Page 25 of The Last Promise You Made

Performed by Rascal Flatts

I wasn’t sure why I’d given Gia that much insight into my past and my once-planned future. Maybe it was because my emotions were running high. Maybe it was because my life had just been upended, and I might be looking at a very different future than the one I’d envisioned ever since Ravyn had left.

I cleared my throat and headed for the bar.

“Water? Soda?” I asked.

“Water would be great,” Gia said.

“Topo Sabores?” Addy looked over at me, a hopeful expression on her face. I looked at Gia for clarification.

“It’s a soda in Mexico. Orange is the most known flavor. Doesn’t have as much sugar as Crush or Fanta.”

I had a list growing in my head of things I needed to get. Toys. Clothes. Books. Video games. And now, orange soda.

“I have root beer or ginger ale,” I said.

By the look on Addy’s face, I might as well have offered her slimy spinach.

I took three bottles of water from the fridge, twisted off the caps, handed one to Gia, and then set one down by Addy. I glanced at her score, and surprise shifted through me. “Sadie is going to be pi—upset that you’re about to beat her. She’s had the high score for years.”

“Sadie?” Addy asked, the name coming haltingly from her lips.

“She’s my sister…” I almost added she was Addy’s aunt, but then I held back. What would happen if we did the DNA test and this little girl wasn’t mine? What would I do? What would we all do if she eased herself into our hearts and then was taken away to live with her real father? What if her real dad was a member of the cartel? One of the ones who Gia had said would kill their own kid to keep their secrets?

Acid burned through my stomach at that thought.

My phone rang, and I pulled it out of my pocket. I grimaced at the picture of my mother, ignoring it because I didn’t know how to break this news to her yet. Mama had grieved the loss of Ravyn and her first grandchild more than anyone except me. It wasn’t just that she’d loved Ravyn and lost her. It was that she’d also seen me hurting and that had added to her pain. A mother’s love at work.

Had Ravyn loved Addy that much? I wanted to believe the little girl had received at least that from the life Ravyn had chosen for them.

Gia had taken a seat on one of the high-backed barstools, and as I joined her, I said more to myself than her, “What kind of existence could she possibly have had? Always moving. Running with fear chasing them.”

Gia shifted, uncomfortable for some unknown reason, before she raised her chin. “There are positives to moving around.”

I turned toward her a bit more, and our knees bumped. Heat and awareness flashed through me.

“Like what?” I asked.

“Resilience. Independence.”

“Firsthand experience with this, I take it?”

“My dad was in the military. We moved a lot. Three times in high school alone.”

I couldn’t imagine being torn out of my safety zone at that tumultuous time in my life. My friends and family had grounded me. Instead of letting sympathy she wouldn’t want break free, I asked a question instead. “Military dad, Secret Service agent brother, and you’re an NSA analyst. Are your parents proud or concerned that you followed in those footsteps?”

She shifted, discomfort growing. She didn’t want to talk about herself. “Holden is former Secret Service. And my mom and brother think I work for an agricultural journal just like you did.”

I stared at her for a long beat before her words settled in. All the reasons not to trust her leaped back to life. She didn’t just lie to strangers for a living. She lied to the people she loved most. What did that do to a person? How did it twist their values…shift the lines they weren’t willing to cross?

My expression must have given my thoughts away, because she huffed and said, “It’s better this way. Mom doesn’t worry, and my brother doesn’t meddle.”

I raised a brow, and she crossed her arms over her chest before turning those green-and-amber eyes away to watch Addy. As I took in her profile, I realized she looked tired. There were dark circles I hadn’t noticed earlier below her lashes. She was paler than when I’d seen her last. In the months since she’d been here, she’d grown tauter, more muscled. As if she’d done nothing but work out as she scurried from place to place. As if life had hit her hard along the way.

I imagined chasing a drug cartel across the globe could do that to you. I imagined Ravyn’s brutalized body wasn’t the only one Gia had seen. It infuriated me for some reason—the idea of Gia seeing evil every day. I much preferred the concept of her hunting down the latest and greatest in agricultural technologies than facing the devil. And if it bothered me, a virtual stranger, I could imagine it would torture a family who loved her.

None of my family liked the idea of Maddox facing guns and bad guys either, but that wouldn’t cause him to lie to us about what he was doing. Pretend to be someone he wasn’t.

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