Rolland regards me a long moment. “There was a price.”
“There’s always a price, Rolland, and his was high. Wanna know what it was?”
“Do you want to tell me?”
“Raven’s life,” I rush out, having never shared this before, and a heavy ache twists in my ribs. “If Mero lost me, no matter how it happened, he would kill her. If I stayed his, stayed hidden, she got to live.”
Deep lines form at the edge of his eyes and he shifts his body to face me better. “Victoria—”
“The threat wasn’t even meant for me, but for Donley. What kind of girl would care to protect some random girl who shared her blood, right? After all, family ran deeper than blood...”
Rolland’s eyes narrow. “He shared that with you?”
“More like drilled it into me, made sure I’d never forget them, never turn my back on him for my father. Guess he had some fear I might care for the man.”
“Those words are sacred in my family.” Rolland’s lips press into a firm line.
I shrug, knowing full well the weight the Brayshaw sentiment holds on your soul, and refocus the conversation.
“Mero tossed out the threat on Raven’s life knowing Donley planned to leave Raven right where she was—the last thing he wanted was for her to end up here and people to find out what he had done, raped the virgin that was promised to his own successor out of greed and need for a male heir. He brought his own family down, but it took an eighteen-year-old, five-foot-three chick’s fearlessness for him to realize it.”
“He was a weak man in more ways than one,” Rolland studies me.
“I could have walked away,” I tell him. “So many times, I could have left, just… ran. It would have been so easy.”
“Yet you stayed with a monster.”
A sad scoff leaves me, and while I keep my head facing forward, I shift my eyes to Rolland. “To protect a sister I didn’t even know.”
“Why?”
“Because even though I’d never met her, never saw her, my gut told me her purpose was bigger than mine,” I answer instantly. “I was right.”
Rolland inhales as he stands, and when he offers me his hand, I take it, allowing him to pull me to my feet.
He stands there, staring straight on with his shoulders high and eyes bright, a vibrant green like his only biological son.
“That is honor,” he says. “That is loyalty without purpose or personal gain. That, Victoria Vega, is Brayshaw.”
Warmth wrapped guilt starts under my ribs, slowly spreading throughout my chest as unease drives my eyes to a second floor of the Brayshaw Mansion, to the window that leads to a certain little girl’s room, and what do you know...
He’s watching.Chapter 3CaptainShe releases my dad’s hand, her eyes remaining locked with mine.
Her existence is infuriating.
Intoxicating.
Fucking troubling.
I don’t know what it is or why it’s there, but there’s a fiery pull between us, one that’s been brewing since the beginning, and with her under the same roof as me now, I can only suspect it’ll grow.
My eyes narrow on their own accord and she tips her head, not willing to look away first.
I hate how my body senses hers, but worse, I hate what the little fact confirms.
She drives me fucking mad, but goddamn how mad I could drive her—
“Whatcha lookin’ at, Pacman?” Raven cuts into my thoughts.
I glare at the girl in our yard. “She looks nothing like you, polar opposite, in fact.”
I glance behind me, taking in Raven’s long, sleek, jet black hair with purple-colored strips, and stony gray eyes. Even her skin tone is different, a lighter, creaminess, a contrast of her curved, pink lips.
Victoria is more bronze-toned, a flawless summer tan she carries all year long, dark eyes and plumper lips, like she keeps them constantly pursed.
Their styles, though, are slightly similar—thick black liner stays on their eyes and they both sway toward a hood-like rocker chick with a wild side, but where Raven screams recklessness, Victoria’s straight cynicism.
Raven doesn’t think, she acts, and Victoria forever has something working through her mind.
Raven laughs. “That’s because I was cursed to look like my mom, may the devil keep her soul burning in Hell.”
I scoff, shifting to face her better.
It was only months ago she dumped her mother’s ashes in the creek out at our family cabin, giving the vile woman a familiar place to rest, even though Raven didn’t even think she deserved one.
“You been thinking about her?” I ask, my eyes falling to her stomach.
She shrugs, a slight frown taking over as she focuses on the flower stencil covering Zoey’s wall. “If worrying I’ll suck as bad as she did at the whole mothering thing counts, then yeah.” A heavy sigh leaves her. “With every couple blinks,” she admits.
“What’s Maddoc say?”
“How I’m not her and would never allow myself to be.”