Page 4 of Hear Me Roar

“No, Petrova. With an age gap like that, the odds are already against you. Wouldn’t you be putting double the effort into winning over your future father-in-law rather than upsetting him further? Unless, of course, you have no interest in family whatsoever, which would explain how easy it was for him to eradicate them from their life in L.A., drag his love-drunk, naive wife across the nation, and forbid her from contacting him everagain.”

Hazel’s jaw nearly tumbled to the floor. “He forbade her from speaking to her ownfather?”

Karley nodded. “Those were Maya’s exactwords.”

“What else did she share,” I interjected, scooting to the edge of my seat withinterest.

“Not much,really.”

“And what did she say about her father’sdeath?”

“Nothing, to be honest. She cried, but seemed very detached about the whole thing. Everything she shared was so scatterbrained and all over the place, too; as though she'd been wanting to vent about it for years, and it was all gushing out in no specific order. The one thing she mentioned several times, and was clear as day, is that she wants to talk toHazel.”

Silence.

Deadsilence.

Hazel glanced between Karley and myself for several moments, a semi-disturbed expression etched on her face. “There’s no way in hell I’m calling her. That would be awkward times a million. Yes, I wanted to know where she wasbecauseof the Will. That’s it. If she wants to collect her belongings, I'm more than happy to meet her here and take her to Bernie’s so she can go through it all herself. What she wants to do with his place after that is up toher.”

“From the way in which she voiced wanting to speak with you, I highly doubt she cares about her inheritance or the house. Aside from detached, she sounded very panicked throughout the entireconversation.”

The last thing I heard before zoning out waspanicked. Considering all we’d learned, that one little word shot up red flags and shrilling sirens in my mind. Something was wrong here. Very, very wrong. What unsettled me most was her desire to speak to Hazel. Why? They'd never met, had never even spoken a word to each other. I understood, on some level, her desire to meet the woman who'd essentially taken care of her father, but I don't know…something was off, and I didn’t like it. Little did we know just how off the next several months were going tobe...

My mind was spinning.And not even just slightly spinning. I mean full-on ‘cyclone of information overload’ spinning. What the hell had I just sat through? A shit storm, obviously, but as Knox and I drove home from Karley’s office, I still couldn’t wrap my head around all that had come to light. Some of it wasn’t new, of course, but what we’d learned today was almost unbelievable, and I couldn’t push past the fact that something just didn’t add up. I mean, why in the world would Maya want to talk to me in the first place? We’d never met, meaning that first phone call would be inevitably awkward. Why would she want to put us both through that? Sure, I’d been curious about her for a long time, but not enough to reach out to her when, in reality, I wasn’t exactly her biggest fan after what she’d done to my old man. Because yes, he was mine.Shemight've been his biological daughter, butIwas the one who was with him during his final years. Always taking care of him, always cherishing the moments we spent together. You know, doing all the things a loving daughter should do. Even if she were able to understand that, what was she supposed to say? ‘Hey, thanks for watching over my old man while I was off on the other side of the nation, with the husband he didn't approve of, pretending he didn'texist.’

Yeah,right.

My phone rattled in the cup holder, yanking me away from my disgruntled thoughts. Shaking my head, I slid my hand out of Knox’s grasp and reached for the iPhone, my eyes scanning across the screen as I read the text on display. A smile curled mylips.

Soul Sista:Yo, biznatch. How’d itgo?

Reyna. Yep,thatReyna. We’d become unexpectedly close since Knox and I full-throttled into ‘it’s serious’ territory, and I’d grown to love the girl to bits. She was one of the few people, aside from Knox, who knew how to talk me down from the edge, and my testy attitude – much like Tori – didn’t scare her away. In many ways actually, she was awfully similar to Tori; vibrant, care-free, always smiling, humorous. I often wondered if this were Tori’s doing from somewhere on the other side; a way to keep her memory alive, while still allowing me to move forward with the people who’d become so important in mylife.

Me:The short version...insane.

Soul Sista:WTF? Whathappened?

Me:Wayyy too long to type. Just know I’m completely mindfucked.

Soul Sista:You can’t do that to me! Now I have toknow!

Me:Are you and Luis still planning on coming overtonight?

Soul Sista:Hell yes weare!

Me:I’ll tell youthen.

Soul Sista:Ugh, FINE! You’re a pain in my ass, you knowthat?

Me:Takes one to knowone.

I added a lovely little middle finger emoji to follow my last text and promptly clicked the lock button to shut off the screen, stuffing the phone beneath my leg. Her reply came through almost instantly and I giggled, imagining the string of profanities her message likely consisted of. I'd check it later, though, because at that very moment, we pulled up to a red light and Knox’s curious gaze was fixated onme.

“What's so funny?” he asked, baby blues twinkling when I turned my head to meet hisstare.

“Reyna.”

“Ahhh, yes. Miss Fonseca, the spitfire. What’d she have tosay?”

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