Page 129 of Property of Chaos

I ache to slap the smug look right off his perverted face.

“As I was saying?—“

The office door cracks open with a loud clunk.

Counsellor Kuniss rolls his eyes at his assistant.Pity the girl.“What now?”

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but a last attendee has just arrived.”

“Who?” His face contorts with confusion, as does Abraham’s.

I sit forward, focus on the door as a suit-clad leg comes into view first, followed by masculine hands fussing with the jacket, then—the fuck?“Gage?”

His head turns at my voice, and his strong profile softens as he takes me in. “Vanessa.”

We’re equally as surprised to see the other. “What the—?” I start as he says, “Where have you been?”

“Living my life,” I answer quietly, studying my brother.

Absorbing howdifferenthe looks. Yes, he’s aged. The lanky awkwardness of a teenager has hardened into the commanding profile of a man. But it’s something in his gaze, the way he moves his body, and his mannerisms that make me reluctant to remove my focus from him.

Compassion.Fuck. Of course. It’s the movements of a man who cares, who’s curious and welcoming. Not the cold, stiff judgment of the man across the room who spent years molding him to be his heir.

“How dare you?” Abraham booms, rising from his seat. He scowls at Gage, knocking the vacant seat beside him across the floor an inch in his haste to reach my brother. “To choosetodayto show your fucking face.” His ire echoes around the room; the door closed again, trapping us with his fire.

“She was my mother,” Gage hollers back, leaning into Abraham, highlighting his height advantage over the dictator. “Ourmother. So, how dareyou,” he scathes. “You have the least right to be here.”

“Everyone,” the lawyer calls, face reddening. “Settle yourselves and take a seat. Please.”

“Gladly.” Gage grabs the back of the spare chair and pointedly drags it across the room to where I sit with Evelyn, forcing Abraham back.

I reach for his hand once he’s settled, a thrill vibrating in my chest when he wraps his fingers around mine.

“The estate for Julianna May Faith is simple,” the lawyer states, breaking straight to the heart of things. “She was a modest woman of few possessions.”Because that asshole took them all.“But she was also steadfast in her deliverance of them in the event of her passing, which she ensured through the creation of multiple copies of this document.” He bristles at the revelation.

What exactly does he mean? Did she distribute her will elsewhere should this type of manipulation happen?

“To Gage Thaddeus Faith?—“

“Hodder,” my brother snaps, correcting the surname to the one we were born with.

“Gage ThaddeusFaith,” the lawyer seethes, angered at yet another interruption. “She leaves her heirloom ring and the contents of her bank account, which at the time of her passing was twenty thousand in savings and stocks equating to four thousand and seven dollars.”

Abraham leans an elbow on the arm of his chair, a grimace disguised behind his hand. Did he not know she had her own account? Sure seems like a point of contention.

“And to Vanessa MayFaith.” He pauses, glaring at me as though daring me to correct him.

I lift an eyebrow.

“She leaves her property at seventy-four Harbor Street, a four-bedroom townhouse, contents listed on the attached addendum.”

She what?I thought she had sold our first home. The one she raised us in alone. “Are you sure?”

“It says so right here,” he snaps, waving the typed page at me. “Would you trust it better if you read it with your own eyes?”

“No need to be an asshole,” Evelyn mutters. “She’s surprised at the news. Clearly.”

“I thought Mom sold that house?” Gage asks, speaking my thoughts.

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