The Revenge by Tijan

“I know!”

“Cy!” That was Seraphina.

“I won’t say anything. I mean, I won’t tell them to look in your drawing pad, because then, you know, they’d know.”

Matt suppressed a snort.

Marie and Theresa were both fighting back grins.

Kash buried his face into the back of my neck, his shoulders moving up and down.

“Smooth, Cyclone.” I gave him a thumbs-up.

His grin stretched. The little shit knew exactly what he just did.

Seraphina was now beet red. “Cyclone!”

“What? I didn’t say a word.”

“Well…” Peter hugged his daughter once more before moving to rest his back against the couch, next to Chrissy’s legs. “Whatever is in your drawing pads, I’ll be eager to see when you choose to share with the family.”

Seraphina and Cyclone had more questions about Chase, about when they would meet him. Kash was firm, that it wouldn’t be until much later—much, much later. The questions weren’t as quick with Chrissy, about what she went through. It seemed as if they knew to tread gently, as if they were scared of what question would unearth a new minefield.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Cyclone asked.

It took a second before someone clued in.

He was staring at Chrissy. Then I caught a backward glance over his shoulder to Payton, and I figured it out first.

“You know what happened at the court yesterday?”

He looked at me. “Yeah.” He flattened his mouth. He wasn’t going to share how he knew. That meant he had known who Payton was before Peter told him this morning, too. Or I was guessing. There was a look in his eyes, a deeper understanding than my little ten-and-three-quarters-year-old brother should have, but it was there nonetheless.

He had known.

“You want to know why Chrissy never said anything about being held captive?” I asked.

He gave me a quick nod. “She said she didn’t know, but she did. She just told us she did.”

Chrissy’s mouth had been open, but it shut with an audible snap. “Oh.” Her face tightened, stretched. Her mouth pressed down before it returned to a flat line. She angled her head to the side, speaking in Payton’s direction. “I couldn’t tell what side you were on.”

Payton sat up in her seat. “I didn’t know, either. I knew they had you, and I knew what they were capable of.”

Cyclone was looking between the two mothers, leaning against one of Payton’s legs. “So you both didn’t know and you couldn’t tell, so both of you didn’t say a word? That makes no sense.”

Seraphina started giggling.

“Where’s your brother now?”

Kash glanced to Cyclone. “He’s at the apartment Bailey and I lived in.”

“What’s he going to do there?”

“He’s going to stay there, and he and I will work with the FBI to help find our grandfather. You know when they took your dad into custody?”

Cyclone nodded, his eyes still glued to Kash.

“That was the deal. We help them, and they release your dad.”

Another nod from my little brother. Then, “Can we have pizza tonight?”

Cyclone just solidified my theory.

That was the gist of our family meeting. It was pizza for the rest of the night, and bowling.

It felt almost normal.





FIFTY-EIGHT

Bailey


Three months later

Life didn’t go back to normal after that day, but there was a sense of weird peace that settled over everyone. The household, too. Maybe it was because so much had been unearthed, we all needed time to digest. Or maybe it was because we were all just exhausted.

I knew I was.

I knew Kash was. Seriously. Kash was really tired. That night, he crawled into bed and held me. By the time I rolled over, slid a leg in between his, and worked my arm around to hold him back, he was already asleep.

He didn’t wake for a whole twelve hours.

Peter spent the next month being with his family. I think he did work, but it was mostly in the morning. Kash told me that he had his “debrief” meetings with Peter in the morning, at an ungodly time of the day, but once we all met for breakfast, Peter’s phone was never brought out. He was with the family.

We’d all taken to eating breakfast together before Cyclone and Seraphina headed to school. It was something they needed, but I think we all needed it. At first, Seraphina and Cyclone were both clingy with all of us. They weren’t super choosy about whose side they were sticking to. They’d go from one to the other as if they were scared one of us would disappear.

After the first month, that got better.

They returned to skipping into the room, eating at their own table, and then giving each adult a kiss on the cheek and a hug before being taken to school.

Matt moved back into his penthouse.

I returned to school. Not that I had really stopped going to school, but there’d been a definite couple weeks in there that I skipped. And I was in graduate school, so skipping was a stupid thing to do. I made up the time. The professors weren’t happy, but they understood. I was to start my paid internship with Phoenix Tech the next week.

As for the rest, Payton decided to move permanently to Chicago, but she was moving into her own apartment. It was in one of Kash’s buildings, and I knew he offered her the free housing more because he wanted to watch her than for any other reason.