the thought of letting someone bind me to anything made me sick to my stomach. My mom had preached against that the way most mothers warn their kids not to talk to strangers, or run in the house.
Or jump off a cliff.
“Why? You have my word that I don’t want anything else from you, but someday I might want to get to know my...half siblings.” Just saying that felt strange. My real sister was dead, and she was the only sister I would ever have. Surely the only one I’d ever want. But...I’d just lost the only family I’d ever known. I wasn’t about to give up the right to ever get to know what few relatives I had left, even if they couldn’t replace what I’d lost. Even if they were rich, and spoiled, and quite possibly as vicious as our father and aunt.
My mother was an only child and her parents were dead. Jake Tower’s children were the last blood-based connection I would ever have to another human being. There was always the chance that one of those kids—probably not Kevin—would grow up to be a decent human being and parent to the only nieces and nephews I’d ever have.
I shrugged. “Or they might want to know me.”
“Sera, it’s those children I’m thinking about.” Lia pushed her laptop aside and folded her arms on her massive desk, meeting my gaze with an intense one of her own, like we’d suddenly become confidantes. “Lynn, their mother, is a sweet, beautiful woman, but between the two of us, she’s never been the brightest bulb in the chandelier, and right now she’s too blinded by grief to think clearly. But someone has to look out for the children. I’m not going to help you unless you’re willing to give up any claim to their inheritance.”
“Money?” I gaped at her. “You think I want your brother’s money?”
“I don’t know what you really want, Sera. I know your net worth, your college GPA and how much you paid for the heap of metal parked in front of my house, but I don’t know anything about you as a person, because you evidently felt no desire to connect with this side of your family until you needed something from us.” Her accusation was as sharp as her gaze, and I couldn’t really argue, though I felt my cheeks flame again. “But I will do whatever needs to be done to protect those children. If you really aren’t trying to steal their inheritance, you should have no problem swearing to that.”
“I don’t,” I snapped, struggling to think through the anger swelling rapidly to fill both my head and heart. The bitch was appealing to my morals on behalf of two half-orphaned children. I didn’t for a second believe that was her only interest in the matter, but I didn’t want anything from the dead father I’d never met, and I certainly didn’t want anything from her. Except this one favor. “Write it. I’ll sign it, and you’ll never see me again. I don’t want anything but the slow, painful death of the bastard who killed my family.”
“Wonderful.” Lia shifted in her chair and folded her hands in her lap. “And, of course, you’ll be willing to give up the Tower name.”
“My name?”
“My brother’s name,” she corrected. “His children’s name. My name. You’ve never even used it, have you?” I shook my head, and she shrugged as if what she was asking was no big deal. “Then why would you mind giving it up?”
Why would I mind?
I started speaking before my thoughts had fully formed, fueled by anger, unburdened by forethought. “Because it’s my name. It belongs to me every bit as much as it belongs to you. Because for whatever reason, my mother wanted me to have it. Because whether you like it or not—hell, whether I like it or not—that name is part of who I am, and I don’t even know what that means yet, other than the fact that the aunt I share it with is a real bitch.”
Julia blinked, and I relished the glimpse of surprise that flickered across her expression, the first I’d seen so far. “You’re not thinking this through. There’s nothing that can be done about the fact that it belongs to you, so in that sense, it can never be taken from you. But you’d be safer using another name. Your stepfather’s? Or even your mother’s. You’ll be infinitely harder to Track if no one knows your