Page 76 of Sloth
Then Evan’s green gaze caught on the still rasping figure of Barry, leaning against the wall, holding his daughter. It wasn’t clear who was trying to protect who, but both stared wide-eyed at Sloan, as if she were the enemy.
Evan’s eyes narrowed on his sister. “You did this?”
Although it pained her to admit, she nodded.
Menacing electricity arced up his tattooed arms, crackling and sparking with light. “Move away from Barry and his daughter, Sloan.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
Another masculine groan sounded as Parker came to. His fist slammed on the table, shaking the contents as he pulled himself up. Tony was next. Flint and Mary were last. When all eyes comprehended what Sloan had done, they stared at her.
Just stared.
She could almost hear their thoughts ticking over. What to do with her? Was she family, or foe?
“I said, move away from Barry, Sloan.” A divot formed between Evan’s brows.
She held up her hands in surrender. “I’m sorry. I lost control. It won’t happen again.”
It was Mary who made the first move. Sloan’s deadly mother smoothed her hair back, but couldn’t hide the tremble in her hands as her eyes locked on her daughter. She was afraid.
The notion almost floored Sloan.
Afraid of me.Me, the whiny bitch.The one no one took seriously. The one who slept and gamed away entire days.Me.
Fear… not respect. She gasped. It wasn’t meant to be like this.
Mary sidestepped the bench and approached. Her movement was the switch that sent everyone into action. Flint rushed to his old friend.
“Evan, see if you can get Grace down,” Flint ordered before crouching down and seeing to Barry’s injury.
“No,” Barry rasped. “I’m fine. She stopped in time, mate. I’m fine.”
“Mija,” Mary said softly to Sloan. “What happened?”
Sloan blinked. “I called you on the drive. You all know. Max was taken. It was a trap. Why aren’t you all looking for him?”
“I meant, what happened now? Focus on one thing at a time.”
“Max is the priority.” Sloan shook off her mother’s hand and went to the center strategy table. A laptop was open. Perfect. She needed to start searching. First, she’d source a picture of Max—there must be one of him somewhere in AIMI’s feed—then feed it into the facial recognition databases. She’d have AIMI searching for Max on every camera feed in the country.
“Mija, you can’t ignore what happened.”
“I’m not ignoring it. I’m very sorry for what I’ve done, but I’m putting it in a box. Compartmentalizing. If I don’t, you’ll all be drowning in my regret and self-pity. I’ll unpack the box later.”
Mary’s big sigh brushed the back of Sloan’s neck.“Mija, please relax.”
“No time to relax.” Her fingers tapped the keyboard at a manic speed.
“Sloan!” Mary’s curt voice cut through Sloan’s purpose. It was themothertone.
“What?”
“Check your tattoo.”
Sloan tilted her wrist and frowned. Since she’d met her mate, the Yin-Yang tattoo was meant to be a circle equally balanced, half black, half white. Not this time. “It’s almost all white. I’ve never seen it like that. Why is it like that?”
Parker moved in and inspected it. “How do you feel?”
