Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 100791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
My brows shot up my forehead. “Adeline’s mother? She...” I trailed off, words failing me.
River just laced his fingers through mine, kissing my knuckles. “Adeline’s idea of family has been small—just like mine. She believed she had to protect that family at all costs from everything and everyone, sometimes even from her own blood—and I believe that too.” He sighed. “There are no right or wrong decisions when you’re fighting for someone you love. They’re the only ones you’ll defend to your grave.
“All this time I’ve been wanting—demanding—that she regret choosing her father over me, but that’s not fair,” River whispered, wisdom beyond his years belying his words. “Because I didn’t choose her over my mother, and your mother didn’t choose that controlling abusive piece of shit over the wonderful and perfect you.”
Tears filled my eyes.
“I keep bringing up your mother, Kenzie, because she’s looking out for you again, by drilling sense into my thick damn head. The whole world believes she did wrong, but I know she didn’t. She so very much didn’t because what she truly did was fulfill the promise she made to you and Sienna on the days that you were both born—to protect you with all her strength and might from anyone who dared to hurt you.”
I bit my lip hard, penning in sobs.
“Her love was punished. Her love was illegal,” he said, voice thick, “but it was still right because you and Sienna had to come first—you just had to. If she can love two people so much that doing a terrible thing is still the right thing, then I can stop being such a fucking hypocrite. If your mom was right to protect you, and my mom was right to protect me, and I was right to protect her, then...” He gave me a lopsided, but resigned grin. “Maybe my sister can be right too, in protecting her dad—our dad. And I can understand that and I can let it the fuck go, because there’s no one to protect anymore. There’s just us, and I’m tired of fighting someone who never wanted to hurt me.”
Clearing my throat, I rubbed my eyes hard. “That’s very wise, River Redgrave. Incredibly, wonderfully wise.”
He kissed me slow, then pulled back, drawing us both back into his seat and me on his lap. “I’m not saying me, Sunny, Bane, and Liam are going to be best buddies overnight, but I’m in this fight with them for real. They’re my family and I’m going to protect them because they’ve done one thing right in their lives and protected you, Laurel, and Sienna.”
I dropped my head on his shoulder, so happy I could burst. “Do you think this is a fight we can win? What if Damien is another dead end? I thought we had Vance, but he’s clueless. I thought we had Madison but...” My sentence died thinking of the body the cops carried out of the gas station. The last thing I saw on the news before Sienna and I left for the hangar. “The Brotherhood is like water. We keep trying to grab them with our bare hands, but they slip right through.”
“They’re just people, Kenzie. Flesh and blood like you and me, and they make mistakes. They’ve made mistakes. Mistakes that are revealing them whether they like it or not,” he said. “For all their self-righteousness, they aligned themselves with Luca Adams instead of putting him in the ground and freeing the women he abducted, so right off the bat, we know we’re looking for a bunch of dead-inside monsters.”
“I still don’t understand that,” I whispered, dropping my voice when I saw Laurel had drifted off to sleep as predicted. “Is hating the Merchants really the only criteria for membership? They don’t care who they are or what they do as long as they throw their weapons, money, and vengeance in the pot?”
I flicked to Sienna. She had taken a seat further back to give us some privacy. “What do you think, Si? Do you think the answer really is as simple as Sunny said? The Brotherhood doesn’t care about the women Luca tortured for the same reason Madison didn’t? They—we—were too low class to live in the imaginary utopia the Brotherhood has planned for Cinco?”
“I can’t say for sure.” Sienna got up and crossed to join us. “All I know is that I’ve been feeling for a while that this enemy is someone connected to the Merchants. Someone who had crossed their path and has every reason to hate them. But it’s an old grudge. A patient one. A grudge that’s been festering and growing in hate and malice, and even though mistakes have definitely been made, whoever’s behind this has been planning this long enough to have considered every angle, and they’ll make sure that the only one standing at the end of this war... is them.”