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“We have no fucking idea where she is.” Finn helpfully shared in a voice that rivaled Romero’s.
Ariel chewed on her bottom lip as her eyes darted nervously between Romero and Finn, and then back again. “Maybe she just needed some space. This is a lot you guys have going on here, it’d be a lot for anyone, and maybe she just needed a second to herself to breathe or something. You know, some girl time, or alone time, or whatever.”
Her words made sense but no matter how much I wanted to believe they could possibly be true I knew without a shadow of a doubt in my mind they absolutely were not. When Isobel needed alone time she went out back on the patio and got stoned, but she never wandered off on her own.
I cleared my throat and still my voice came out rough when I said, “Baby girl, will you check in with Raven and see if he’s heard from her recently, or knows what’s going on with her? Please, I don’t know how to contact him.”
That would be changing after today. After today I’d know that motherfuckers social security number, where he stuck his dick and with who, and I’d know what he texted my woman and I’d be recording their conversations on the phone.
What Isobel didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.
“Hey, dad,” Dash murmured as he slowly approached his father with extreme caution. “How about I head over to the cottage and check to see if she’s there or there’s any sign of her having been there. Do you want to stay here or ride along with me?”
I didn’t like this and almost snarled at Dash like a rabid beast. I didn’t want anybody to take Romero anywhere right then. Or Finn, for that matter. We belonged together, and we’d stay together until we got our female back.
“Romero isn’t going anywhere,” Finn rumbled out dangerously as he stared down Dash with straight up murder in his eyes.
Finally, an emotion I could get behind.
And I had to hand it to Finn, the set of balls he had swinging between his legs must have been fucking huge to stare down Dash like that with his whole coven at his back.
It was just what I needed to snap me out of my emotional and internal meltdown. From the look on Rome’s face it had worked its magic on him as well.
Dash, however, was not impressed with Finn in the slightest. He sneered down at Finn as his lips curled in disgust. “Do not tell me what my father,” he thumped his fist against his chest when he said my father, “is or isn’t going to do. You have no say in the matter and you damn sure have no control over him. So shut your fucking mouth.”
This was a side to Romero’s son that I had not seen before and if it were directed at anyone else but Finn right now I might have kept my mouth shut while silently applauding him for standing up for his dad.
The problem was, his dad didn’t really need him coming to his defense and he definitely didn’t need his son coming between him and someone he had a relationship with.
I was learning adult children, despite their having our best interest at heart, really ought to just stay out of our business when it came to our relationships and our partners.
Finn’s face shut down entirely but Romero’s did not. He looked sad and whatever fight he’d had in him just a few seconds before had been drained right out of him.
My hands clenched into fists because I wanted to pummel something, someone, maybe even destroy Dash’s pretty face.
Ariel gently placed her hands over top of mine and held on tightly. She knew exactly what was running through my head and this was her way of attempting to stop it.
I closed my eyes and actually felt my nostrils flare as I sucked in a lung full of air through my nose. It didn’t do fuck all to calm down my nerves but my beloved daughters hand on mine served to do the trick.
“That’s enough, Dash,” Romero spoke and the entire room stilled. “I love you. You’re my boy and you know you mean the world to me. But Finn means something to me too, and, for that matter, so do Rain and Isobel. I can get you want to protect me because of how fucked up your childhood was but I don’t need that from you and I don’t even want it.
“I was never even really given the chance to be your parent, but I’m taking it now and I’m going to need you to respect me and my decisions. If you can give me that then I can give it back to you in return. And, in respecting me, I’m going to ask you to please refrain from speaking to Finn like that again. You don’t have to like him, that’s fine, but I can’t have you treating him like that. I know without asking that whether or not he likes you he’s not going to be disrespectful to you either, out of respect for me.”
Jesus fucking Christ.
Were we going to have a family therapy session here? Not fucking happening.
I stood up to shut this shit down. “Dash, take someone else with you but go and check the cottage. Good thinking, we haven’t checked there yet. Ariel, get on your phone with Raven’s coven. Baxter, get yourself something for breakfast and then get ready for the day. You’ve got school and Trenton and Simon will take you to that and watch over you while you’re there, just to be safe. Ariel is going to stay here and the rest of you can pick who is staying with her. The rest of you get ready to go.”
I wasn’t sure why but there was this niggling in the back of my mind, a whisper in the wind I struggled to make out, that told me to start searching for her where I found her.
To go back to the beginning.
3
You’re A Pretty Crier
Isobel
