Maddox’s jaw drops open. “Say that again, because I thought I heard you say—”
“Everett thinks he’s my brother.”
“That kid is a lot of things. What he isn’t is mentally unstable. He’s sharp as a tack and quirky about how he does things, but not mentally unstable.”
And that’s another person to say the same thing. “Mentally unstable would have been better, but I said he thinks we share a mother. That we are biologically brothers.”
“Biological…impossible.”
“Do you know how old the kid is? I mean exactly. Not sort of.” Math never lies.
Maddox shakes his head. “I think he’s fifteen or sixteen, but you never know. Most of our kids just pick a day for paperwork. With his skills, I figured that when he needed the paperwork, he’d do it himself.”
Makes sense. It wouldn’t take long for him to put himself in the system and request copies be sent to himself. “He’d need to be closer to seventeen or eighteen.”
“Why that old—your mom.”
“Yeah.”
“Is your dad going to kill her? Because we can’t allow that. She can seek sanctuary here.”
Kill? Sanctuary? What are— “MY MOM DIDN’T CHEAT ON MY DAD!”
The Street gets unusually quiet as dozens of little eyes turn to me.
“Take a breath. I only meant—”
“I know what you meant.” My mind does. The rage inside of me wants to unleash itself on someone. “My mother wouldn’t cheat on my father.”
“Then Everett is lying. Kids do that.” But Maddox’s tone says the same thing as everyone else’s has. He doesn’t think the kid is lying.
I don’t think the kid is lying either.
That’s the part I hate the most. “My mother won’t need sanctuary. My father would die rather than harm her.” But they will have one massive fight when he finds out someone might have harmed her. “I’m going to get some DNA and my employee back.”
“You’ll keep me in the loop.”
Yeah right. “This is family business.”
Maddox stands up. “Everett is my business. You’ll keep me in the loop.” Then walks away.
This is going to make for an interesting Sunday dinner.
Guards
Max
“I can’t believe how much fun I had at work today. It was amazing. The environment that Fiona created there is so warm and welcoming. Every person came up, introduced themselves to me, and really tried to get to know me. It’s like they wanted me to know they wanted me here. And the food…well, you got to taste it. Isn’t it amazing? They even have Bisnonna’s biscotti recipe. It shocked everyone when I didn’t need to refer to the recipe once. Did you get to taste the ‘Leftover’ cookie? It’s amazing, right? I brought some home for Sasha and Alex to taste.” Hope stops mid-step. “Oh no! I didn’t bring one for Alayna. She’ll be hurt that I forgot about her.” She starts moving rapidly down the sidewalk. “Maybe I should invite Sasha and Alex over to hang out. You know she’s always working with her mom after school. Then I could invite her on Saturday to try it out. What do you think? Or I could just cut up the cookies. They are pretty big, but you know how Sasha and Alex eat.”
Basking in the glow of my little girl’s joy was totally worth the worry of the day. “You don’t have to worry about that. They’ll be over to visit today.”
“What? Why? I didn’t invite them. What did you do?” Hope raises an eyebrow at me.
“Why would you say that?”
“Because it’s not a family dinner night. And Nonna didn’t invite Aunt Liliana over. So, you or Nonno invited Sasha and Alex. Did you invite Uncle Aleksei, too?”
The fact that my daughter views Aleksei Kamenev as her uncle always boggles my mind. “No.”
