Page 20 of Unforgiving Queen

“In my experience, fathers are usually deadbeat, good-for-nothing men,” Raven commented, sipping on her wine. Leave it to her to drag a bottle of thousand-dollar wine up because she wasn’t ready for Thanksgiving to be over.

“Forget deadbeat fathers.” Isla leaned forward as if she had state secrets to share. “Can we go back to the fact that Alexandar is hot as fuck?”

I rolled my eyes. “He’s married too. In love with his wife.”

Raven shrugged. “She doesn’t want to bang him, just admire”—she cleared her throat, giving Isla a pointed look—“his assets.”

“Right, because we always just look.” I shot them a disapproving look. “Don’t you all want to go to bed?”

“Pffft.” Athena took the bottle out of Raven’s hand and gulped the wine straight from it. “It’s only seven.”

“It’s dark,” I muttered under my breath. Papà said we’d talk but never elaborated about what. It set my teeth on edge.

“Reina, you have to move on,” Athena countered. “We’ve done a piss-poor job of—”

I raised my palm, stopping her. “Please don’t go there.” The four of them looked at me with such pity I had to close my eyes. “Just don’t. I’ve moved on. So let’s just pretend last summer never happened.”

Isla shook her head. Phoenix kept her expression blank, but I knew her enough to know she worried. The same way I always worried about her.

“You just have to get laid by someone hotter and better.” Clearly Raven’s suggestion was dumb because the last thing I needed was another man in my life.

“Maybe we can watch a movie?” Phoenix suggested. “A Christmas Story?”

I shrugged. It was my favorite Thanksgiving/Christmas movie, but I wasn’t in the mood for it. I wasn’t in the mood for much of anything lately.

Instead, I turned to my sister. “Phoenix, do you remember when Papà shoved us in the dark hole behind the fireplace?”

If the tense silence that followed didn’t tell me she did, her raised brows and flushed neck would. With this influx of memories lately, I wondered what else I was forgetting. Phoenix might have had a better memory because she was a little older than me when Mamma died, but it didn’t explain why I was suddenly uncovering these black holes from my childhood. I couldn’t help attributing it to how chaotic life had been this past year. I’d have to remember to mention it during my next session with my therapist.

Our friends just stared, waiting for one of us to explain, until Isla couldn’t hold back her exasperated breath anymore.

“Okay, can you elaborate? Because I’m imagining all kinds of fucked-up scenarios here.” It was Raven who commented.

I traced patterns on the blankets absentmindedly and waited for Phoenix to answer.

“Papà was attacked the summer we went to Italy with our mother,” she explained, signing calmly. “He made us get into a safe room behind the fireplace.”

“Who attacked him?” Raven asked, her eyes like saucers.

Phoenix shrugged, something flickering across her expression. “Don’t know.”

I narrowed my eyes on her. “But you know something,” I countered. She started to shake her head but stopped when I said, “Don’t lie to me. Remember, I know all your tells.”

She let out a heavy sigh. “I really don’t know who they were. All I know is that they looked like…”

She didn’t finish and my blood pressure spiked. “Like?”

“Like they were Japanese.”

A round of gasps followed. “Do you think—” Athena cut herself off, her gaze flickering to the girls with a guilty expression.

“What?” I demanded. It irked me to no end, feeling like an outsider. Like I was the last to know. “Finish the sentence.”

Raven poured herself another generous amount of wine, gulping it down in one go.

“We’re all thinking maybe it has something to do with Amon,” she announced, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

God, just hearing his name sliced my heart.