Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 132834 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132834 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
I got to work as soon as I hit the kitchen, the familiar rhythm of cooking clearing my mind. After, when I was cleaning and setting up for the rest of the day, Griffen strode into the kitchen. For a horrifying moment, I thought Hawk had been to see him and he was here about Savannah.
Instead, he said, “I heard back from the warden at the prison. You want to go for a ride?”
Adrenaline spiked in my chest, but I only nodded. “Yeah, sure.”
Was I ready to see Ford? After what I’d learned the day before, I wasn’t sure I’d ever truly be ready to see my older brother. But I knew I wouldn’t be able to put all this behind me until I did.
“Let’s go,” I said, flicking off the lights in the kitchen and following Griffen to the garage.
Chapter Thirty-One
FINN
We didn’t talk much on the ride to the state prison Ford had been locked up in for the last seven months. Griffen plugged in his phone and entered the prison’s address, asking, “Do you mind?” as he pulled up a music app.
“Whatever you want is cool,” I said, not caring what we listened to.
Griffen pulled up a random mix of current hits, and I tuned everything out. Sinking deep into thought, I watched the miles of tall pine trees flash by as we left the mountains and dropped into the rolling foothills.
I hadn’t seen Ford since the Christmas before I was kidnapped. We’d never been close. Seven years older, Ford had always acted like a second father, especially after my mother was gone. I’d had more than enough to handle with Prentice. I didn’t need another father. Especially not one as judgmental and unyielding as Ford.
Ford had always been the least kind of my siblings. I don’t know if it was being so close in age to Griffen, the oldest, without the status of being the firstborn son, or just that Ford was kind of a jerk. Who the hell could guess? My father had fucked up all our heads when we were kids. By the time I was old enough to pay attention, Ford had been set in his path.
He was always a little less affectionate. A little more competitive. I’d been as shocked as everyone else when Ford double-crossed Griffen, taking his fiancée along with his position in the company and the family. But after the dust settled and we had time to absorb what happened, no one was all that surprised at the way things had turned out.
I didn’t know what made Ford, Ford. I did know he wasn’t one of the people I’d missed in the years I’d been away. But I never thought he’d been behind my kidnapping. Not in a million years would that possibility have crossed my mind.
I’d always thought my kidnapping was bad luck.
I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Now that I knew it hadn’t been that simple, I didn’t know how to feel. Angry? Sure. That was easy. Of course, I was angry. Fresh, bright anger, so unlike the old, calcified anger I’d been carrying around since I was nineteen. That old anger had faded into the background over time. After a while, I hadn’t needed it. I had a vibrant, interesting life overseas, filled with friends and work I loved.
Considering I’d barely escaped the kidnappers with my life, I couldn’t say they’d done me a favor. But in the end, I liked my life, which was a hell of a lot more than I could say for Ford or my father, at least when the latter had still been alive. My father had been a lot of things, but never happy.
I glanced over at Griffen, his eyes focused on the road, his jaw hard. He was pissed. Still. I don’t know why Griffen’s continued anger surprised me. I should have known the rest of my family had nothing to do with the kidnapping. Especially Griffen. Griffen had been exiled years before that, and he hadn’t been in contact with anyone. Maybe I thought Harvey would have told him. I’d assumed Harvey had known. And my kidnapping just felt like something Griffen would know, considering his background in private security.
I’d looked up Sinclair Security after I came back to Sawyers Bend. It sounded like they were high-end bodyguards, and according to the website, they did plenty of that. But they also worked in hostage recovery, corporate espionage, and anything else their clients needed. Considering they had a whole division of field-trained computer experts and their staff was a who’s who of special forces, I got the picture that they handled a whole lot of shit they didn’t list on the website.
Despite all that, I thought I understood why he didn’t know. I hadn’t looked up my family since the day I left. I could have. I didn’t. Maybe it was the same for Griffen. Maybe he figured we were all doing just fine without him. I wanted to ask, but the furious look on Griffen’s face held me back almost all the way there.