“I don’t want to pressure you into a relationship with me, but do you think I could watch you graduate?”
“Okay.” I shrug. A vaguely familiar face in the crowd is no skin off my nose. Her face lights up and I feel relieved.
I’m releasing excess baggage. We may never have a traditional mother daughter relationship, but I can’t keep holding grudges. I won’t forgive so easily, but there is room to work through it over time. Besides, with a little perspective, who is the worst maternal figure, really? Debbie or Laura? Exactly. I know where my priorities lie.
I send a quick text to Sawyer and ask him to look into the hit on Debbie. I doubt there’s an official one, since Harold couldn’t have gotten board approval for that. These men must have been privately hired, or owed Harold a favour. There’s no way Debbie or her mercenary friends would have been any match for our execution teams.
“You can’t go in there,” Camilla objects sharply from another room. Both Debbie and I look at each other and stand. Aadi might be awake. I rush into the other room but discover my father squaring off against his mother, with Jasper standing between them.
“A little help over here, Amelie,” Jasper insists. My father stares at me like he’s seen a ghost. No, he’s looking right through me. Past me.
I turn and see Debbie standing behind me.
“Hi, Marco,” Debbie whispers softly.
“Someone needs to explain to me why there’s a dead woman standing in the room, and why my son sent me a text saying he was drugged!”
Great. This isn’t how I wanted him to find out. Devastation washes over his face as the shock wears off.
“This was all your doing wasn’t it?!” he accuses Camilla.
“Figlio, please. It isn’t what you’re thinking.”
“So this has nothing to do with your vendetta against The Order, trying to weasel your way into a seat? You’re such a manipulating witch!”
“Dad,” I chastise. “Enough. Camilla wants no such thing, nor would she be considered at her age. We’ve agreed to talk about moving things to Australia, but that is it.”
I watch the way I word things around Debbie, but at this point she knows enough.
“This is what she does, Amelie, she finds a small window of opportunity and takes it.”
“As any good businesswoman would,” Camilla spits.
“Not helping,” I say to her but she shrugs. Damn stubborn old woman.
“I won’t go back, I’m out!” My father shouts. “I made a deal and it has to be honoured.”
“Don’t worry,” I placate him. “This has nothing to do with you. I was going to tell you about this after my graduation.”
My father looks at Debbie and to me, and to Bex as she enters the room. Now with clothes on, thank god.
“Where did you think Bex came from?” I ask. He knew she was my sister. He had to have questioned that.
“I presumed she was an orphan. I didn’t know much about Debbie in the years after I left. The time we spent together we didn’t exactly talk.”
I groan and rub my temples. I donotneed to hear this. “Debbie can fill you in. I have a headache and a million other things that I need to be doing.”
“What about your brother?” he asks. I point to Bex.
“She drugged him when he found out about Debbie and wanted to come rushing to tell you! Don’t worry, he’ll be good as gold in about eight hours.”
“Drugged him?”
“With all due respect Mr. R, it was that or Camilla was going to smack him over the head, which could have killed him. Serves him right if ya ask me, comin’ here in the middle of the night wasted to tell me how much he despises me. He’s lucky I even looked after his ass.”
I’m grateful that she leaves out the booty call, but he nods along with her.
“I need to leave. Call me later, Dad, after you talk to Chelsea because she needs to know. And Bex, tell my brother not to kill you. Order rules apply on this one.” I wink at her and she laughs. Undoubtedly, I just gave her ammo to use against him. The fact that he can’t kill her. He wouldn’t ever lay a hand on a woman but she is going to have fun with this nonetheless.
