"I've always wanted you," I admitted, voice small.
"Well, you got me now. Like it or not."
I liked it.
God, I liked it.
I maybe even kind of, well, loved it.
Twelve
Vance - Present Day
I didn't want to go back to Navesink Bank.
And, what's more, I didn't think Ferryn wanted to either.
We seemed perfectly content to stay in bed late, only taking a short break to go down to the dining room to grab the complimentary breakfast, taking it back to our room to eat in bed while watching Saved by the Bell reruns.
Eventually, I climbed up to grab a shower. Which she joined.
And it all just felt right.
Her and me.
Without any outside influence.
But this was an illusion—a vacation from what was going to be our real life.
It didn't escape me, either, that our real life would mean that we were going to have to break this news to everyone.
To be perfectly honest, I think Summer and even Lo already suspected something. And who knew what stories West had been telling them since we took off.
But I would have to tell Reign.
And all the guys in the club. Who I thought of as brothers. But whose loyalty to her as their niece could mean that some serious fucking talking-tos were in my future.
I'd do it all. Take it all. If that's what was necessary for us to go public with this, to not have to hide it.
A part of me was worried that Ferryn preferred it this way. A dirty little secret. Something that maybe felt more temporary to her.
It didn't escape me that she was struggling to let herself put down roots. That she wasn't sure how to make her mission and her life work together. A part of her was maybe even convinced that it wasn't possible to marry those two things together, that they were too opposite, that one couldn't exist alongside the other.
And for any normal relationship or any normal family dynamic, that was probably true. But there was nothing normal about her family full of bikers and bomb makers and paramilitary leaders.
There wasn't a single person in that group—and I was even counting the sweet, soft souls like Rey—that wouldn't openly embrace her mission if they knew what it was, why she was doing it, what kind of rabid dogs she was putting down for good so they couldn't keep going along hurting innocent people.
To be fair, at first, I hadn't been sure how I truly felt about it. I didn't know how I could rationalize it, even knowing she was serving a greater good.
There had been a knot in my stomach as we drove out of Navesink Bank, as a certain coldness overtook Ferryn.
I genuinely wasn't sure I could see her brutally murder people and still see her the same way.
I didn't have anything to worry about.
See, when you thought of traffickers, if you were a decent human being, your stomach turned, your saliva went bitter. But you imagined woman snatched off streets. Maybe even young women.
But because it was so fucking impossible even to imagine, you didn't immediately think of children lured away from their parents or snatched off of playgrounds. You couldn't fathom someone sexualizing a toddler, let alone some scumbag trading them around to perverts.
It wasn't a reality most of us could wrap our heads around. It was an ugliness we simply didn't let into our minds.
But Ferryn did.
Ferryn had to.
The second those words were out of her mouth, I understood with one-hundred percent fucking clarity that what she did was needed, was necessary, was the only thing tipping the scales more toward good than evil
I thought I knew myself pretty well, had experienced most of the highs and lows of life.
I couldn't have been more wrong. Because I had never felt anger like the kind that burned through my system as we moved into that building.
I wanted blood.
I wanted to paint the fucking world with the blood of those men.
I didn't even pause in making that a reality, either.
Though I did pause for a moment to admire the way Ferryn tore into that room. With confidence. With righteous vengeance. With the ease of true purpose.
See, if it weren't for Ferryn, those men would be alive. Those men would be free to continue to traffic babies.
How could you not embrace her lifestyle when she saved countless families from untold heartbreak, children from torture?
I didn't have to like the idea that she was putting herself in dangerous situations, that she often did it alone.
I did have to accept it as part of her reality, though, if I wanted to have her.
And I did.
It really was that simple.
But also that complicated.
"Does it look any better?" she asked, coming out of the bathroom in her underwear and a nearly see-through tank—something I damn sure wasn't complaining about—waving the concealer tube at her face. We'd picked up one that claimed it covered tattoos the night before and she had been layering it on for a few minutes already, mumbling about how she didn't know why she used to actually enjoy putting on makeup when she was younger.
"I think in the right light, you can see a bit of a shadow still, but they will probably write it off as sleeplessness."
"It will have to do," she said, shrugging, reaching for the nondescript black sweatshirt she'd picked out of the teen girls' section the night before because all the adult shit would hang off her body. "At least I won't have to explain these," she said, waving her hands toward the blue marks on her hips. From where I had apparently slammed her into the sink. I knew I was supposed to feel bad for marking her, but I couldn't find one damn shred of apology in me for those ones. "Pretty proud of yourself, huh?" she asked, responding to the smirk I didn't even try to hide.
"Yeah, pretty much," I agreed, nodding, finally dragging on my clothes too. "How long is the drive back from here?" I asked, knowing she was the one with all the plans. Which was funny considering she was the girl who never had any plans, always kind of just flew by the seat of her pants.
"About four and a half," she grumbled. "As if
I'm not sore enough."
"At least we'll be back for dinner."
