I grin, “Yes, Queen,” answering in unison with the others.
“All of you.” Mom points to us. “Queens and kings. Everybrain and every bullet. We use everything to find her. To bring her home to us. We work together on this. No fighting. Just find my daughter!”
“Oh, thank God.” Alena slumps, relieved, muttering under her breath, “No more Loch and Axel fighting about my first. Let’s just find Sasha.”
Nash turns to her. “What did you just say?”
CHAPTER FIFTY
ALENA
My mom used to say,“Speak the truth and shame the devil.”
But what if your father looks like a handsome devil? A devil, who you know loves you so much, he’ll kill anyone who hurts you.
Or in this case.
Fucks you.
I reply with a gulp, “Nothing.”
Not wanting another fight, but not seeing a way out of this one.
Dad narrows his eyes at me. “You didn’t just saynothing. You said something about your first.” His lip curls. “Your firstwhat?”
“Drop it, Nash.” Loch tries to protect me. “It’s none of your business, and we have other problems to solve.”
“Problems?” Dad slices his glare to Loch, then back to me. “Oh, we’ll have a problem, Alena, until you tell me why you just put Loch and Axel’s names in the same breath with yourfirst.”
My stomach twists as I glance around the room. Allastonished eyes are on me. Except for one pair, Axel’s. They’re resigned and ready for me to take control.
I look at Loch, knowing I have his support, his love.
And me?
Maybe I’m like many women and getting really tired of this—my sex under scrutiny.
Kneeling beside Nadine, I rise, brushing lint off my jeans, before I lift my eyes, meeting my father’s glare...
Remembering the notes he left on napkins in my lunchbox. The books he’d read to me at bedtime. The year he taught me how to use a gun, choke a man, and change a flat tire.
I’m so grateful to be his daughter, but I’m not his property.
My answer is strong, sure, and swift. “I asked Axel to take my virginity when I was twenty-one, and he helped me.”
Cue gasps from the queens, and a rumble of “oh fuck” from the kings, but I keep my eyes confronting my father’s fury and lift my chin.
“My body, my business, Dad. I love you so much, but my sex isnotproperty; it’s my right, and mine alone. It’s not up for debate or details.”
All the years I’ve dreaded this, I assumed my father would pounce like a lion and gnash Axel’s neck open. That I’d cry, screaming, trying to stop him by taking the blame, and by some miracle, my father would cease, inches before Axel’s death.
But it’s much worse.
My dad sits so stoic and so still beside Vale with his arm draped over her shoulder; it’s unnerving. Unsettling. Unlike him.
While Vale’s eyes search mine, silently screaming, “Oh my god! Axel was your first?Hell yes.” And, “Oh hell.”
But I reach for Loch’s hand. “Loch is my firstlove, my only love. He is my king, and I’m his queen, and this conversation is over.”
