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Tor lifted his eyebrow as he rinsed the next bowl.
“I do a lot of chores, but they’re always on my own. I didn’t learn to do chores with my mom, didn’t cook in a kitchen with her teaching me, so doing stuff like this was always just me. It’s nice to do it with others. It feels…homey, I guess.”
He smiled and nodded in response, as though to tell me he agreed. Then again, he’d been on his own most of the time as well, so I’d bet he truly did understand what I meant.
“What if I just keep you company while you do chores?” Vance asked before hopping up to sit on the kitchen counter beside the dishwasher.
“That sounds like you being lazy.”
“Oh, I could help if you really wanted me to.”
“Why is it that those words sound more like a threat than a real offer of help?”
He smiled wider but didn’t respond, telling me I’d probably interpreted it right. I could imagine him breaking every plate I handed him and managing to streak the floor when mopping it, leaving it worse than it had started. I recalled parents complaining about how their kids’ help only made chores harder and take longer and I had a feeling Vance would beexactlythat sort of help.
So why did that amuse me so much?
Hayden came back into the kitchen after taking the trash out to the cans, and Char entered behind him, the glasses from outside stacked and held in his arms.
The question that had spun in my head since they’d gotten back refused to be ignored anymore. I’d let it go, at first because I’d been mortified to be found half naked, and later because the nice dinner and conversation had been too wonderful for me to want to bring up anything tricky.
And it really wasn’t tricky, was it? The fact that they hadn’t said anything made me suspect it was bad news. I had a feeling if they’d gotten Pauline to agree to their terms, they’d have said it the moment they’d walked in—whether I had pants on or not.
“So I’m taking it the meeting didn’t go well?” I broached the topic slowly as I placed the last dishes into the washer, then closed it and hit the Start button on the front. I turned back to face the others as the machine started up.
The men exchanged looks that said I’d gotten it exactly right.
And, as usual, Hayden was the brave one who actually spoke up. “She didn’t go for it.”
“What did she say?”
“The expected—that she wouldn’t pick anyone over her own son, that she knew he’d done some terrible things but believed that he could be better.”
“Is there any chance that she might change her mind?”
Vance shook his head, tapping his heel against the cabinet door as he remained seated on the counter. “I don’t think so. Loyalty and family mean everything to her, and I don’t think it would matter what Lorien did—she’d still pick him over strangers. I wasn’t sure I’d ever see a mother who actually had that whole unconditional loving-your-kids thing, and I sure didn’t think that if I did, it’d be a mob boss. I think we could bug her every single day and she wouldn’t change her mind. We’re going to need a new plan.”
I pressed my lips together, hating having to hear it all second-hand. “I want to go see her.”
“No fucking chance,” Char said so fast that he probably guessed what I was going to say rather than hearing me actually say it. “You’re going nowhere near her.”
“But I understand her better than you could. I grew up in her world. Hell, her worldismyworld. I know how she’s feeling, what she wants to protect, what she’s afraid of.”
“None of that matters if what we want is for her to betray her own son,” Hayden pressed, his voice gentle as though trying to soften the blow to me. “I’m sorry, Kenz, but I don’t think any amount of understanding or background is going to get her to change her mind on that.”
I drew my hands into fists, feeling as though I stood on the outside of a fence, forced to watch people I cared for on the other side, in danger, and with no way to intervene or help. I hated this feeling of impotence. “Please, let me help. I just want to do something.”
Hayden sighed, then stepped closer, but his expression remained a big fat no. “I know you do, Kenz, but it isn’t safe.”
“It wasn’t safe for you to go, either. In fact, it was even less safe for you. If Lorien had realized about the meeting, he could have set a trap.”
“We had Tor watching for that.”
“So why can’t Tor do that for me, too?”
“Because putting us in danger is one thing—that’s a calculated risk we’re okay with,” Vance said. “But if she were to take you, none of the rest of this would even matter.”
And we wererightback here again, with them expecting me to just accept their lives as being worthless, just things they’d toss away without a second thought.
