Page 49 of Even Robots Die (Even Ever After #3)

Brice

I f those girls weren’t her sisters, the people she loves the most, I would have put them in a dungeon. Not that we really have a dungeon in Notre Dame, but still.

Especially the youngest one.

That one is really a piece of shit. She sounded vicious and full of resentment. She sounded like the world was against her and like her sister was doing nothing to make it better.

I get it, she’s young, and she’s probably in her rebellious phase, but the way she talked to Florentine and made her speechless, the way it doused the fire I so like to see shine in her eyes …

It almost makes me regret sending a team to retrieve them with how ungrateful they sounded.

Of course, I would do it again. I saw the relief on Florentine’s face as soon as her eyes fell on the girls, and just because of that sight, I’m glad I could do something like that for her.

It doesn’t change the fact I hate everything that happened after that.

It makes me mad for her to no end. It makes me want to throttle someone and to free the violent streak I have in me since those damn birds toyed with my brain.

I know I shouldn’t have spied on them, but I’m glad I did. It gives me more insight about Florentine, about her role in her family, about who she is when she’s not blushing from rage at my every attempt to raise her temper.

I had no doubt before today that most of the things she did were first and foremost to help her sisters, to keep her family together, but I believed it was mutual. That her sisters were taking care of her the same way she did, that she had a place she could be herself and loved.

Hell, the girl switched her position with her kidnapped father without a second thought. I’m not proud of that move now that my emotions are coming back, but I would do it all over again if I knew it would bring her to me, even if it’s just for a few weeks.

I don’t doubt that her sisters love her, but they also have high expectations of her.

Expectations that oddly remind me of the ones kids have of their parents, except in her case, there is none of the respect for a parental figure.

The lines are blurred, and even if her father forced her—whether consciously or not—to assume a motherly role, she is still just their sister.

Is she really happy with this position, or did she have no other choice than to step in at an age she should have been a kid herself? At an age she was just starting to build herself?

No wonder the light in her eyes makes her look much older than she is.

I still want to know, but asking now would only make it that much more obvious that I was listening in on a private conversation, and I saw her face before Cassiopé shooed all the girls outside. She looked pained by what her sister said. By how much, I don't know yet, but I plan to discover it.

She’s been asleep for over an hour now and I’ve been sitting in a corner of the room, still wishing we were in mine, when it looks like she might wake up very soon.

I type a message on my phone so that a snack is prepared for her and when a knock comes at the door, I quickly grab the cup and the pastry and set them on the nightstand next to her.

I don’t think she’ll want me here when she wakes up, so I slip outside and wait for her to get up and see what she’s planning for the rest of the day.

We still have time to go search for her father before the day is over, and this time I won’t trust her safety with anyone else.

Whether she likes it or not, I’m going with her.