Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 69511 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69511 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Shasha stood up from the porch chair he was in when we approached and said, “I got a ping off where the cell signal was heading.”
“Where?” Maven snapped at him.
He looked at her with a cheshire cat smile on his face that likely had more to do with him having his sister back, rather than liking her snapping at him.
He’d take her any way he could get her.
Which I found really sweet.
Maven could do no wrong in their eyes.
But that smile cut off when he looked at me.
He pulled a piece of paper off the table. “Printed this off the printer at Maven’s shop. Look familiar?”
My breath caught in my throat. “Fuck.”
“What is it?” Maven and Gable asked at the same time.
I pinched the bridge of my nose, praying for patience.
“It’s my mom’s house.” I groaned. “Of course it is.”
Maven sucked in a breath.
The rest of them looked at me like they were waiting for the punchline.
“My mom is, what you would call, very overprotective, although really it seems as if she hates me,” I grumbled darkly. “I’ve already given her my location on Find my Friends on my iPhone. I’ve also agreed to let her track me on the Life360 app. I drew the line on her having access to my Ring Doorbell, though.”
“What are you going to do?” Maven asked.
“Kill her,” I snapped.
Maven patted my shoulder comfortingly.
But it didn’t help.
I was so mad I couldn’t see straight.
“Do you want to press charges?” he questioned.
I thought about that for a long moment.
My mom had gone through so much.
Could I blame her for wanting to keep an eye on me in a neighborhood like this?
Not really.
She’d already lost two kids.
I could see how she was so scared she felt like she needed to take this step.
That didn’t stop me from being disgusted.
“Is it bad that I’m relieved it was my mom and not some random disgusting man?” I asked him.
“No,” he said as he gestured to the front porch furniture for me to take a seat. I did, but did so rather angrily. “I think I’d be more comfortable knowing that, too. Though, I’d still be pissed as hell.”
“I am,” I said. “To answer your earlier question… no. I don’t want to press charges against her.”
I could tell he wasn’t happy with my answer, but it would be the only one he got.
“Can’t say I blame you,” he admitted as he took a seat directly next to me, pushing Dima farther into the corner without a single care.
Dima went willingly, though, not saying a word.
None of the other Semyonov siblings had chimed in, and I felt somewhat bad. “I’m sorry for not saying hi.”
I smiled at Dima, practically leaning over Gable’s lap to do so.
His hand went to my ass, and a fire I hadn’t realized was already burning in my belly sparked back to life.
“Hey, honey.” Dima winked. “I think you have more important things to talk about right now.”
He might’ve had a point.
I sat back and crossed my arms over my chest. “Y’all want to hear more about my childhood?”
Maven was the only one I’d ever told about my near kidnapping.
But I went ahead and filled them all in on what happened with my sister’s kidnapping.
Then I explained how my parents were when they’d recovered enough from their gunshot wounds to come back home.
“When I was a pre-teen, my mother refused to let me leave the house, so I started doing a food strike,” I explained. “I refused to eat and lost fifteen pounds before she let me go back to school.” I paused. “I was in high school then, so she freakin’ hated it.”
“Tell them what happened when you tried to go to college,” Maven urged.
I felt my eyelid start to twitch.
“My dad had passed away, so it was just her caring for us. And my mom seemed to cling even harder to me and Gavrel. He was in an online college taking criminal justice courses at the time, and she just… lost it. In between me going to college, and Gavrel putting his life on the line in the military, she couldn’t function. I went to my first day of classes, and my first professor told me that I was needed in the registration building, because there was something wrong with my financial aid.” I curled my toes in my sandals. “According to admissions, my financial aid was pulled last minute, and I either needed to pay, or not go to college.”
“What did you do?” Gable asked, looping his arm around my shoulder.
I leaned into him, something inside me loosening out at how he was treating me.
God, I needed him. Did he know how much?
“I called the bank, had them up the limit on my account, and paid for the classes outright,” I answered. “Used my entire savings to do it. From that point on, I refused to go back home without Gavrel. Gavrel let me use his GI bill to cover the rest of my schooling since my mom kept finding new and inventive ways to make the college not want to let me through the door.”