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I wasn’t from his world.
I wasn’t born into it like the others.
I had no idea what was expected of me or how to handle anything.
All my life, I watched Marcella walk into every room as if she owned it. Her power and confidence were unparalleled, and she did it with such grace. Could I ever pull such a thing off? It was unlikely.
“Hey, you okay?”
Grateful for my own shades covering my eyes, I nodded. “Of course. Just thinking about what you were saying.”
Lavena sighed looked out over the water where the girls were stroking their way back to shore. “Let’s not talk about Enzo anymore. I want to talk about what’s really pissing me off.” She shoved her glasses back into her tangle of hair pulled into a messy bun at the top of her head. “Darius was out for like a weekand Dad knew, and he never said a word after I tried so hard to see him.”
“You almost got arrested.” I recalled with a grin.
“Exactly!” She shook her head. “I can’t believe that he’s been out all this time and never once tried to let me know.”
“You can’t blame him,” I murmured. “I read that people who come out of a long prison stint have a hard time reentering society. He was gone for four years, Lavena. I don’t think it’s weird that he needed time.”
Lavena seemed to think about that for a moment, blue eyes squinting out over the sparkling water where Sasha was struggling to hold Kas under.
“I guess,” she grumbled at last. “I’ve just been so worried about him, you know? I never liked that he took the fall for what was clearly an accident.”
I had to look away from the penetrating prod of her gaze searching my face. “It was for Edmund. I don’t have siblings, but I would do the same for you, Sasha, or Kas. You guys are the closest things I have to sisters.”
Lavena recoiled as if I’d slapped her. “Closest thing? Bitch, we are sisters. What the hell are you talking about?”
I felt myself laugh despite the lack of humor I felt in the situation. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
She made an impatient noise and stretched out her long legs. “I’m not upset that he took the fall. I probably would have set the prison on fire if Edmund was in there, but I hate that Darius didn’t fight harder. He didn’t even let Howard fight properly.”
“The evidence was undeniable,” I reminded her. “It would have been worse if they let it go on too long. He only got four years, which is a huge win given the charges. Murder could go up to twenty or more.”
The thought of losing Darius for twenty years made my insides hurt. Four years had been bad enough.
“I would never have let him go that long,” Lavena stated simply, swiping her glasses back down. “I would have broken him out and got him out of the country.”
To a regular person, that would have sounded like a joke, but I knew she meant it, and I knew I would have helped her.
I wasn’t someone without family. My parents were still alive, and I still had all four of my grandparents, and a few aunts and uncles, and cousins. My family wasn’t as vast as Lavena’s, but they were good people. However, the Medlocks had adopted me into their folds the first day Lavena brought me home with her, some random eight-year-old who didn’t even attend the same school as her or live in the same neighborhoods. They had accepted that I wasn’t like them and still treated me like I was.
The reality of the situation was that I would not have been there on a beautiful island in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by three of the most important people in the world to me if it hadn’t been for Lavena. The girl was insane in all the ways that mattered, but she had saved me that day and I would never forget it.
“What are you looking so dopey about over there?”
Kas and Sasha were making their way towards us, dripping wet and grinning.
I shrugged at Kas’s question. “Thinking about the afternoon we met.”
Sashaaw’d, snatching up her towel and twisting her hair into it. “I remember that. God, that was ages ago.”
“I can’t believe I just let you guys just take me home with you!” I laughed, nudging Lavena.
“I can’t believe you listened,” she argued. “You were a dumb kid. We didn’t even bribe you with candy.”
“I think about that day sometimes,” Sasha said. “It was so weird how it all came around, you know?”
“My grandma calls that fate,” Kas stated, dropping fully soaked down on her towel. “She says we always meet people for a reason.”
