was in the wrong. I knew he’d been listening the entire time; I knew he couldn’t
resist. I probably shouldn’t have brought something up as personal as his mother,
but if she couldn’t survive this life, I wondered how long I could.
How long would it take before Darren’s enemies made a move against him?
Targeting me in an attack to get to him? It obviously wasn’t unheard of. That war
was over ten years ago. People change. They grow up to have big egos thinking they
can rule the world and everyone in it, and Darren was no exception. Eventually,
some little monster was going to take the throne of his father and stir up a whole
bunch of shit when they tried to stake their claim in the underground. Darren
wouldn’t stay young forever, and the task of staying at the top of the food chain
would eventually weaken him. This was such a stupid live fast, die young life. Did
anyone ever live long enough to grow old in this business?
I needed to get more info on Darren’s family life, especially his childhood—what
his mother and father were like. I wondered if maybe his mother had left a journal
behind somewhere, anything to give me an idea of the past. Maybe that was my key
to unlocking my future.
Through my meditation, I kept hearing something shifting in the bushes. I
winked an eye open toward the sound to find a bush about ten feet away from me
jerking oddly every few seconds. That was when I caught the soft orange color
rummaging in the bush. I narrowed my focus on color until a small fox carrying a
dead rabbit in its mouth finally emerged. Fascinated, I’d never seen a fox in the
wild before. It was orange outside its body, but mostly gray bushy fur everywhere
else. It looked at me for a few seconds before it finally took off at the corner of the
clearing and disappeared into the trees.
I hadn’t been stupid enough today, so I got up, intending to follow it, but lost it
just as quickly as I saw it. Wandering the woods for a while, I studied the layout of
the woods, trying to leave the memory of the estate behind. Eventually, I caught
the sound of yapping and yelping off in the distance. Following the sound, I finally
came across the source and immediately ducked behind a tree. Gently turning, I
quietly peered around the tree to find a den of gray foxes eating the remains of the
dead rabbit I had seen earlier. There were four of them, three kits and what was
probably the mother. Two of the kits were fighting over the bones of the rabbit
while the third chewed on a small hunk of meat that hung from its teeth. The
mother laid on her side, her eyes scanning the area around them in high alert.
The kits were adorable; though they weren’t very small, they were still fuzzy,
gray poofy balls with claws and teeth. They were fascinating to watch, finding I
could lean against the tree for hours without moving just to focus on something
other than what was waiting for me back at the estate. But it was getting cold, and
the sun was itching for a setting. My stomach rumbled in protest of not being fed,
and I decided it was probably time to head back and face the music.
Trudging back to the house, I prepared my apology, ready to accept whatever
came my way without complaint with the assurance it wouldn’t happen again, but I
could never guarantee that. Fucking hell, this was going to suck.
23
WAITING
I was getting sick and tired of the constant ticking of my dark chrome Rolex,
reminding me that Jaden still wasn’t back yet. It’d been nearly three hours, and I
was ready to start pulling my fucking hair out. I made the decision to let her go, to
let her run from the session so she could have a moment to collect herself and
come back in one piece. Apparently, that took three fucking hours.
I’d had my dinner at the kitchen island while I stood and watched out the
window, waiting for Jaden to emerge. I was furious, anxious, and worried. For all I
knew, she could be lost with a broken leg somewhere and was in dire need of help,
but that was a stupid assumption. Jaden was not a helpless little girl, yet for some
reason, I kept treating her like
