What You See (Sons of the Survivalist #3) - Cherise Sinclair Page 0,4

move on.

Exasperated with herself, she tossed the cold burger and fries into the wastebasket and returned to perusing her mail.

Announcements. Office supplies. Schedule changes. Usually applications and resumes went to Mama, but, currently, Frankie received the business-related ones. If she ever wanted a vacation, she would need an assistant who could take her place, not a shared admin. Right now, anytime she mentioned time off, everyone in her family insisted she couldn’t be spared. That she was needed there, making things work right and smoothing over the entitled-diva messes.

Frowning, she picked up the last piece of mail. Addressed to Francesca Bocelli, care of The Bocelli Agency.

Frankie,

I need help so bad.

I’m trapped. Obadiah joined a militia—the Patriot Zealots—and brought us into their compound. He won’t let me leave. In fact, we moved someplace even more isolated—Rescue, Alaska.

You were right, Frankie; he was such a mistake. He’s getting meaner, and he lets the leaders—

The rest of the sentence was blotted out.

If I don’t make it out, can you try to get Aric away from them? Here are papers I managed to fix up in case you need them.

I know you’ll want to call the police for me, but you mustn’t. One of the Rescue police is a member of the Patriot Zealots. Don’t call the FBI or others. Just don’t.

But…please, Frankie. Get Aric out.

Kit

Frankie realized her palms were pressed together in front of her chest. As if prayer would fix this. Kit, what have you fallen into? She opened the other papers. There was a form, witnessed by a couple of people, giving guardianship of Aric, Frankie’s godson, to her.

It made sense. Aric wasn’t Obadiah’s birth son; the boy was three when Kit fell prey to the creep.

There was also a handwritten list of the reasons why Frankie had been nominated as guardian and why no one else, especially Obadiah, should get oversight of the child.

Pictures of Kit and Aric were enclosed. Frankie picked one up.

Blond, blue-eyed Aric resembled his birth father—a man who’d been in Kit’s life for less than a week. She’d never even learned his last name.

Since the picture of Aric showed him as around two years old, Kit’s first husband had probably taken the photos. Even though Aric wasn’t his, he’d been good to the boy, even when addicted to narcotics. He’d died of an overdose before the marriage was a year old.

Poor Kit had crummy luck with men. While she was still reeling from her husband’s death, Obadiah scooped her up and married her.

Frankie riffled through the photos and found none from this year. The religious fanatic of a spouse probably didn’t believe in cameras.

Aric would be turning four this summer. “Get Aric out.” The little boy was in danger.

Oh, Kit.

As the words on the papers blurred, Frankie realized her hands were trembling. Cazzo. Fuck! She didn’t know what to do—but she had to do something.

Roommates for much of college and a couple of years afterward, she and Kit were sisters-by-choice.

Frankie’d been Kit’s birthing partner and helped raise little Aric until Kit married the first time. When the newlyweds moved to Texas, Frankie had bawled her eyes out.

Sure, she had lots of friends, but none like Kit. No matter how much time or distance—and Texas was certainly distant—they always picked up where they’d left off.

“Amica mia, you should have come back to New York when your husband died.” Instead, Obadiah had deluded Kit until she’d disappeared into “the little woman”. The perfect wife.

Frankie had met the bastardo only once for a few seconds at the wedding. The conservative crackpot had already decided she was a bad influence on Kit. He’d pressured Kit until she’d stopped calling, writing, or visiting.

Unwilling to cause problems, Frankie had honored Kit’s withdrawal. Obviously, that had been a mistake.

Before Obadiah, they’d always been there for each other. Through missed job opportunities and celebrations and relationship disasters. After Kit moved, they’d spent hours on the phone. When Kit’s husband died, Frankie had flown to Texas, cared for Aric, and kept things going while Kit mourned.

When Frankie’s marriage fell apart, Kit had come to New York. After lots of handholding and enduring the wailing and weeping—because Frankie wasn’t a silent sufferer—Kit had pushed her out of the house and back into living.

Although not back into dating. Kit had always been more of an optimist there, which seemed strange since she had lousy taste in men. The dominant guys she fell for inevitably turned out to be creepers or controlling or basic assholes. Kit’s miserable childhood