Page 35 of Frayed Owner

They did and it was done. Clare leaned on the table and then seemed to gather herself, ready to brace herself for what came next.

But Jean barely waited for the councilmen to bang the gavel before she was breezing towards the exit with Mother hurrying after her.

Grandmother was a bit slower and the last out the door. She paused at the door and partially glanced back. “All my love, Clare. Be well.”

“Thank you, Grandmother,” she breathed, but Grandmother was already gone. She took in a long breath and let it out before looking at me. “Thank you for this. I don’t know I could have done it on my own. I don’t know how you did when we were all standing on that side.”

I shrugged. “I had to. I wanted to. I was never one of you.”

What else was there really to say? Nothing.

We had the second hearing real quick where Clare was named a Millen and then they headed out. I gave two quick sessions to councilmen since their familiars were there and they had a break in their hearings. I was glad to see they were taking the matter seriously. Then I walked some of the council lands with Councilman Oliveria while glamoured as his daughter.

With her permission of course.

I felt the energy of the area and told him where he needed to start bringing in worms and birds. It would seem wasteful financially to buy birds just to release, but… Nature loved that. Same with mice. They had a huge forest surrounding the council estate.

They already had mice.

Of course they did.

“This is good news,” he comforted me as he set a circle for me and my security.

I glanced around and nodded. “Yeah, I’m glad people are taking it seriously and the goal is for this place to become a haven and beacon instead of only where people are punished.”

“Well, yes, that too, but I meant about Jean taking over for Charles.” He flinched when I gave him a horrified look. “What is wrong with what I said and—”

“Jean is no better than Charles,” I told him firmly, nodding when he seemed hesitant. I grabbed his arm and made sure he saw how serious I was. “I know we called Father and my family psychos, but Father and Alex are sociopaths. They’re reactive, volatile, and all over the place. Also, lazy and idiots.”

“And your sister?” he asked, understanding he’d missed something.

“She’s apsychopath,” I told him firmly. “Jean issmart. She waited until the perfect time to act and had Grandmother—whatever she did or however she pulled this off to make the aunts and uncles agree, Grandmother was scared. She wanted Clare out of range. Why would that be if she never did that when Father was in charge?”

“You’re right. You are very right. I will warn the others.” He sighed when I nodded. “But at least fornow, it’s better for you. She will be so busy fighting to keep her position she won’t be much of a threat to you. And when she might try, you will have so much more in place for yourself. This is still better even if she’s a scarier adversary.”

He wasn’t wrong, but he was being dismissive again. I let it go and moved on with my day since I had a lot to do.

But Taylor was just as dismissive when I spoke with him. It pissed me off since the contract was withme, not Tracey or the council to protect me.

Seriously, I was seconds from telling Cheese to bite his ass.

I worked my ass off to get everything handled at the factory. Both treat trucks were going now, and we had our dog and cat familiar pop-up stand to help out. We needed to hire more people and fast but also not let snakes slither in. Tracey and I agreed that prospective hires—and even people who worked for us—were all going to be interviewed under truth magic.

It was the only way to be sure. If they didn’t like it—too bad. They could work somewhere else and for criminals. I wasn’t taking the risk. Not when so much was at stake and I was being hassled almost every day on campus for one recipe or another.

Too much was out of control, but this we could control.

And we had to. We just put out another ad that we were expanding and hiring. We needed people but trusted ones.

Plus, the people who immediately applied wanted to leave their jobs with top-tier families. Those would be the ones most likely to spy on us using that excuse. We had to check.

The ones who were clean understood that and had no problems.

So what would we assume with the ones who threw a fit and stormed out?

Yeah, of course, we thought the worst. Duh.

I was wiped when I was done at the factory. I hadn’t even noticed Kelton had been working with me and he seemed less than thrilled about that. It wasn’t even the tension or weirdness between us. I was just overloaded.

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