Page 166 of Caution to the Wind

It was as beautiful as it was terrifyin’.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” I told her, voice a little guttural with raw, violent promise. “He’s a walkin’ dead man.”

“Promise?” she asked in that same sweet voice, expression dark as night.

Mei blinked at her then glanced at me with comically wide eyes.

I swallowed my laugh. “Swear it.”

“Well then,” she said, shruggin’ off the mood. “That’s good news.”

“You know,” Mei told her, tuggin’ on a short lock of Cleo’s hair. “I think I’m starting to wear off on you. You’re pretty scary, Glory.”

She laughed. “You are who you spend time with I guess. It’s a miracle I’ve lasted this long without some bloodlust.” Her gaze went distant for a moment, returnin’ to that fallow field we’d found her in, maybe. “It’s a good change, I think.”

“Me too,” Mei agreed softly, smilin’ at her friend with that earnest affection she only ever showed Cleo, Lin, Old Dragon, and me.

It seemed like a mornin’ for sharin’ truths so even though I’d fully intended to keep the truth about Maxwell Dutton from Cleo for the foreseeable future, faced with her now, I couldn’t stay the course. She wasn’t the same shy girl who’d hidden behind a certain naivete for years to keep out the bad things in life.

She was forever changed by what The Prophet fuck had done to her, and it didn’t have to be all bad. She was fightin’ at the gym, hungerin’ for revenge and searchin’ for a new kinda independence.

Kate wasn’t here and she hadn’t been here to offer me advice in over a decade, but I had to believe she’d want her daughter to know the truth and be strong enough to make the decision about how to handle it on her own.

“Glory,” I started, movin’ to lean on the island across from my girls. There must’ve been somethin’ in my eyes ’cause Mei made to take Cleo’s hand. “We learned some shit when we were after the Red Dragons that you should know, too.

Cleo blinked at me. “You don’t usually share stuff about the club with me.”

“Yeah, and I’m not gonna lie, I thought about doin’ the same here, but it wouldn’t be right.” I reached over to take her free hand in both of mine. “The reasons Kasper went after your mum, wasn’t ’cause of the real estate deals she was doin’ for him. Not exactly. She was workin’ with him, ’cause years before, he’d been one of her clients and he’d fallen for her.”

“Oh,” she breathed, hand spasmin’ in mine.

“You want me to continue?”

She nodded, but there was a wary distance in her eyes that said she was ready to shut down if she couldn’t handle this shit.

“Problem was, your mum was in love with a different man. A guy they call White Snake, ’cause he was a white man in a triad. When Kasper found out about them, he arranged White Snake to go to prison, leavin’ your mum heartbroken…and pregnant.”

My daughter blinked slow, once, twice. “I thought this might have been where you were going.”

“His name’s Maxwell Dutton, and, he’s not the one who killed your mum. He seemed to honest to God love her. But she was killed ’cause of her relationship with him. In the end, Kasper couldn’t take the jealousy.”

“He’s a fucking psychopath,” Mei muttered darkly. “That’s why he killed her.”

There was a long silence as we both let Cleo digest the news. She was a thoughtful woman, takin’ time to arrive at conclusions Mei and I could rush toward. I wondered how it had to feel for her, knowin’ she and her mum had both been attacked by a psychopath and only Cleo had made it out alive.

“Why did he tell you this?” she asked eventually, looking out at the window at the sparklin’ lake. “What did he want out of it?”

“He wants to meet you,” I confessed. “But I told him fuck no, if you don’t want to. Or ’til you’re ready. It’s all on your terms, Glory. You get me?”

She stared at her hands in Mei’s and mine for a while, worryin’ her lower lip between her teeth before she looked up into my eyes. Her expression was unusually fierce.

“I don’t give a fuck,” she decreed, shockin’ the hell outta me by swearin’. “He’s nothing but the man who contributed half of my DNA. My real dad is and always will beyou. The man who quit his dream job to take care of me. Who went to jail to keep my best friend safe and free. Who created a home for mum and me for the first time in our lives. How can you ever think I’d care to meet a man who didn’t protect us when the dad I ended up with has proven again and again he’d give his life for me? No,” she bit out. “No fucking way do I want to meet this guy.”

“Okay, honey,” I agreed immediately, ignorin’ the way my heart throbbed with an excess of love for her. “I hear ya. But you hear me on this, if you ever change your mind, you come to me and I’ll set up a meet. The door’s never closed unless you want it to be.”

“I do.”

“Okay, but you might change your mind after you’ve had some time to think about it,” I soothed.