Page 9 of Heir

“Perhaps we shouldn’t keep Mr. Gallagher waiting,” Henry said.

Mom nodded. “Of course. You’ll have to excuse my daughter. She’s… different.”

Different.

It wasn’t something I hadn’t heard before. There wasdifferentandunusualandawkward.

And those were the nice words.

There were alsofreakandabnormalandweird.

But I just didn’t know how to connect with people.

With my peers, and certainly with my mom.

I looked down at my black flats as we walked to the dining room. Uncle Frank was standing in the corner of the room with another man I had never met. The dining room table had already been set.

Their hushed conversation came to a halt when we entered, and they looked over at us.

Uncle Frank’s eyes found me right away, and he smiled so widely that I pulled up short.

People rarely smiled that widely at another person.

Mom took my arm, shaking me out of my stupor, and Kenton stood behind us, which made me feel uncomfortable. I never liked showing my back to the man. It always felt like he could attack me, and I wouldn’t be able to prepare myself for it.

But that was the least of my problems now because Uncle Frank was walking up to us with the strange man who looked like he could have been cast inThe Godfather,only scarier looking. What was Uncle Frank doing with a man like this?

The man was probably older than my mom by about two decades, but he walked with confidence, old age not slowing him down.

He was in a black suit, which stood out in stark contrast to his white hair and beard, his blue eyes electric and sharp, a sort of malicious glimmer in them.

I blinked, and the glimmer was gone.

I’d probably watched way too many mafia movies. No one was looking at me with malicious intent.

There was something familiar about the man, only I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I knew I had never met him, though. I would have remembered.

Uncle Frank came up to me, and before I knew what was happening, he grabbed my hand.

I stiffened and tried to pull away when Mom pinched my side—hard.

I bit the inside of my cheek before offering up a small smile of my own.

“Gemma,” Uncle Frank said. “My God, look at how you’ve grown. And even more beautiful than I remembered. Dare I say, even more beautiful than your mother?”

Beside me, Mom laughed that weird laugh of hers that I had long ago figured out meant she didn’t find the situation funny.

Quite the opposite.

“Thank you,” I replied quietly and gently took my hand back when it didn’t seem like he would let go any time soon.

“Of course,” Uncle Frank said, still staring at me with that weird look in his green eyes. His chestnut-brown hair was slicked back. “I want to introduce you to my associate. This is Grigoriy Savkin. Grigoriy, this is my lovely niece, her mom, Fiona, and her stepfather, Kenton.”

Grigoriy didn’t take his eyes off me. He smiled, and I resisted shuddering. I might be bad at reading people, but I didn’t get a good vibe from the man. I wanted to turn away and run as fast as I could.

“Nice to meet you,” I said politely.

“Yes, it’s nice to meet the lovely niece Frank has been going on about. You certainly live up to those words, dear.”

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