just the blunt truth.
Damn.
She was going to take over Hailstorm one day. She'd been working there for years, of course. And it maybe even seemed like Aunt Lo would like a protege to groom to eventually take her place so that she could retire. But I had never been able to see it before right at that moment.
She would be a fearsome leader.
"How did you get in contact with her?" Lo insisted.
"Ferryn's been... busy," Chris decided, choosing to be careful about this truth, likely knowing I would kill her if she slapped my mother upside the head with the truth like that. "And I've been looking. Luckily, she's just as cocky as you guys all told me she was," she added, giving me a smirk. "She left some traces of herself around just itching to be found."