Her mom was cooking. Of course, she was. She was looking for any excuse to do motherly things for the girl she'd lost for so long.
"This is true. And she's making her famous banana bread too. I haven't been able to think of anything since else since she texted you that."
"Think you might want to consider getting yourself a phone that everyone else can text too, Ace," I reminded her, stepping into my shoes. "They're all going to want access to you. It's gonna get weird going through me all the time."
"Speaking of you," she said, gathering up the takeaway containers from the night before, stuffing them into the trash.
"I'm telling Reign tonight," I told her, watching as her eyes went wary. "I figure if everyone else knows, your chickenshit ass won't try to back out of this for no good reason."
"Chickenshit," she mused, giving me a strange smile. "That... that is a new one."
"Yet fitting. You ready?"
"I, ah, yeah, I guess so."
About five hours later, we were back at the compound, nursing our sore thighs and asses with a few drinks as Ferryn's aunts and a few of her uncles rushed around getting food ready.
"My girl has a black eye," Reign told me, moving in at my side, jerking his chin toward his daughter who was catching up with one of her cousins.
"Yeah," I agreed, nodding.
"Caught the news about an old coffeeshop getting burned down and finding bodies inside."
"Imagine that."
She hurt anywhere else?"
"Just a couple bruises. She handles herself well, Prez."
"She always did. But I'm glad you were there for her."
With that, he went to walk away, making me realize it was now or never. "Hey, Prez?" I called, making him turn back, a br
ow raised over his green eyes.
"Yeah?"
"Plan to be there for her a lot in the future."
Reign was not a man of many words, so he didn't exactly need it all spelled out for him. He knew exactly what I meant.
"Yeah? So that's the way of it?"
"That's the way of it," I agreed, nodding.
A deep breath strained his chest as he looked at Ferryn, then back at me, eyes unreadable as they often were.
"Guess that makes sense."
And that was it.
In a way, that was his approval.
Reign didn't need to issue threats. He knew his existence was threat enough. If I hurt Ferryn, I knew my body would never be found. That was the way of it. And that was alright by me. Because I didn't have any plans on hurting her. Occasional bruises from extracurricular activities aside, of course.
Everything was going well.
Ferryn seemed to be thawing out, warming up, smiling more, losing that tension that tightened her shoulders around seeing her family again.
And then the door opened.
And shit got real.
Thirteen
Ferryn - Present Day
I don't know who I had been expecting when the door opened. Another aunt, another uncle.
Not her.
"Why the hell didn't you tell me you were coming back to Navesink Bank?" Chris demanded loudly, making all conversation silent immediately.
Because the secret was out.
"Excuse me?" Aunt Lo demanded, voice deceptively calm. A woman who made her life's work the way she did, she wasn't quick to outward emotions, knowing that for a woman in a position of power, she had to be ten times colder than men in similar positions just to be taken half as seriously.
So calm, in this situation, was not a good thing.
"Aunt Lo," I started, trying to reason with her, trying to take some of the focus away from Chris.
Though, to be honest, that was where my focus was as well.
The last time I had seen Chris, she'd still been in that dingy t-shirt she'd lived in for months. She was greasy-haired and malnourished. Her mind and body half-broken from months of rape and torture.
I had gotten her out of that basement with me.
I had made sure that when I left, she would be taken care of.
From what Vance told me, my Uncle Cash and Aunt Lo had taken her in, had adopted her, had helped her heal—body and mind.
And healed she looked. From the outside. Of course, I had no idea what her head was like. But where she'd been this frail, breakable girl in that basement, good food and freedom and lack of fear had thickened her up. Not overweight, but thick—rounded in the thighs, hips, ass, bust. Her blonde hair was clean and waving around her face that had always been a bit hauntingly beautiful.
She looked amazing.
A part of me felt bad for always viewing her as I last remembered her instead of this much stronger, much more vibrant woman before me.
"No no," Aunt Lo said, holding a finger up to me. "We will get to you. Chris, I am going to need you to repeat that. Did you just ask her why she didn't tell you she was coming back? Like she's been in contact with you before she got back here?"
To her credit, even with Aunt Lo being at peak boss-bitch, Chris's chin lifted and her gaze was unwavering, not intimidated. "Because she has been."
"For how long?" Lo demanded as my mother cast devastated looks in her adopted niece's direction.
Which was exactly why I had told Chris this needed to be something we kept to ourselves, that no good would come from this particular truth coming out.
"Six years," Chris told her, making my stomach drop.
"Six. Years. You've been in contact with Ferryn for six years without telling me?"
"Yes."
That was it. No explanations. No defense. Just the blunt truth.
Damn.
She was going to take over Hailstorm one day. She'd been working there for years, of course. And it maybe even seemed like Aunt Lo would like a protege to groom to eventually take her place so that she could retire. But I had never been able to see it before right at that moment.
She would be a fearsome leader.
"How did you get in contact with her?" Lo insisted.
