Page 16 of Forged By Sacrifice

“This is just common courtesy,” he said. “I’d do it for whoever was on the boat or in the house. I have three older sisters. If I’d made food and not made enough for them, I would have been tied to one of their bedposts with scarves, dressed in a tutu, and covered in makeup.”

I laughed. The image of Mac in a tutu and makeup was so preposterous that it was more than comical. It was ludicrous. “I’d pay good money to see that.”

“There are pictures.”

We ate in comfortable silence.

“Do you have siblings?” he asked.

I nodded. “A half-brother and sister. They live in Russia with my mom and stepdad.”

He took that in for a moment before saying, “I kind of suspected there was some Russian in you.”

“Really?”

“It’s in the cheeks and the nose.”

I found my hand going instantly to those body parts. “I do look a lot like my mom and my brother. But my sister is all my stepdad.”

“Must be hard being so far from them.”

“It is. And my mom isn’t allowed back in the country, so if I want to see her, then I have to go there.”

He looked a little dumbfounded. “Why isn’t she allowed in the country?”

I wasn’t embarrassed about my family. It was their actions, not mine, that had landed them where they were. I’d just been a little kid. But I’d had a lot of people look at me differently once they’d heard the story, and this huge balloon grew in my stomach at the thought of Mac being one of them. I took a swallow of the beer he’d brought up. I wasn’t overly fond of the stuff—more of a mixed drink kind of person—but I drank it in order to ease the dryness that had suddenly taken over my mouth.

“My dad is Ian Astrella.” When that didn’t get any reaction, I continued. “You know, the guy who stole millions from people in Ponzi look-alike schemes?”

He sort of choked on his beer. “Holy crap.”

I laughed. “Yep. And my mom was a Russian model who’d gone all in with him. The feds could never prove how much she was actually involved, but they definitely revoked her visa and sent her back with a ‘You are not welcome back’ sign stamped in her passport.”

“Why didn’t you go with her?”

“I did at first, but Dad still had enough pull that, when she filed for divorce, he won that battle.”

“Isn’t he in jail?”

“Oh yeah. He’ll be in jail for at least another ten years, and then it’s highly doubtful any parole board is going to feel enough sympathy to let him out of his multiple sentences.”

Mac frowned. “I don’t get it. Why wouldn’t he want you with your mom?”

I shrugged. “I was only six when it all started to unravel. But they used to have these knockdown, drag-out fights that I still remember. They never hit each other, but the objects in our house were never safe. My mom would throw anything she could get her hands on. And now, looking back, I realize she had a coke habit. She doesn’t now, but she did then. I remember being told the white powder was ‘Mommy’s special adult medicine’ and that it wasn’t for me. I’m sure Dad used the drug habit against her to make sure she didn’t get custody.”

“Who raised you, then?”

“My grandma. It was her salon I sold.”

“Doesn’t Grandma want it anymore?”

That pain hurt worse than any of the stories of my mom or my dad. Because she’d been my real parent. The person who had loved me the most in the world. “She died about five years ago.”

Mac was quiet again. Taking it all in. I was surprised I’d told him all that. Mac had a way of making you open up when you didn’t even realize you were doing it. Like I had last night. It made me realize he was probably really good at whatever information collecting he did for the government.

“I’m going to take a swim,” he said, standing up, pulling off his T-shirt, and revealing a chest and abs that were beautifully defined, but it was in a way that talked of genuine hard work instead of weights and trainers. It was sexy. He had hair smattered all across it that neither Jared nor his model friends would have allowed. Their chests were always shaved, waxed, or lasered. Mac was all-natural male and maybe more gorgeous because of it.

“You going to come in?” he asked as he looked back at me from the edge of the boat, feet posed on the side, ready to dive into the brilliant blue water in his plaid shorts that I now realized were swim trunks.

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