JUST OUTSIDE THE Malik family home, I hesitated.
I knew that I had the right place—a large, two-story home with cedar porch furniture and decorations that looked… cozy. I’d imagined a mansion like the household’s or a large, sleekly designed home from a magazine, but this was a more modest building, and one that looked lived-in. Around the side of the wrap-around porch, I spotted a splash of brighter color from beach towels and a pair of swimming trunks hanging over the railing to dry. I couldn’t see the pool from the front of the house, but I imagined the porch would lead me there if I continued around.
Instead, I eyed the beige front door, a wreath hanging there with the word “welcome” written in a calligraphic style across the center. All I had to do was knock, and I had no doubt these people would welcome me into their home as if I truly was one of them. But once they met me… would everything change?
I was nothing like the Maliks. I’d never lived in a cozy house with a pool. I’d never had people who loved me the way that a normal family loved one another. I wasn’t even sure what love was.
I raised my hand to knock on the door, but it opened before I had the chance. Damien Malik greeted me with a wide smile, wearing khaki shorts and a collared shirt with a vibrant Hawaiian print.
Was this how he dressed when he was home with his family? I couldn’t remember ever seeing him in anything that wasn’t on the grayscale, but all my images of him were from his work life. Apparently the guy knew how to relax a little.
A plethora of emotions flashed through his eyes as he looked me over, likely taking in the dress shirt and slacks I’d worn in a misguided attempt to fit in. I’d assumed that meeting a politician in his home would be similar to doing it in his office, but this was nowhere near as formal as I’d anticipated judging by my father’s clothing.
After a second, Malik shook his head. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to leave you standing outside. My wife would fillet me for my manners. It’s just… it’s hard to comprehend that you’re really here—the daughter I’d spent over twenty years thinking that we lost.” He sucked in a deep breath. “Enough of my sappy rambling. I can tell it’s making you uncomfortable. Come in, please.”
This was the defining moment, so I plastered on my best ingratiating smile and stepped through the doorway.
The inside of the house gave off the same welcoming energy as the outside of it. I walked inside through the entranceway, and despite what appeared to be a coat closet, a few pairs of shoes scattered the entrance rug, and coats hung from makeshift hooks on the walls—over a dozen at least.
How many people had gathered for this get-together?
Malik’s hand hovered over my shoulder and then dropped to his side as he thought better of attempting physical contact just yet. “The rest of the family is in the living room waiting to meet you. I hope you won’t find it too much. Your mother and I couldn’t help sharing the news, and everyone wanted to see you with their own eyes.” He chuckled awkwardly. “I promise that none of us bite.”
That was such a dad joke—so much of a dad joke that I recognized it as one from my limited knowledge of pop culture without ever having had a dad before—that it put me more at ease.
“I can’t wait to meet them,” I said, which was kind of true. I did want to get to know my whole family, but I’d expected this first visit to be just Damien and his wife… my mother. I was still having trouble wrapping my own head around that idea.
Maybe it was better to get all the introductions over at once and to get a sense of the overall family vibe. They must be close-knit if they’d all jumped to visit this quickly.
Malik—Damien—my mind balked at thinking of him as Dad—motioned me to a doorway to the left of a broad wooden staircase. “We’ll have a little private get-together with the immediate family first. The others can wait. I don’t want to drop too much on you all at once.”
I dragged in a breath with a little relief. “Okay.”
Damien led me into a small sitting room. A woman I recognized as his wife from the photos and an unfamiliar young man who looked to be in his late teens stood up from the sofa at our entrance.
Mrs. Malik froze in place, staring at me with wide eyes. Damien went over to her, and she clutched his shoulder, never tearing her eyes from me.
“My Rachel,” she whispered, and pressed her hand to her mouth. She took a step closer, searching my face, and I found myself searching hers too, looking for the college girl who’d looked like me.
I could catch traces of that younger woman in her eyes and the line of her jaw, though the shape of her nose and lips had been altered by her plastic surgery. Fine lines were starting to creep from the corners of her eyes and mouth like they did on Damien. But even with the subtle signs of age, she was beautiful with her naturalistic makeup and striped sundress.
Damien beckoned me over, and I stepped hesitantly toward the two of them. “Mom?”
The word sounded alien falling from my lips, but a beaming smile spread across the woman’s face. She wrapped her arms around me in a hug that I had to stop myself from tensing against.
My instinctive resistance only lasted a second. Then I started to relax into her embrace. It felt… warm. Motherly, even. I laughed inwardly at my little joke and let my arms rise to return the hug.
I had a mother. A mother who’d been missing me all this time.
“Rachel,” she murmured, and eased back to gaze into my eyes again, her own shining with joy. “My sweet girl has come back to us. It’s a miracle.”
A strange sensation swelled in my chest. I’d never felt anything like it before. In all my years at the household—all the years of Ana taking a semi-maternal role—nobody had ever hugged me like this. Nobody had ever shown I mattered like this.
