AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I needed to hire a cleaning crew to get in here and clean the place up. First, everything would need to be gone through, the entire fucking building, and I would need to look into finding employees to work the joint.
If my family wasn't interested in it, that is. I hoped they wouldn't look at me as if I were a damn crazy person.
Damien and I were on the mend, fucking finally, and I was hoping Julian wouldn't be too far behind him. I really wanted my family to be whole again, it had been broken long before Annabell had come along, so much so I wasn't sure if we'd everbeenwhole. Most of us came from broken families, though my immediate one hadn't been broken, the one my father had grown up in had been.
But, my family now?
We were a merry band of misfits who'd grown up clinging to each other because we hadn't been allowed out into the real world to play with other kids. Instead, we'd been carefully watched because you never knew when our magic would make it's first appearance and the Council thought our children were better off and better protected when they were around children of their own kind.
Elitest fucking snobs, the whole lot of them. Where they said they wanted to keep our children safe what they were really saying was that they didn't want the poor humans tainting us. Or, maybe they feared we'd run off with them and never look back. Hell, I was no longer a child and I still wanted to run away and hide from those arrogant, self-serving fuckers.
After knowing Rain Kimber, Ariel's father, was a hunter and that there were honest-to-goodness people who hid from the Council made me feel slightly validated in my opinions and thoughts.
"Ty?" Uncle Quint's voice came hesitantly from behind me.
I flinched at his tone. Hesitancy wasn't something I was used to hearing in his voice. He was always so self-assured and confident. To think he felt anything but because of me made me feel like the worst kind of asshole.
He was upset with me, I knew, because I'd dragged our girl into unknown situations where she could have potentially come to harm. I was upset with me too, even though she'd practically forced herself on me and the situation. She would not take no for an answer, no matter how hard I'd tried to dissuade her.
Still, Uncle Quint had barely spoken two words to me since he'd found out about everything and I'd taken the cowards way and texted him with an address and a message that said it was incredibly important he meet me at this address. It was a dick move and I should have met with him face-to-face instead.
I got my emotions in check, showing nothing more than my blank face that oftentimes came across as unfriendly looking, and turned around to face my much beloved uncle who was mostly my brother and braced for the absolute worst.
He had every right to be angry with me and I would take whatever he decided to throw my way.
His face might have been blank, much like my own, but his brown eyes were incredibly kind.
I shouldn't have been worried. My Uncle, even pissed at me, would never not be there for me when I said I needed him and he'dneverabandon me. Not ever.
I was stupid for forgetting the loyalty that came with his love. He had my back, no matter the circumstances or how angry he was about my previous behavior or actions. We were family and that's what it meant to be family.
"Uncle Quint," I choked out, cringing at the emotion I'd showed in my voice. It was at odds with the blankness I'd worked so hard to put on my face.
He arched a dark eyebrow, clearly amused by my rare show of emotion outside of anger.
Suddenly, I felt the urge to lunge forward and punch him right in the face. Or, maybe a kidney.
Quint frowned as his eyes roamed over my face. His lips pursed and he looked angry, like he'd somehow read my thoughts and knew I wanted to punch him in the kidney or face. Finally, a normal reaction out of him. I relaxed immediately. I was probably more at home with his anger than he was.
Still, I was a little nervous. What if he thought I was stupid? I did not want to disappoint my Uncle any more than I already had in the last month.
He had to get this.
Hehadto.
"Why," Uncle Quint growled, "are wehere?"
"I bought this building," I told him honestly.
This time, both eyebrows rose as he took in the building in question.
He didn't look impressed and I wasn't surprised. The building needed a whole lot more than Windex and elbow grease to not look like a dump.
"Why in the hell would you buy a building?" He asked incredulously. "And especially one that looks like this one? Are you gonna tear it down and put up something else? And, seriously, Ty, what's with this neighborhood? They should have evicted the people in this building years ago because it runs down their property value."
I ran my fingers back through my hair, gathering it up at the back of my head. I twisted a hair band off of my wrist and pulled my hair into a bun at the back of my head. This was the longest my hair had ever been and I needed a haircut but with everything going on around me all the time, I hadn't had time to get one. But it was driving me crazy and I'd taken to putting it back into a messy bun at the back of my head.
I had a theory on why the neighborhood hadn't kicked the old lady to the curb and it had everything to do with magic. I wondered what normal humans saw when they looked at the building. Did they see something witches couldn't see? Or, maybe they'd seen a dump too but had just let it be because she'd been a lonely old lady and it was a dick move to try and kick her ass out.
