Page 111 of The Heir
I had no idea how my mother did this shit for nearly twenty years. I spent all of twenty minutes alone with my thoughts before I started scrubbing the house from top to bottom. I opened all the new dishes and washed them before organizing my cabinets the way I wanted them. I vacuumed carpets we probably hadn’t even walked on yet and scrubbed the kitchen floor until the entire house smelled like lemon cleaning products.
When my knuckles hurt and my lungs were stinging from all the chemicals, I went to the bedroom and flopped onto the bed. It’d only been thirty more minutes.
I ran my hands through my hair and massaged my brow. I flopped my hand down on the bed, and I noticed the drawer on Blaze’s side was cracked. I rolled onto my belly and reached to shut it, but the familiar pattern on the black metal I saw through the tiny opening was something I recognized at a glance.
“Why the fuck–?” I jerked it open, angered by the thought of him going into Disciple shit unarmed.
The gun slid back and bounced gently off the front of the drawer.
“Why the fuck what?” Lucia excitedly asked, rushing to my side.
I hadn’t realized anyone was inside the house with me and had the gun half aimed before I recognized the voice.
“Whoa!” Lucia laughed.
She stepped closer and ran a painted finger along the barrel.
“That’s sexy,” she purred with all the ignorance of a high school girl.
“Does Dad know you’re here?”
She rolled her eyes and put a hand on her hip. I hated it when she flashed that Izzy attitude at me, and she was definitely her mother’s daughter, even if she was my half-sister.
“Dad’s being a crab ass, even my ma said so!”
“Yeah? He’s gonna be all over your ass if he finds you here tonight. That’s what he’s gonna be,” I warned her. “You should get.”
“I just wanted to see your house.” She batted her lashes and flashed her whitened smile in what I knew to be an effort to disarm me.
It might work on strangers, but not me. We were sisters.
“Then you should have come to the bonfire, like everyone else.”
Her jaw dropped and she bugged her eyes in a dramatic attempt at appearing shocked, “Marchella Miller! We’re sisters.”
“You remind me that we’re sisters, and yet, you forget my name. Cute, Lucia. Real cute.”
A subtle look of confusion crossed her painted features before her eyes lit up, “Aviston. Duh.”
“Yeah.”
She stared at me with a smile that made me uneasy and nodded like she knew something I didn’t.
“What?”
“Nothing?” She shrugged and bobbled her head. “Jeez, fine. We’ll leave.”
“We?” I panicked.
“Yeah. Nakarii came to your little bonfire. She said you and Blaze like to perform in the garage, so I came to see for myself. The idea of my sister carrying on in some grease hole with a man our father has to give a charity job to… I just couldn’t picture it. Now I can. I’ve seen it.”
I don’t know which part upset me more, her hateful bullshit, or the fact that Nakarii was apparently here again. I stormed past her, giving a wild look around the house. It was easy to search with the layout. When I didn’t find anyone inside, I followed the sound of voices to the backdoor.
It wasn’t latched. I reached out, my fingers making connection with the screen just barely.
Nakarii’s back was to me. Her right arm was extended, and the nose of her pistol was snuggly against Blaze’s chest. His eyes were burning into her.
“Blaze,” Donnie whispered, his own weapon leveled at someone standing in the shadows.