I tore my gaze away to glance at the boy who’d stayed by the sofa, where he was eying me skeptically. He had the same storm gray eyes as both Damien and me, but his were lighter than mine, diluted with a touch of green like my mother’s. Our mother’s? He also had the tawny brown hair I’d seen in pictures of Damien when he was younger and a height that matched the older man’s, though he hadn’t quite filled out that height yet. His limbs were still a bit gangly.
My mother stepped back and took a deep breath, dabbing beneath her eyes with her finger. “Goodness, I’m going to make a mess of myself,” she said with a laugh. She reached toward the boy and tugged him over. “You can keep calling me Mom, of course, but if you’re more comfortable with first names while you get to know us, I’m Iris. This is our son—your brother—Carter.”
Carter gave an awkward wave, and I did the same thing back. Neither of us knew what to say about that. From the looks of him, he’d been born a few years after I was kidnapped. We’d never existed in the same space until now.
Then the door to the other part of the house flew open, and a short woman with frizzy gray hair burst into the entranceway. She spoke before anyone could get a word out. “Now I know my son told us to stay in there, but I was beginning to think that he was blowing smoke up my ass with the story of his daughter coming back from the dead.”
Her presence made the room feel cramped. I took a step back, and more people flooded in behind her. But the plump old lady took all my attention from the others. She was small and wizened, but she bulldozed over Damien’s brief protests, and I knew immediately that I didn’t want to be in her path.
She looked me up and down as she approached, and I wondered what she saw when she looked at me. Her sharp eyes didn’t look as if they missed much. A prickle ran down my back
“Grandma Ruby, you’re scaring her,” Carter said, giving her a playful poke in the arm.
She shot an affectionate glower at Carter, and I could finally breathe. “Now Carter, let me have my fun. She’s as much my grandbaby as you are.” The woman looked at me and smiled. “Rachel,” she said with undiluted affection in her tone, and pulled me into a hug just as my mother had.
I didn’t know how to react surrounded by this much affection. It felt like they were excited to see a woman who wasn’t here. Who even was Rachel? I knew that’d been my name years ago, but I’d never used it within my memory. Each time they called me by her name, I felt like an imposter. I was Decima, and I didn’t know how to be anyone else.
I knew better than to ask to go by the name my kidnappers had given me, though. I could only imagine their looks of horror.
So, I stood there, allowing the crowd to come and devour me with tight hugs. Aunts, uncles, and cousins looked me over, commenting on how much I looked like my mother or father—comments that I knew were more for politeness than anything.
My eyes caught on a few of them more than the others—people who were easier to read, maybe? Maybe their personalities complimented mine, making it easier to meet their gazes. One family in particular—my first cousin, aunt, and uncle on my father’s side—drew my attention.
The man and wife each had fiery red hair. Their daughter, who looked around my age or a tad older, had the complexion of a redhead, complete with freckles her foundation couldn’t quite hide, but she’d dyed her wavy locks black. My aunt and uncle clasped each other’s hands as they took me in, but my cousin seemed almost as interested in her phone as my arrival.
Maybe I should have been insulted, but something about her disinterest reassured me. I wasn’t a big deal to everyone. To her, this was just another day. Maybe it didn’t have to be such a momentous occasion.
Damien began tossing out names, and I tried to commit each one to memory. The woman with the dyed black hair was Margaret. Despite her apparent boredom, my father clapped her on the shoulder. “Margaret’s twenty-five, so she’s the closest in age to you. I’m sure you two will get along great. She and your Aunt Mabel and Uncle Henry come around a lot, so you’ll see plenty of them.”
He was talking as if I was going to be living here from now on. A prickle of apprehension ran over my skin, even though I knew he wouldn’t be taking that step so quickly.
Margaret lifted her gaze from her phone. Her voice came out low and monotonous. “Did they torture you? Like kidnappers in crime shows or whatever?”
“Margaret!” Aunt Mabel said with a gasp.
I wasn’t actually offended by the question, but I wasn’t sure how to answer it either. I guessed Noelle and the others had kind of tortured me by forcing me to train, but I couldn’t say that without getting into the whole “I was raised to be an assassin” thing it seemed better to keep on the down low.
“No,” I said, forcing a small laugh. Every pair of eyes focused even more intently on me, curious as to how I would answer her. “No, of course not. I didn’t even know that I was kidnapped until recently. They acted like I was a part of their family.” A brutally disciplined and distant family, but close enough.
Grandma Ruby was the next to speak. “They kidnapped you. How did you not realize something was wrong? They took you from us, and they never even mentioned that you came from somewhere else?”
I gave an apologetic grimace. Did she really blame me?
“I guess I was so young that after a while the old memories didn’t stick with me,” I said. “I grew up with them, and they acted like their way of life was normal and that they were the only ones who could protect me from the dangerous world.”
