While approaching the front door, I kept a close watch on my surroundings and tried to play it cool. I could be a potential tenant for all anyone knew. Crossing my fingers, I twisted the knob and wanted to shout with glee when it turned, and the door eased open. “I can if the door’s unlocked,” I whispered. “And what do you know? It is.”
“Don’t go inside. Don’t go inside. Don’t go inside.”
“Shh!” I hissed. “You’re echoing off the empty walls.”
“You’re already inside?”
“Yes, and you’re going in my pocket again.”
“No! Don’t pocket me!”
I hurried toward the back of the house, freezing when my eyes landed on several boxes in one of the bedrooms. They were lined up beside each other on the floor with a single box haphazardly closed sitting in the middle of the room.
“I have to. I need both hands.” Then, I kicked it into high gear and started opening the four boxes along the wall. The first three were full of books. The last one had books too, but it also had three photo albums on top. Grabbing the albums, I peeked into the box in the middle of the room. Since it was filled with random items and wasn’t very heavy, I put the photo albums in the box, picked up my load, and hauled ass back to my car.
Falling into the driver’s seat, I pulled my phone from my back pocket and started to get the hell out of there. “Shit,” I cursed. “I forgot to close the front door.”
“Fuck the front door, you batshit crazy demon. You just committed a felony. Go!”
“But there’re books in there,” I argued.
“Sloane!”
“Fine,” I huffed and drove away.
“I’m going to need you to turn your location services on. My anxiety can’t handle any more of your shenanigans right now.”
“My anxiety can’t handle any more either,” I admitted and gasped when it finally hit me. “I just broke into a house!”
“And stole things! What were you thinking?”
“I don’t know!” I shouted.
“Okay, we can figure out what to do about that part later. Right now, we need to get you home safely. Everything else can wait.”
“You’re right. I should probably get off the phone and concentrate on driving.”
“I’ll let you go if you promise to call me before you stop anywhere.”
“I’m only stopping if I have to get gas, and I shouldn’t need to because I have a full tank. But I promise to call if I do.”
With that, we ended the call, and I used the long drive to process the newest turn of events. By the time I pulled through the gates of my mother’s estate and the locks clinked closed behind me, I was mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted.
After parking in the garage and turning off the ignition, I realized I wouldn’t be able to take a nap or do anything else until I at least looked through the box and flipped through the photo albums, even after the epic adrenaline rush wore off.
With my purse, my bag of essentials, and my stolen goods, I went straight to my bedroom after relocking the garage door and setting the alarm. The only thing I didn’t like about my mother’s estate was how sprawled out it was. If someone broke into the house, there were a million places for them to hide.
The house was luxurious, to say the least. It was exactly what one would expect a wealthy, pissed off wife to get. My mother did not have any issues spending my father’s money, and because she opted to quietly live somewhere else and let him conduct his life however he saw fit, he let her spend however much she wanted to—within reason, though their “reason” was much different than most people’s.
“I thought you were out of town for work,” Tiernan said from the doorway to my bedroom, causing me to let out a startled scream, which opened the floodgates. I burst into tears from the weight of the events from the last few days.
I was wrapped in my older brother’s arms before I could get one good choking sob out. “Whose ass do I need to kick?” he rumbled like the overprotective older sibling he was.
I sniffled and inhaled deeply, trying to get my emotions under control. I hadn’t told him or my other brothers about the possibility of us having a sister out there. I thought it would be better to meet her and tell her about our existence