Page 96 of Road to Redemption

Kiera was at the center of the room now, pleading with me. “If she knew what he’d done, what he did to my dad… maybe she would tell me what she knows.”

My heart ached for her, watching her grasp at straws to believe her mother wouldn’t protect another evil man over her own daughter.

A voice in the doorway drew all of our eyes. “Even I think this is a terrible idea, Bunny.” Spencer’s arms were crossed, showing off her patchwork tattoos.

“This is bullshit. Everything else we’ve tried is a dead end.” Kiera was really pissed now, her chest heaving. “The Oracle is pissed and shut out. We’re stuck here with nowhere to turn. Poor Viv is just in limbo out there.”

She wasn’t wrong, we were racing blind through a maze constructed by a mastermind. And every corner was another empty corridor.

Her eyes flicked between all of us, pulling on our hearts and the trust she’d built with each of us. Goddamnit if she wasn’t the most beautiful little devil I’d ever seen.

“You all know that we’re running out of time. Every day is more dangerous than the last. It’s now or never.” Her words made the room silent, quiet enough to hear a pin drop on clouds. Without a date for the IPO or any files to turn in, we would be completely screwed when Isaac pulled the trigger on going public.

We’d be forced to scramble together a plan to stop him.

With a date, one Maura just might have, we could create a real plan. Something that Isaac couldn’t counter.

Spencer blew out air. “Fuck.”

There was no stopping her. If I knew one thing about my Princess, it was that she’d do it whether I liked it or not.

Looking over at Dom, I clenched my jaw. “We’re better off helping her pull this off than risk her getting hurt because we both know she’ll do it anyway.”

Dom’s face turned to a snarl, hating that her new plaything wouldn’t be so obedient.

“What if it’s a trap?” Her blue eyes pierced daggers into me.

I turned my attention back to Kiera. “Then we’ll have to outsmart them.”

51

KIERA

I set down my pencil with a sigh, leaning over to give Lady a scratch on the head and a glimpse at my drawing. “Whaddaya think? I think I’m getting pretty good at the trees, no?”

Lady picked up her head curiously before letting it plop back down into the grass.

Leo had been right all those days ago about dislocating my thumb — as cool of a party trick as it was, that shit left my hand aching for days.

Luckily, I’d gone for my nondominant hand, which meant I could still sketch with relative ease. Which was a blessing in its own right.

Now that I’d picked up drawing again, I wasn’t sure that I could stop. The scratch of the pencil against paper, the gentle friction reverberating through my fingers with each stroke… it was just so easy to submit to the rote memory of it, to let it soothe me through all of this stress like it had in childhood.

And stress was a constant companion lately.

I picked up the pencil again with a sigh, working on the shading of the fluffy clouds overhead. With my savior’s reluctant blessing, I’d finally confirmed a meeting with Maura. A week from now, I would be face to face with the woman I’d been avoiding for months now.

And in the meantime, all there was to do about it was… wait.

“Not bad.” A gruff voice over my shoulder. “The trees are pretty good, actually.”

I nearly jumped out of my skin, snapping the sketchbook shut against my chest. But when I wheeled around, it was only Dom hovering over the back of my chair.

“What are you doing here?” I snapped before I could bring my heart rate under control.

Dom flexed her jaw. “It’s my house. Do I need permission to stand in the yard?”

The obviousness of her assertion was met with a moment of taut silence.