Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 77170 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77170 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Mom is in the kitchen, heating up some water in a kettle on the stove. “Would you like a cup of tea, Ava?”
I shake my head. “No, thank you.”
“I’m fixing some chamomile for myself. I need to try to get some sleep. I wish I could convince your father.”
“No one will convince him until there’s someone else watching Wendy.”
She sighs. “I know.”
“We could just lock her in,” I say.
“No.” Mom shakes her head. “That’s false imprisonment.”
I can’t help a scoff. “Mom, isn’t this false imprisonment anyway?”
“No. Your father, as Wendy’s next of kin—”
“Not legally.” I roll my eyes. “Don’t say it. We’ve already been through this. The Steel name.”
“You carry the Steel name too, Ava. I know you don’t like to use it, and I commend you for that, but it will serve you well if you ever need it. Besides, your father didn’t lie to anyone. He is Wendy’s son.”
“At the risk of repeating myself…not legally.”
“He is now. Or he will be. Aunt Jade is working on that. At any rate, your dad was able to make the decision to have her discharged from the hospital. He had to sign an AMA.”
“What’s that?”
“A document saying that he was having her discharged against medical advice.”
“But I don’t understand something. If she was kept under sedation at her own request, how could someone else make these decisions for her? And how does someone get to decide to stay under sedation at her own request, anyway? Any hospital worth anything wouldn’t—”
“Ava”—Mom gestures to me to quiet down—“if there’s one thing Dad and I know about his mother, it’s that she can get things done that others can’t. She somehow managed to escape lockdown in a mental health facility twenty-five years ago. No one knows how she does it. She gets people on the inside to trust her, and she waves money around. That’s my theory, anyway.”
I lock my gaze on the tiled kitchen floor. “I can’t help it, Mom. I’m still kind of disgusted about the way our family throws our name around to get what we want.”
“We do what we have to do.” Mom sighs. “It’s not always pretty, Ava. We have to protect our own.”
“From this woman? This sickly old woman?”
“Yes. Absolutely. You’ve heard the stories.”
She’s right. I have. But it’s so far removed from me. The stories were horrendous. I cried. But still, it’s difficult to believe that the frail old woman in that room is the same person responsible for so much horror.
“Yes, she was obviously awful in her day. But she’s no threat to anyone in her current state. When I went to see her in the hospital—”
“You what?”
“Yes. I went with Brock.”
“What the hell does Brock have to do with any of this?”
“He has everything to do with it, Mom, and you know it.”
Mom sighs again. “You’re right. I suppose we all allowed ourselves to become complacent. It’s been clear, ever since Talon got shot, that things aren’t over for the family. That the past is coming back to haunt us.”
“Yes. And that trafficking ring… Brock and Uncle Joe may have gotten it off our property, but it may still be operating.”
“I know. We’ve got our investigators looking into it.”
“Well, you guys have the best.”
“We thought we did. But then again, we had to change our security company. In fact, that’s another long story, Ava.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“I know you’re not, but I am.” Mom pours a cup of tea, dips the tea bag. “I’m going to bed. It’s time for this day to end.”
I regard my mother—her pretty face, her beautiful blue eyes…and the dark circles under them.
She’s tired. Tired and worried. Her brow is wrinkled, and her normally rosy cheeks are pale.
I lean toward her, give her a kiss on her cheek. “Go to bed, Mom. Try to get some sleep.”
“I don’t sleep well without your father next to me, but I have to try.” She takes her tea and walks out of the kitchen.
I pour myself a glass of water, add ice, and then I head back down the hallway to the room where my grandmother sleeps. I walk through the sitting area and into the bedroom.
“Anything?” I say to my father as I enter.
He’s sitting in a recliner next to the bed where his birth mother sleeps. “She’s still out. I told Jemima to get some sleep. She and Dr. Parks are in the rooms across the hallway.”
I nod. “I think Dr. Parks and Mom are right. I don’t think Wendy’s going to wake up. Not until morning at least.”
“I know they’re right, but I’m not leaving her side.”
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
I bite on my lip, twisting my lip ring. “Do you have any…feelings for this woman?”
“Of course I do.”
I raise my eyebrows.
“They’re all negative, Ava. I hate her. I hate the fact that I share her genes. I hate what she’s done to my family. What she did to my brother all those years ago, and through him, what she did to my father. My father was no saint, to be sure, but he wasn’t as evil as this woman.”