Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 40966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 205(@200wpm)___ 164(@250wpm)___ 137(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 205(@200wpm)___ 164(@250wpm)___ 137(@300wpm)
I don't.
The trailer comes into view and I hit the brakes so hard the seatbelt locks across my chest.
What the hell?
Where Legion's dilapidated single-wide should be stands something else entirely—a brand-new double-wide with fresh charcoal black siding, a wide covered porch, and… shutters.
What the actual fuck is happening here?
I look around. Did I take a wrong turn?
No. There's the Kane mailbox. Still sad and still crooked.
Where the hell did this house come from?
I sit frozen, engine idling. Part of me wants to reverse, pretend I never came. But then the door opens, and out bounces Mercy.
She waves at me from the porch. Smiling.
I don't think I've ever seen that child smile.
"Hey, Savannah!" she calls. "Come inside and see our new house!”
CHAPTER 11
I kill the engine but remain frozen, studying this alien patch of suburban perfection that's somehow replaced Legion's familiar broken-down trailer.
Mercy skips down the porch steps, all wild energy and pure delight in ragged cutoff shorts and what must be Legion's ancient t-shirt, the fabric drowning her tiny frame, carrying his presence like a lingering shadow. "Come on! We got actual furniture and everything!" Her voice quivers with the kind of raw excitement that makes my chest tight.
The three-carat diamond weighing down my left hand might as well be shackles when I step out. The soles of my riding boots crunch against fresh gravel as I gently close the Range Rover's door.
"I like your pants. You look like you like you do on socials," Mercy says, studying my four-hundred-dollar breeches and five-thousand-dollar custom boots.
I blow out a breath, instant regret about coming here. And I would leave… but I can't. Not with this new trailer staring back at me.
"It's nice, right?" Mercy asks.
I nod. "It is. Where did it come from?"
"Come on! Come inside," she says, not answering my question as she takes my hand and starts pulling me towards the porch.
I follow her up the fresh-built steps, cross the small, but ample porch, and get blasted with air conditioning the moment I cross the threshold.
Inside, it's open concept—kitchen melting into living room, everything immaculate and untouched. There are no staged corners or meticulously arranged scenes like my Instagram feed demands. Just clean, functional space with furniture meant for real life, not harvesting engagement metrics.
"Look at this!" Mercy yanks me toward the kitchen, practically levitating with joy. "Dishwasher AND automatic ice! No more gas station runs!"
I almost mention the designer countertops—that ingrained social media reflex—but she's already pulling me down the hallway, her small fingers warm and eager between mine.
"My room!" She flings a door wide with theatrical flair. "I see your house on Instagram all the time. Yours is gigantic, but look—sage walls! Just like that one guest cabin you guys have on your property!"
Something breaks quietly in my chest. This precious, untamed little girl follows my carefully constructed lies. Not only that, she has opinions about them.
The charity events, the couture outfits, the picture-perfect moments with my politically groomed fiancé—all of it as artificial as my follower demographics.
"Legion got me this too!" She gestures proudly at a cork board plastered with equestrian magazine clippings—some torn from publications featuring my sponsored content. "Says maybe I can take riding lessons. Like in your stories! I've always wanted a horse. You have one, Cassia, right? I want one like yours."
I blow out a breath. My horse cost half a million dollars as a barely-broke three-year-old. I got her when I was seventeen, one year before I took her to college with me. She came from Germany. Like… has-an-EU-passport came from Germany.
The guilt I feel about all that hits instantly.
I have too much.
She has so little.
Mercy continues her enthusiastic tour, treating each modern fixture and organized closet like buried treasure.
I've never known Legion in normal spaces. Only secret places—the grain silo, the hidden creek, anywhere we could pretend reality didn't exist. But this is real. His world. His sanctuary. His baby sister who follows my filtered fantasy life and dreams of horses she's never been allowed to touch.
"Want to see Legion's new room?" Mercy asks, bouncing with anticipation. "He got a new bed too."
I peek into Legion's room, unable to stop myself. But quickly turn away and go back down the hallway to the living room. He and I aren't dating. Hell, I'm engaged—the whole idea of dating Legion is ridiculous.
We're hookups.
Hookups that have never happened in this trailer, or the last, actually. And I don't know what he does while he and I aren't together—have never known, aside from posing suggestively for my mother, that is. And there could be evidence in that room of some other woman who meets his needs while I sit up in my castle lookin’ out on my kingdom.
As I’m thinking all this, I’m also studying the pristine living room sofa—tan fabric with throw pillows that match the curtains. It looks like it came from a catalog, like someone tried to stage the perfect middle-class home.