Daughter-in-law.

Chapter 12:

Daughter-in-law.

I read it four times. It didn't get better.

Kael was already moving. He had the envelope in one hand and his phone in the other and he was walking toward the door with his jaw set like concrete.

"Benny," he said. "Who took it?"

"Guy on the gate. Said it was hand-delivered by a kid on a bike. Kid was maybe twelve. Paid him twenty bucks to run it up here."

"Where's the kid now?"

"Gone. The gate guy didn't think—"

"The gate guy doesn't get paid to think." Kael's voice was flat. "Get Rook. Tell him I want every camera on the south wall pulled. Every one. If a twelve-year-old got close enough to hand something to my gate, I want to know how."

Benny nodded and disappeared.

I was still standing in the kitchen holding the letter. My mother had her hand over her mouth. Marisol was watching Kael with a look I couldn't read.

"Kael," I said.

He turned around.

"Explain this to me," I said. "Right now. What does 'daughter-in-law' mean?"

"It means he thinks you're mine."

"I'm not—" I stopped. Took a breath. "We're not married. We're not anything. I've known you for four days."

"I know that."

"Does he?"

Kael's jaw moved.

"Apparently not," he said.

"So he thinks we're married. Or engaged. Or whatever. He thinks I'm yours."

"He thinks you're something I care about." Kael's voice went quiet. "That's worse."

The kitchen went still.

"Somebody want to tell me what that means?" I said.

Marisol set the spoon down and turned around.

"It means he's not coming for you because you're married to Kael," she said. "He's coming for you because hurting you is the most efficient way to hurt Kael. That's how Marcus works. He doesn't go for the person he's angry at. He goes for the person they love."

I looked at Kael.

He was staring at the wall. Not at me. Not at anyone.

"Kael," I said. "Is that true?"

"Yeah."

"So I'm bait."

"You're not bait."

"Kael."

"You're not bait," he said again, and his voice was harder this time. "You're a target. Bait implies I'm using you. I'm not using you. My father is using you. Those are different things."

I sat down at the table.

Lily was still eating her pancake. She had syrup on her cheek and she was watching us all like we were a TV show.

"Mama," she said. "Why is everyone mad?"

I wiped her cheek with my thumb.

"Nobody's mad, baby."

"You're lying again."

"I'm not lying. I'm just tired."

She thought about it.

"Okay," she said, and went back to her pancake.

---

Kael walked out. I followed him.

He went out the back door and across the yard toward the garage. I had to jog to keep up.

"Kael."

"Go back inside."

"Kael."

"Ella. Go inside."

"No." I grabbed his arm. He stopped. Turned around. "You don't get to walk away from me. Not tonight. Not after that letter."

He looked down at my hand on his arm. Then at my face.

"You're right," he said.

"I know I'm right."

"I'm not gonna walk away. I'm gonna go look at a camera. You can come."

I followed him.

---

The garage was a big building with four bays and a loft upstairs that had been turned into a security room. Monitors on three walls. A man I didn't know sitting at a desk with headphones around his neck.

"Boss," he said.

"South wall. Last twenty minutes."

The man typed. The screens changed.

There it was. A kid on a bike. Twelve, maybe thirteen. Hoodie. Bike with a banana seat. He rode up to the gate, handed something through the bars, and then rode away down the road.

"Get the plate off the car that dropped him," Kael said.

"There isn't one. He came from the east."

"Then get me the east road. Every camera between here and the highway."

"I'll need the club to pull the city feeds."

"Then pull the city feeds."

The man nodded and started typing again.

I stood there in the middle of the security room and looked at the screens.

"Kael," I said. "What if the kid doesn't know anything?"

"He doesn't."

"Then why are we looking?"

"Because the kid came from somewhere. And the person who sent him came from somewhere. And if I can't find my father I can at least find his edges."

"His edges."

"His people. His money. His routes. The places he's been and the people who've seen him. He's only been out for a month and he's already got a woman at a motel and a kid on a bike and a letter at my gate. That's a lot of moving parts for one man. He's got help. I want to know who."

He turned around.

"And I want to know why he called you daughter-in-law," he said. "Because he's not wrong to call you that."

I blinked.

"What?"

"Remember what your mother said. The payments started when you were fifteen. A family was interested in you. A man was promised to you."

"Kael, that was—"

"That was the Cross family? Maybe. Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was my father. Maybe he had a plan for you before you ever met Damon. Maybe he had a plan for you before you were born."

The room went very quiet.

"Kael," I said. "I'm twenty-four years old. If your father was planning something before I was born, that's thirty years of planning. That's not a plan. That's a—"

"That's a legacy," Kael said. "That's exactly what it is. That's what he called it. Before he went to prison he used to say he was building a legacy. I thought he meant the club. I thought he meant the money. I didn't think he meant a person."

He looked at me.

"I think he meant you."

---

I sat down on a crate.

The garage smelled like oil and tires. Somewhere a radio was playing low. Kael's guy was typing and not looking at us.

"I need a minute," I said.

"Take it."

"Kael."

"Take ten."

"Kael, I need to know something."

He turned around.

"Ask."

"You said you first ran my name three years ago. Two weeks after I left Damon."

"Yeah."

"Why?"

Kael looked at me.

"Because I had a file on the Cross family," he said. "Because my father left me a box of papers when he went to prison. Things he'd been keeping. People he'd been watching. And in that box there was a photo of a girl from the east end with a name under it that didn't match the one she was using."

"What was the name?"

"Sierra was the name on the box. Ella was the name under the photo."

My throat closed.

"What?"

