Page 43 of Reaper's Claim

“Dad.” I forced the feelings to stay out of my voice. I wouldn’t give Reaper the privilege of hearing anything but coldness in my voice. I would never let him get close again. Sure, I had found a letter, but deep down I felt like it hadn’t changed much.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

The timing couldn’t be worse. The night after I found the letter that could have changed everything, and Reaper was standing in Aunty Amanda’s living room the next day.

“I thought it was time I caught up with my girls.” He seemed to be telling the truth because he was able to keep eye contact with me. “Been missing my girls.”

Been missing us, has he? Then why didn’t he call? Why hadn’t he come sooner? Today’s world made it so simple to get in touch with someone if you really wanted to. There was no excuse for his silence.

“Well, that’s great.” A bitter smile crept across my lips. “I’ll leave you and Kim to it. Just let me know when you roll back out of town.”

I turned to walk out of the room. It looked like I needed to pack an overnight bag and would be crashing somewhere else for a few nights. Surely he wouldn’t be staying longer than that.

“Abby!”

“What, Dad?” I sighed and turned around with a deflated look on my face. I wasn’t interested in what he had to say, and I wasn’t interested in hanging around to listen to it.

“Come back here.”

“I really don’t see the point.”

“You can’t speak to me like that.”

“Sorry, Dad. I guess I’m just not used to speaking to you.” I crossed my arms and gave him a pointed look. “Last time I checked, your motto for being a dad is when things get hard, ship them off to the whore becauseshewill be a great role model.”

He rose from the chair with the look of a raging bull. “Reel ya shit in, Abby.”

“How about I just ride out instead?”

“Dad, just let her go, will you? She will get your blood pressure up,” Kim snapped into our conversation. “Really, Dad, just let her go. She won’t back down.”

“Yeah, Dad, listen to the model daughter of yours.” I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. “Kim just has so much good advice these days, especially when it comes to getting pregnant and aborting it.” I shot her a smug look. She hated me mentioning her abortion, so I did it frequently.

“Abby, that really isn’t nice,” Trent spoke up, trying to come to the defense of his halfwit of a girlfriend.

“Trent, your face really isn’t nice, but yet I have to deal with it regularly.” I shot him a tight smile and a “mind your own fucking business” look.

“ABBY!” Kim got to her feet and for once was actually seen off of Trent’s lap. After all, since she started dating the walking pizza, she had decided to become a lap poodle.

“Not my fault he looks like a pizza topping gone wrong.” I shrugged my shoulders, pretending to come off innocent. To be fair to Trent, his skin wasn’t that bad, but I heard Kim mention once he used to have bad skin, and it is sort of a weakness and a sore spot for him.

So being the bitch I am, I take someone’s weakness and punch them in it. “Now if you all don’t mind, I have places be, with people I actually give a fuck about. So see ya later, and I hope that later isn’t anytime soon.”

Sure, I was a bitch. I wasn’t denying that or making excuses. Perhaps I had grown up to be Satan’s Bitch, as Kim liked to refer to me as.

I left the room in silence. No one said anything to me. Nobody stopped me from leaving, either. A large part of me felt pleased with that because I had what I wanted. I wasn’t wanted by them. They wanted me gone, and I wanted to be gone.

Funny how sometimes things worked out.

Chapter 15

Abby

Novels; it was something I had yet to give up. I flicked the page. I wished my life was as thrilling as the ones on the pages.

“We need to talk.”

Drake walked into the lounge, scotch glass in hand.I closed the book I was reading and arched an eyebrow after taking in his expression.