Page 71 of Red Dreams

When nobody complies, I stride over to the table and swipe a pancake off Cassie’s plate, taking a bite. The pancake is fluffy and sweet, with no hint of poison.

“It’s good,” I say in a low voice. “Eat, Layla.”

Layla takes a tentative bite, her shoulders relaxing as the flavors hit her tongue. “Wow, these are actually amazing.”

Cassie’s smirk fades, replaced by a shuddered expression. “If I didn’t make Papa’s breakfast delicious every day, I’d be punished.”

An uncomfortable silence follows.

“Oh, thank God,” Ethan says, breaking the tension. “I was wondering how long we were gonna be forced to act like a bizarro family sitting down for a meal.”

Cassie barks out a laugh. “The grub with glasses is right. There’s nothing quaint about sleeping on the same property you were buried alive under. Are those your books?”

Layla’s jarred out of her uneasy expression by the rapid change in subject. “You mean the bookshelf over there? Yeah, they are.”

“Excuse me,grub?” Ethan asks.

“Romance, huh?” Cassie ignores Ethan and eases out of her chair mid-chew. She sidles out of the open kitchen and toward the bookcase.

Cassie runs her finger along the spines of the books, her nail catching on the embossed titles. She tilts her head, reading the titles aloud in a mocking tone. “The Duke's Forbidden Desire, Scandalous Seduction, Ravished by the Rogue...”

She plucks a well-worn paperback from the shelf, flipping through the pages with a snort.

“Love's Eternal Embrace,” she reads aloud, her voice dripping with disdain. “Sounds like a real page-turner.”

Layla's cheeks flush, and she stiffens in her chair. “There's nothing wrong with a little escapism. Those books got me through some tough times.”

“An escape from what?” Cassie scoffs. “Your perfect little life?”

She tosses the paperback carelessly onto the couch and pulls another one from the shelf, this one a hardcover with a glossy dust jacket.

“Cassie,” I warn.

“News flash, princess,” Cassie says to Layla. “There’s no escape from the real world.”

With a sudden, violent motion, Cassie rips the dust jacket off the book, tearing it cleanly in half. Layla gasps, jumping to her feet.

“What are youdoing?” Layla cries.

Cassie ignores her, tossing the ruined dust jacket to the floor. She flips open the book again, this time pulling a wicked-looking knife from her boot.

“Romance is dead,” Cassie says, then plunges the knife into the pages, twisting it savagely. Bits of paper flutter to the floor like confetti.

Layla races into the den. “What iswrongwith you?”

I’m fighting like hell not to intervene. In a way, an argument between these two could be healthy—like two piranhas going at each other could be healthy. Ethan is looking at me like I should’ve stepped between them already, but I meet his horrified look with hooded eyes. This needs to happen, whether we want it to or not.

Cassie dances out of Layla’s reach, holding the book above her head. “Oh, I'm sorry. Did I ruin your little fantasy world?”

She rips out another handful of pages, crumpling them in her fist.

“Give it back!”

“Please,” Cassie sneers. “You don’t know the first thing about romance. About love. Your just a little blond whore playing house with monsters.”

Something in Cassie’s statement makes Layla snap. With a scream of fury, she charges at Cassie, shoving her hard. Caught off guard, Cassie stumbles, the book falling from her grasp.

Meanwhile, I’m focused on what my daughter plans to do with that fucking knife.

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