And Mercy…
God, I can't even take credit there.
Cash did everything.
Cash got her away from the clubhouse when social services came knocking.
Cash brought her to the ranch and gave her a bedroom bigger than the entire trailer she grew up in.
Cash bought her the puppy.
Cash paid for the new clothes, the riding lessons with Madeline, the private tutors to catch her up before school started.
It was Cash's idea to enroll her at Rimrock.
Not mine.
I just... went along with it. Smiled and played nice aunt while my brother actually changed that little girl's entire life.
Mercy's thriving because of him.
Not me.
So what have I actually done?
What have I given Legion besides my body and my certainty that I want him?
Cassia's ears flick back again.
I straighten in the saddle, loosening my grip on the reins.
"Sorry, girl."
She huffs. Keeps walking.
The night air smells like sage and dust. Storm's still building somewhere to the east but it hasn't reached us yet.
I think about Eleanor.
Can't help it.
Think about the safe room deep underground. The old bank vault surrounded by cinderblocks. The red leather album inside.
The Book of Legion.
I should tell him it exists. Not ask about it. Not demand explanations or confessions. Just... let him know.
Hey, by the way, my dead mother kept a private archive of thousands of photographs she took of you from the time you were a toddler until six months before she died. Some of them are you as a child. Some are you and me as teenagers kissing.And some are professional studio portraits of you half-naked looking sad, and beautiful, and broken.
Also there's a selfie of the two of you together looking comfortable and happy, dated six months before her death, when you were twenty-four and I was at college and you definitely never mentioned knowing her that well.
Just thought you should know.
My stomach twists.
Finding that book destroyed something in me.
I remember standing in the safe room with the album open in my hands, flipping through page after page of Legion's face.