"I didn't know what it meant then. I was twenty-four. I was running a club. I was trying to keep my brothers fed and my business alive and I didn't have time to figure out why my father had a photo of a fifteen-year-old girl in a box of dirty money."

He crouched down in front of me. His voice was low.

"So I ran your name. And then I ran it again. And then I found out you'd already run from Cross and I knew — I knew something was wrong. So I stopped. I didn't want to know. Because if I knew, I'd have to do something about it. And doing something about it meant going to war with my father."

He looked at me.

"And then three years later I walked into Rita's and you were standing behind the counter with a coffee pot and a hole in your shoe."

I looked at him.

"You knew me," I said.

"I knew your file. I didn't know you."

"You knew my name."

"I knew a name."

"And you didn't say anything."

"What was I supposed to say? 'Hi, I'm Kael, my father's been keeping a file on you since you were fifteen, want some coffee?'"

I put my face in my hands.

"Kael," I said.

"Ella."

"You need to tell me everything. Right now. Everything you know. Every file. Every paper. Every photo. Every person your father was watching. All of it."

"I don't have it."

"What?"

"I don't have it. The box went missing. Five years ago. I came home from a run and it was gone."

"Gone where?"

"I don't know."

"Then who has it?"

Kael looked at me.

"The same person who wrote the letter," he said. "The same person who paid your mother. The same person who set the fire. The same person who's been watching you for a month. And the same person who is currently sitting in a house in Ridgemont somewhere with my father's box and my father's plans and my father's money—"

"Kael."

"And a woman who used to be his sister."

The garage went very quiet.

I looked at him.

"Sierra," I said.

"Sierra."

"His sister."

"Half-sister. Same father. Different mother. He raised her. And when he went to prison, he sent her away. And nobody's heard from her since."

"And you think she has your father's box."

"I think my father gave it to her. I think she's the one with the money. I think she's the one who hired the woman in the hoodie. I think she's the one who's been watching you. And I think the letter didn't come from my father at all."

"Then who sent it?"

Kael looked at me.

"Sierra did," he said. "Because she wants to meet you. And she wants my father to think it was his idea."

I stood up.

"That's insane," I said.

"That's family."

"Kael."

"Welcome to it."

I walked out of the garage. I walked out into the yard and I put my hands on my knees and I breathed.

Kael followed me.

"You okay?" he said.

"No."

"Okay."

"Don't say okay."

"Okay."

I laughed. It came out broken.

"Kael," I said. "I have a daughter. I have a mother who sold me. I have an ex who's looking for me. I have a man in prison who thinks I'm his daughter-in-law. And now there's a woman somewhere in this city with a box of papers and a grudge and a hoodie and I'm supposed to—" I stopped. "I'm supposed to what? What am I supposed to do?"

Kael looked at me.

"You're supposed to fight," he said.

"With what?"

He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper.

"With this," he said.

He handed it to me.

I unfolded it.

It was a photograph.

A woman standing at a gas station three years ago. The figure I'd pointed out in the frame. The one who wasn't Webb.

She was young. Maybe twenty-five. Tall. Dark hair. A hoodie.

And she was looking at the camera with a smile that I recognized.

I looked at Kael.

"Who is this?" I said.

Kael said, "That's Sierra."

"She's smiling."

"She's smiling at you," he said. "She wanted you to find her."

I looked at the photo again.

Then I flipped it over.

There was writing on the back. Same handwriting as the letter.

I've been waiting for you, Ella Rae. Come find me before he does.

I looked at Kael.

"Where does she live?" I said.

He took the photo back.

"East end," he said. "Twenty-two minutes from here."

"Then let's go."

He looked at me.

"You're not going."

"Kael—"

"You're not going."

"She wants to meet me."

"That's exactly why you're not going."

"She's the only person in this whole thing who's actually told me the truth."

"She hasn't told you anything."

"She told me to find her."

"Which is exactly what my father would want her to say."

I looked at him.

"Or it's what you would want her to say," I said.

Kael's face didn't change. But something in his eyes did.

"What did you just say to me?"

I walked over to him. Right up close.

"I've known you for four days," I said. "Four days. And in four days you've put a sniper across the street from my apartment, moved me into your compound, told me my whole life has been planned by your family, and now you're telling me not to meet the one person who might actually have answers. So I'm going to ask you a question and I want you to be honest with me."

"Ask."

"Is there anything about my life you didn't already decide?"

Kael looked at me. For a long time. Long enough that the yard got quiet around us.

Then he said, "The night you walked into my bar. You used your real name. I didn't decide that. You did."

I stared at him.

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only answer I got."

I turned around. I walked toward the house.

"Where are you going?" he said.

"To get my shoes."

"Ella."

"And my daughter. And my mother. And your club. Because if I'm going to meet your sister, I'm not going alone."

Kael grabbed my arm. Gently. Just enough to stop me.

"Ella."

I turned around.

"Twenty-two minutes," he said. "East end. Tomorrow. Not tonight. You get an hour of sleep. You get Marisol and Nadia and three of my men and you get to ask her one question. One."

"Why one?"

"Because the second she answers it you're gonna have a hundred more. And the second she sees you have a hundred more, she's going to lie. One question. That's it."

"What question?"

Kael looked at me.

"The right one," he said. "You'll know it when you see her."

---

I went inside.

Lily was asleep on the couch with her rabbit. Marisol was at the counter. My mother was in the corner with her trash bag.

I sat down next to my daughter.

Then I pulled out the photo.

Sierra. Smiling at the camera. Three years ago.

And I said, quiet, to nobody:

"Okay. Let's find out who you are."

Chapter 12 Ends.