And the whole time they’d been the most dangerous people in it. People who’d already torn apart my real family.
“Well, something has to be done about them,” my grandmother spat out. My grandfather—Bo, one of the others had called him—came over and slung his arm around her shoulders, but she barely seemed to notice his presence in her fury. “It’s disgusting what they did to you and to us.”
Her husband looked down at her. “Don’t be getting upset. She’s here now, and that’s what matters the most. Isn’t that right, Rachel?”
I nodded, and the smile that had felt forced before seemed to stick in place without much effort now. How lucky was I that I’d found a family who cared so much about someone who was essentially a stranger to them? Even if their questions made me edgy, they only asked because I mattered to them.
If I’d died during a mission for the household, Noelle would have replaced me, and she and her colleagues would all have moved on with their lives. Nobody there would have mourned me.
I was finally a part of something bigger in a good way, not just a pawn to be maneuvered and manipulated for the sake of someone’s selfish ends.
With that thought, the secrets I was keeping to protect myself left a bitter aftertaste in my mouth. Julius’s face flashed through my mind. Then Talon’s and Blaze’s. Garrison’s.
They were a family in a way, but they weren’t like this one. I was tied to them through loyalty and mutual respect, not blood. But they knew my story and what I’d done with my life. They knew everything about me, and they accepted it all without restraint.
I was going to spend this entire encounter acting like a woman who I didn’t know—one who was so far from the woman I had become. I’d created a story to explain the time I’d been away from this family, and if I ever told them the truth…
Well, I didn’t know if I could ever tell them the truth about myself. It was hard not to imagine that if I tried, I’d lose them all.
I looked around at all the cousins, aunts, and uncles, then toward Grandma Ruby and Grandpa Bo who stood tall and held her. Then, I turned my attention to my parents, standing side-by-side with Carter in front of them.
Damien’s face had become a rigid mask of determination. “We’re going to bring the people who kidnapped you to justice,” he swore.
My heart skipped a beat as I absorbed that promise. Maybe he knew more about my kidnappers than I’d expected. If it’d been personal—and how could it not be to some extent, with the lengths they’d gone to in order to steal me away—he must know who at least some of his enemies were.
“I don’t know how much help I’m going to be in accomplishing that,” I said, sucking my lower lip under my teeth. I knew more than I was going to admit, but I couldn’t lay everything on the table. Not yet. I needed to know what information would be the most useful in finding the people responsible without jeopardizing my own secrets. “I was isolated from everyone except for the few people who were looking after me, and when I realized what was going on, the situation had turned so dangerous I couldn’t stay to find out anything that’d help track them down.”
My father frowned. “What about those people who looked after you?” he asked, tightening his jaw, but he loosened it with a deep breath and shook his head. “You were around them a lot. I’m sure there are some things that you discovered, even if you don’t realize it.”
“Well,” I said with a wince, “the woman who spent the most time caring for me was killed by some other group of criminals, so she’s out of the picture. That’s when I ran. It must have been some kind of gang war or something.”
I shuddered, completely for effect. That was how a normal person would react when thinking of a murder, right?
Damien stared off at a place on the wall for a moment, his expression pensive. Was he angry because I couldn’t provide him with a lead, or was it more than that? Did he have ideas about who might have been involved that he didn’t want to share with me out of fear of re-traumatizing me?
I had to show I was at least a little more resilient than that. “If you have any leads or ideas about the investigation, I’d really like to be a part of it,” I said, struggling to hit the right level of enthusiasm. “I want to know the reason I was taken as much as you do.”
My father rested his hand on my back with a reassuring pat, though his face was still serious. “There’s no need for that. I’m sorry for badgering you about it at all. You’ve been through enough already. The investigators will want to talk to you, of course, and get any details you can offer, but I’ll make sure it ends there.”
How did I convince him that I wanted to be a part of this investigation? “I’m honestly happy to help however I can. I want to see these people brought to justice too.” Preferably by my own hand, I added silently. “Please don’t worry about it being an imposition.”
Damien’s jaw flexed, but the smile held in place. “Enough on this awful subject,” he said, squeezing my shoulder lightly. “Let’s focus on everything good that’s come out of today. We have you back with us—nothing could be more worth celebrating than that. Why don’t we go sit down to lunch and we can talk more there, about lighter subjects.”
I couldn’t continue pushing without sounding suspicious, so I simply nodded and let my gaze slip over the gathered family members again. “I’m looking forward to getting to know you all better.”
As everyone streamed into the hall, heading for the dining room, I caught a glimpse of another shadow crossing Damien’s face, there just for a moment before he caught my eyes and aimed another smile at me.
Something was bothering him. Was it just that I hadn’t offered a clear path to finding the criminals he must want to bring to justice more than any before?
Or was there something more going on here that I was missing?
