Page 22 of Waiting For A Girl Like You
“They want Fairweather offspring,” Liam told Samuel. “But they don’t need just women. Males could achieve faster results if used multiple times with multiple women.”
Samuel blinked at Liam and then sat up straight, his lips parting in shock. “What the fuck are you trying to say?”
“We don’t think they were after Evie,” Will replied plainly. “Perhaps the girls, but if you really stop and place yourself in their mindset, snatching themselves a viable Fairweather male to use over and over again on women of their choosing is a much more ideal outcome.”
Zanmi had also gone to Selah’s house, but things had been much less dramatic. Lenora’s brother was protecting them around the clock, and when he fired gunshots into the air, the group dispersed with little fuss.
An unhinged laugh shot out of Samuel. “Ideal outcome? To have sex with me? If that were the case, they would also be after my dad.”
The thought obviously hadn’t crossed Ben’s mind, and he paled slightly. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Not to be crass, Ben, but if everything is in working order…” Bernie shrugged. “It’s a perfectly feasible idea for them to want to get it straight from the…um… Fairweather source?”
“I’m loving this,” Jamison cackled softly. “From the source? Like farm to table, right?”
“This isn’t funny,” Samuel snarled at his sister.
“Oh, and my kidnapping was funny?” Jamison punched his shoulder. “Maybe now Michael will start calling you.”
Sinclair hadn’t called anyone since the raid, and he was no longer watching them either, giving Rowan zilch.
“I don’t want him calling any of us,” Ben snapped, shooting out of his chair again in a surge of anger. “I want this to be fucking over, so give me the breakdown from today, and then everyone needs to get to fucking work on solving the who, what, and why before they come at us again.”
Rowan spoke quickly, knowing not to keep Ben waiting when he was like this. “Brandy T. Carroll. Daughter of Bryan Carroll. I’ll find her, and we’ll connect the dots from there.”
“That familiarity in Toby’s voice wasn’t faked. He knows Mike. Not Michael Sinclair, butMike,” Liam continued. “And he’s known him for years. The idea to build a smaller Haven House likely came from Toby.”
Ben heaved out a pained sigh. “Sinclair doesn’t care about them. Zanmi, I mean. Sinclair is using them and doesn’t truly care about their well-being like Toby did,” he said. “The friends who are like family. The idea of creating a large home where everyone can live. Toby was attempting to replicate what we once had here.”
Ben had shared his theories before, but usually limited such conversations to Will and Liam. Or Bernie. Rowan noticed that Bernie often cornered Ben and Simone privately, compelling them to talk things through.
“The first several years of Toby’s life were spent in an environment where everyone—whether related to him or not—loved him,” Ben continued. “Simone raised Toby like he was her own. Devon mentored Toby as only a father would, and Ty taught him about the world in a way only he could. Abe shared a room with him, and Annabeth watched cartoons with him because no one else liked that weird Power Rangers show except them. They were his family, even though they didn’t share a drop of blood with him.”
“And we didn’t know,” Annabeth said softly, giving Ben a bittersweet smile. “We didn’t know other families weren’t like us. CeCe and I didn’t fully understand we weren’t real sisters for the longest time. I remember how it boggled our brains when someone pointed out we weren’t physically related.”
“We were a group of lost people who found a family together.” Ben took a second to control himself, pressing his lips tight before turning to Annabeth. “Your mom? She’s our foundation. Simone is, and alwayswill be, the heart of this family.” His gaze shifted to Jamison. “And your mom was the very air we breathed. Laura Jean kept us alive and happy, showing us how we could find the beauty in everyday things.”
Finally, Ben turned his attention to his son, but Samuel shook his head. “Dad, I don’t want to hear it. Not today. Today… it’s too much.”
Ben ignored him, continuing anyway. “And your mom was our center. Miranda was strong—so fucking strong—and a thousand times wiser than any of us. She could read people like a book and knew immediately when they were hurting or needed to admit things about themselves that they couldn’t dare speak out loud. If you had a secret, Miranda would keep it safe.”
In the years Rowan had known Benjamin Fairweather, he’d never seen him become emotional. And while he wasn’t acting even close to what a normal person would deem emotional, this was different. Ben was devastated. It was like the past had rushed into the room, allowing all the years of pain and sadness to take the floor.
“Even Rebecca had a role in our family dynamic. She was so young, with so much potential, though I couldn’t see it then. I was too self-centered, and me leaving that potential untapped opened her to being manipulated by my brother. That’s not an excuse for what she did, by the way. I don’t forgive her. I’m not a big enough man for that, and I never intend to be. Truth be told, I hope she’s burning in the pits of hell. I hope she’s in eternal pain for what she did to us.” Ben cleared his throat, returning to sit beside Klausen. “But while I’m not big enough to forgive, I am smart enough to recognize her fall was because she wanted to belong. Like her son, Rebecca wanted to belong to someone, and I’m sure Toby was influenced by that. He was influenced by us and by the world here, trying to create his own twisted version. A world Sinclair isn’t remotely familiar with, and those people are going to catch on soon enough if they haven’t already.”
No one spoke, with both Samuel and Annabeth shrinking a bit in their seats. Jamison was too young to remember three of the four women Ben was talking about, but Rowan was sure Samuel and Annabeth did. They probably remembered every moment. Every good time and every bad. There was such a thing as being bonded due to shared trauma, and when he first got to know the family after the whole truth came out, he had really thought that’s what was happening here.
But it wasn’t.
This family was bonded by their love for one another, and it happened long before July 4, 1999. That night might have irrevocably changed their lives forever, but it hadn’t shaped them into a family.
“You’re very right, Ben,” Will said at last. “Sinclair isn’t going to treat these people like whoever ran things before him, but he’s put on a good enough front that they were willing to die for him.”
“Izzy said the women were surprised.” Liam went to sit at the table beside Jamison. “From the toxicology reports, we know they were heavily drugged, but she said they were surprised they were dying. I can’t move past it.”
“And that’s significant,” Agent Anderson agreed. “If they were surprised, I’m sure other members were too when the group didn’t return. A suicide mission where your team isn’t aware it’s a suicide mission is the cruelest kind of betrayal, not easily forgiven.”
In his research, Rowan had found that Zanmi had gone silent. The usual Tobias Miller social media chats were dead. Members who were once the loudest and most active hadn’t even touched their phones in the last two weeks.