"Ferryn's been... busy," Chris decided, choosing to be careful about this truth, likely knowing I would kill her if she slapped my mother upside the head with the truth like that. "And I've been looking. Luckily, she's just as cocky as you guys all told me she was," she added, giving me a smirk. "She left some traces of herself around just itching to be found."
"And?" Aunt Lo demanded, wanting the whole truth.
"And I found it. And I tracked her down. And I got in touch."
"Without telling me?"
"Yes," Chris agreed again, nodding.
"Why? Why wouldn't you tell me?"
"Because I didn't want her to," I cut in, drawing attention back to me. And, well, I simply couldn't look at my mother right then, I couldn't stand the hurt and the confusion I would likely find there.
"Yeah, well, that shouldn't have mattered," Aunt Lo declared, turning back to Chris. "Since you answer to me, not her."
"That would be so if you hadn't given me control, told me to handle operations that I found that I was passionate about. You gave me full control. You told me to show you what I was made of. You can't have it both ways, Ma."
"You know the hell we were going through not knowing where she was, if she was okay."
"You knew she was okay. She wrote every week."
"But none of us had contact with her. How could you keep this from us? From me?"
"Because you would have made her stop," Chris told her, sticking with the truth even though she was clearly losing a little bit of her cool.
"You don't know..."
"That first time, when she was in surgery for a punctured lung, yeah, I do know. I know. You would have gone there en force and made her come home. You never would have let her out of your sight until you were sure she was done, that she decided it wasn't worth it."
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my Aunt Rey shuffling the young kids out the back door, likely knowing that where this was going was not something they needed to be part of.
"Decided that what wasn't worth it?" Aunt Lo demanded, voice steel.
"Lo, let this drop," my father cut in, giving her a heavy look, having a silent conversation.
Sometimes, my father forgot that he couldn't get anything past my mother.
The look she gave my father didn't need any interpreting. It said I know you have been keeping something from me, and you are going to answer for it later.
"Chris," my mom said, giving her the Mom Look, the one that said you better not lie to my face, no matter how uncomfortable the truth might be. "What has Ferryn been up to that you thought was worthy enough of a cause to keep all this from us?"
Chris's gaze slid to me, seeking permission even though we both knew it had to come out now. All of it. To everyone.
I gave her the nod she was looking for.
"She's been hunting down human traffickers. Specifically, sex traffickers."
There was a crushing silence following the words, everyone in the room trying to process this new information, this uncomfortable truth.
See, no one could object to it, could they?
After what Chris had been through especially.
When she found out what I was up to, of course she had wanted to help in any way that she could.
Help she did, too.
If not for Chris, I was sure I would have been dead years ago. I definitely wouldn't have been able to get out from underneath the crushing medical care debts.
She did the research for me, having the resources available to her up at Hailstorm where hackers and dark web trackers were a dime a dozen. She found the guys; she found where they were staying; she gave me all the information I needed so I didn't go in blind. On top of that, she provided funds.
&
nbsp; "I don't understand," Aunt Lo said, shaking her head. "You've made a good ROI with the money we have funneled to you for your cases. There is no money in murder."
She said that word casually.
Murder.
It was a word that made most people flinch.
And I think it was telling that not a single person in the room flinched at it.
Not even my mother.
"I only funneled Ferryn five percent of the money you gave me. And I cut down to a minimum crew to make up the difference on the other cases. Really, Ma, you waste a ridiculous amount of money at Hailstorm. You could cut down costs by a third and use that money to fund good causes."
"Like making your cousin a murderer," Aunt Lo said, gaze steely.
"Ferryn was already a murderer," Chris shot back, shocking everyone else into stunned silence even if they all knew it.
It was what they likely all thought was the reason I ran in the first place.
Holding up that gun.
Aiming.
Pulling the trigger.
Shooting my own maternal grandmother.
"That was different and you know it," Aunt Lo insisted. "That was a life or death situation. Your life, if you recall."
My grandmother was going to shoot Chris.
That was the tipping point.
That was what turned me from a relatively normal girl into a killer.
And I had never, ever regretted it.
"What are you saying, Ma?" Chris asked, raising her well-shaped brows. "That my life is worth more? That Ferryn's life is worth more? Because you know us? Than the dozens or hundreds of others who we have saved? Before Ferryn saved me, I had nobody. Just like these women and girls have nobody," Chris declared, voice raising, hitching ever-so-slightly. She wouldn't break down. I'd known her to have grown a little too hardened for that. At least in public. But she was struggling with holding it together. "They were crammed in ships and in basements and men were holding them down in beds and forcing themselves on them and they had no hope, no one to come for them. You can't stand here and tell me that saving them wasn't worth some dark marks on our souls. Wasn't worth a little heartbreak due to the separation. It was worth it. I would do it again a thousand times over. Because not everyone has someone like you. They don't have people like this club. They don't have heroes and heroines to rush in and get them out. So, they have us. You don't have to like that. You don't even have to accept that. But that is how it is. We do this for them. And if that means we sacrifice our relationships with you, then that is something we have to live with."
The Rise of Ferryn Page 19
