Page 95 of Broken Discipline
“They’re not interested in following you,” Zira interrupted. “Seems Upchurch was causing problems anyway and had evenplannedto kill his own cousin once the papers were updated. My father had concerns that he was next on Upchurch’s kill list. And anyway, it’s time for a new board. My father can’t argue with that.”
There would be no mourning for Saunders or Upchurch, then, which was as expected. The Marked Blooms Syndicate was about business,notconnections. And without those connections, business moved on.
“Geez,” Ramona whispered.
“You can come back. Both of you. The kids too,” Zira said. “But consider yourselves on probation. The board—just my father for now, but soon, me and my husband too—we’ll be watching you closely.”
Ramona blinked up at me. Now that Upchurch was gone, there was no reason to fight the Marked Blooms Syndicate anymore. And with my family at my side, there was no reason to keep my membership.
Ramona and I would have to figure out what to do next, together.
“All right,” Ramona said. “Thank you.”
Zira chuckled, the speaker crackling with her. “Thank you for helpingme,love,” she said, then the line went dead. My lips pressed into a straight line.
“Do you trust Zira?” I asked.
Ramona watched Larkin and Leon race across the rope bridge. Leon jumped to the end, winning the race. Larkin high-fived him.
“She’s always honest,” Ramona said. “She helped me get into the Masquerade.”
I clenched my fists. I wanted to groan, to shake Ramona’s shoulders and tell her that she couldn’t run into danger on pure gut instinct and a drive to protect.
But there was no controlling Ramona. She was going to do whatever she thought was right, and all I could do was hope that she trusted me to do the same.
She bumped against my shoulder. “Do you think we’ll go back to Opulent Gates?” she asked.
It had never been my home; it was simply a way to be closer to my family. I didn’t care what we did now.
“If you want,” I said.
“Do you want it?”
I gripped both of her shoulders. “This isn’t about me,” I said. “This is about you. What do you want, Kylie Carter?”
A smile spread across her lips. “So now I’m ‘Kylie’?”
“What do you want me to call you?”
Her cheeks darkened, her eyes fluttering for a moment. Then she nodded.
“Kylie Carter,” she said. My heart swelled, threatening to burst in my chest, hearing her takemy nameby choice. It was a small step, but it showed that she was taking back her life, one step at a time, and that she was choosing to include me in it. “What about you?”
“Finn is fine,” I said. “Finn Carter.”
“I love you, Finn Carter,” she said.
“I love you, Kylie Carter,” I said.
I yanked her arm, pulling her into my body, then kissed her deeply, letting my tongue explore her so slowly that she moaned. There was nothing in this world that I had done to deserve this woman, but she was mine, and I was never going to let her go again.
“Gross!” a little boy’s voice called from the distance. We broke the kiss, finding Leon tsking us from the swing set.
“Kissing is foradults,Mama and Daddy!” Larkin shouted.
We cracked up, and Kylie grabbed my hand, our fingers interlacing. And just like that, I was back in my father’s house, holding her hand on the couch every damn second I could. Just like the television had always hummed with background noise back then, the kids yelled as they ran across the playground, their feet skittering across the pavement.
“I don’t want to go back to Oakmont,” Kylie said with a playful hint to her voice. “I got too used to the clean parks in Fairview.”
