AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I said semi-sober, Kay, not asleep,” I add.
She mumbles out an incoherent reply. I’m stepping towards the closet when I hear her voice.
“He said I was unlovable, Xan.” Her voice is low but I’m still able to make out the words.
I still, “You’re not,” I say assuredly without looking back at her. “I love you.”
“Awn, I love you too, big brother.”
She and Nate are the only ones who ever hear those words. I haven’t said them to anyone apart from them in a long time. My son and little sister are the most important people to me. I’d protect them with my life.
“You okay, Aunt Kayla?” Nate questions as we walk into the dining room where he’s already seated with his grandmother.
“Not talking to you, Nancy Drew,” Kayla mutters, unable to walk a straight line.
I laugh softly while Isabella sighs as I place her in one of the chairs. I cross over to the other side of the table to sit down beside Nate. We get to sit more informally when dad’s not home. Usually, we have assigned seats at the table.
“She’s fine,” I mouth at Isabella but she only shakes her head.
Dinner commences with Nate talking my ear off between bites. Another thing he wouldn’t be able to do if my father was here. Just before we’re done eating, Isabella suddenly lifts her head, looking at me.
“Oh yeah. Did you hear Gray’s coming back?” she questions.
My eyebrows go up and I look at Isabella accusingly. She looks away guiltily.
“I was going to mention it after dinner,” she says, glaring at her daughter. “Your father has allowed him to return home.”
“Why?”
I might call Mikayla trouble as a joke, but my brother, Graham has a tendency of actually inciting trouble anywhere he goes. And it’s not the kind of trouble that’s easily managed.
“He needs someone to manage the New York office,” she informs me.
I scoff. “Dad would never send Graham there.”
“You’re right,” Isabella says gently. “Which is why I think he’s considering sending you instead, Alexander.”
The implication of those words takes a while to hit me. When they do, my hands curl into a fist.
“He wants me to move to New York?”
“He’s considering it,” Isabella states.
My jaw clenches. “I’m not going.”
Her expression turns sad, “Honey, I don’t think you’ll have much of a choice.”
My chest rises and falls with each breath. Beside me, Nate taps my hand but I don’t look at him. I haven’t set foot in New York in ten years. That’s the one city that I’ve been steadfast about keeping away from. Because she’s there.
And I want nothing more than to stay the hell away from her.
CHAPTER 5
Katerina
When I was seven, I asked my dad to take me with him to a shooting range because I wanted to learn how to shoot. He was hesitant because I was so young, but I think he was also proud, because I took the initiative to go after something like that on my own. He did take me though and I continued practicing after that, every chance I got, until I was perfect.
That’s how things have been my entire life. Me going after the things I want. Or should I say the things guaranteed to make my father proud of me. My mother was still alive then. And she hated me learning to shoot. We tried to hide it from her but she found out eventually. She tried to make it stop but in the end realized I didn’t mind. I was happy shooting, comfortable with a gun or a pistol in my hands. I don’t think I was ever normal as a kid. My dad always says that I was born for this life.
