Page 115 of Falling in Reverse

Ramsey doesn’t falter, putting his best behavior on, which means Emilio threatened him too. “You go to college at Oceanview. That you’re working on majoring in occupational therapy, which is fitting due to your father’s unfortunate turn in health. I did hear about the racing, and the dope running from my father, but I also learned that you love street food.”

“Sounds like a background check.”

Ramsey laughs softly. “Can’t blame the guy. Our family has many enemies.”

“Ones you’ve made.”

I reach over and squeeze her thigh, warning her to shut up because I want to eat and not have blood all over the table when I do.

“Depends who you ask,” Ramsey imparts as I subtly remove my palm. “So, choose the right side.”

“Haven will come around in time,” Emilio emits as though he can tell the future. “She’ll see who we are and not what she’s been told.”

“It’s Bay,” she retorts. “And am I going to be forced to these dinners every week?” She plucks my fingers off her leg and drops it gracelessly to the side. “Or do I have a choice?”

Emilio lifts his drink to his lips. “You have your mother’s stubbornness, but let’s just say I always win.”

“Forced,” she leers. “Got it.”

“I’m surprised that you, of all people, aren’t open to something like this,” he goes on. “I hear from Torin that you wanted to end this feud between our towns.”

I never said that.

I said she’s currently fucking Levi Wallace and that this was all a really bad fucking idea.

She readjusts herself in her chair. “Was that before or after he told you that I shot him?”

Christ.

“You must get the violence from me,” Emilio states blandly, taking another long sip of his drink.

“I like to consider them lessons,” the girl next to me claims. “I mean…he took something of mine. And then you strapped a bomb to his leg.”

“I needed your attention.”

“You’re not gonna like how I react.”

Emilio’s jaw twitches, and I’d love to see how he handles this. He wants Bay’s approval for some reason, and it’s not because he’s missing a child. He has Ramsey and I, two male heirs. Sure, we’re related by marriage, but he raised us.

She’s blood, but she’s on the wrong side. There is no bringing her to this one. Her brain is so tainted with hate that it’s past the point of no return. Emilio just needs to accept that.

“You’ll learn to heed what I say is true, Haven,” my father divulges. “If not, this keeps happening. And Torin’s little kidnapping is going to be the least of your problems. I do know all about your sisters after all.”

She begins to rise from the chair, and then thinks against it, placing her cute ass back down.

Emilio steers the conversation as if none of this took place, one of his specialties, while a course of salads is laid out, and that’s when I use the moment of attention not steered on Bay.

“I’m curious…were you looking to die or start a war? Or both?”

“Neither,” she mumbles. “I just want him to fuck off.”

“Yet here you are.”

“Did you not hear what the hell he said? He threatened my sisters, keep up.”

“I told you to leave South Shore.”

“You wanted me to drag my whole family out of their homes to make you sleep better at night?”

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