Page 14 of Finding Redemption

Laughing, he offered my phone back.“Text me as soon as you get there.”

I’d rolled my eyes so much in the past ten minutes I felt a headache coming on, but I still did it as I slipped the phone into my pocket.“Sure thing, Daddy.”

His choked inhale had heat filling my face.

And spreading throughout my entire treacherous body.

ChapterEight

Brooke

I barely gotthrough the apartment door when I received a text.

Paxton: I know exactly how long it takes to get from here to Riah’s apartment.You should have been there ten minutes ago.

If my head hadn’t already been pulsing with a growing migraine, I would have rolled my eyes.Instead, I went into my bedroom, making sure to lock my door behind me.Sariah and I shared the living room and kitchen area, but our bedrooms were strictly off-limits.She was my friend, but I didn’t trust anyone enough to be in the space where I slept.

Now, however, I was wondering just how much of a friend she really was.I remembered the way she’d acted when I’d caught her gaze during Bella’s exciting fight with Kylo.She’d had guilt all over her face, but I’d been too distracted to really question it.

Now, I understood.

Pressing my back against the door, I finally let the reality of coming face-to-face with my uncle sink in.My legs no longer wanting to support me, I slid to the floor and buried my face in my hands, my sob filling the quiet room.

Sariah had known.I didn’t know how she knew, but now, I was sure of it.She knew who Luck was to me, and she’d set today up.

She was the only friend I had, and now she’d become one more person who had let me down.

I was used to it at this point in my life, but it still stung.

When I was growing up, my mom seemed to go through one relationship after another.Although she always said all she needed was me, I never felt like that was true.Men came and went, but they never stuck around for more than a few months at a time.It didn’t take me long to realize that men were undependable.

When I was sixteen, my mom had been out on a date with her newest boyfriend when they were struck by a drunk driver.My entire world had been tossed upside down.Child Protective Services had shown up at our apartment the next morning with the cops.They broke the news to me that she’d died, then gave me half an hour to pack what I needed before dropping me on my father’s doorstep.

I’d never met the man before that day.To me, he’d been nothing more than a name on my birth certificate.Stepping into that house, with his wife and their children, was the beginning of my hell.

Shaking away all thoughts of those nightmares, I focused on the moment I’d met Luck.I was still emotionally numb the day of Mom’s funeral.My focus had been on her casket, which had remained closed the entire ceremony.My father had had his driver take me to the funeral, refusing to attend it with me.Not that I’d cared.I hadn’t wanted an audience while I’d said goodbye to the only family I’d ever known.

It was at the grave site, as the casket was being lowered into the ground while the last prayer was being spoken, that I noticed the man directly across from me.

Wearing sunglasses, in a suit that was obviously tailored to his muscular frame, he’d had his head cocked in a way that told me he was looking straight at me.Through dry, gritty eyes, I’d taken in his blond curls, the angle of his jaw, the shape of his nose.It didn’t take a genius to realize that this man was related to my mother.Other than his height, he looked like the perfect male version of her.

While the few other people who had come to pay their final respects to my mom had slowly dispersed, he had walked around the grave.

“You must be Brooke,” he’d rasped, a sad smile tilting one side of his mouth.His taking off his sunglasses had drawn my attention to the scar through his brow.Noticing where my gaze was, he’d rubbed his index finger over it.“Maggie’s handiwork.”

A startled laugh escaped me, the first true emotion I’d felt in days.“My mom did that to you?”

His green eyes, so like my mom’s, lit up, but the glow did nothing to hide the evidence that he’d been crying.“You look just like her,” he whispered.“God, it’s like being teleported back to when we were kids.”

“Are you a cousin or something?”Mom never spoke of her family.I’d asked once when I had to do a genealogy report for school, but all she’d said was my dad was an only child.I’d assumed that meant she was as well.

Throat bobbing, the man before me gave me another sad smile.“I’m your uncle Luck.Maggie is…” He made a choking sound, whispering, “She was my twin sister.”

Another text alert drew my attention.Scrubbing a hand over my damp cheeks, I read the new message.

Paxton: Answer me, kitten.

Angrily, I typed out a reply.

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