Could it be a trick? Yeah, but a sniper’s bullet would have been more effective and easier than sending an assassin in posing as a boy. But mentally unstable people do strange things.
Mom sets a hand on my shoulder. “Let me handle this.”
Absolutely not. But Mom doesn’t wait for me to acquiesce. She walks right up to him.
Everett attempts to stand, slips, and lands with his hand right on shards of glass. He winces but tries to get up again.
“Here. Let me help you.” Mom offers him a hand.
“You’re alive. They didn’t kill you.” Everett springs up and wraps his arms around Mom. “How did you survive? Did you escape?”
Escape? What is he talking about? Mom was never taken.
Unless…could something have happened while she was gone? Something she didn’t want to tell us about?
Dad. Dad will know what to do, because none of this makes sense, and I very much need it to make sense.
Everett cries into her hair.
Max:Come home immediately.
A brother…I could have a brother.
That feels…
Everett is probably lying. There have been dozens of people over the years who have claimed to be related to me. The boy billionaire has to be an easy mark. But I saw through every one of them. From the guy who showed up, saying he was my second cousin and needed money to pay for his Great Dane’s prosthetic leg. He didn’t even own a Great Dane, let alone have any family ties to me. To all the sobbing women who needed money to help my sick great-aunts. That story must be going around somewhere as an urban myth.
All of them had two things in common. They never dared to come anywhere near my home, and I never even thought for a single second that one of them wasn’t lying.
Could Everett really be my brother?
What happened to my mom?
She told us stories about her time away. We met people she worked with. Not for one second did she ever even hint that something might have happened while she was gone.
My phone vibrates.
Dad: Did you call your uncles?
That’s code for ‘are we under attack’ and ‘do I need to come in hot with weapons loaded’.
Max:No, but drop Hope off at Aunt Bonnie's on the way home.
There’s no point in exposing Hope to this if it’s all a hoax.
Dad:Milia?
Max:Daire took her home with him.
Hopefully, completely oblivious to anything happening right now.
Dad:Be there as soon as I can.
From Dad, that could mean anything from he’ll ignore all speed limits to he’ll hop on a chopper.
Why do I think it’ll be the latter? Maddox always has a chopper at the ready. We do too, but it’s here and not there, which means it won’t save him that much time.
Dad’s travel plans aren’t my problem right now.
