Page 44 of Well Aware

My stomach somersaulted.

“Thanks,” I said quietly.

“Now,” he said. “Let’s get you to bed. If you’re set on playing in the morning, we’ll need to get you some shut-eye.”

I kind of hated that he didn’t suggest “hot, sweaty sex.”

But he was right.

Tomorrow was a big day for him.

“We’ll win,” I said quietly.

He blew out a frustrated breath. “I have a solution.”

I blinked. “For your sister?”

“I think so,” he admitted as he jerked his chin toward the long hallway again. “Come on, I’ll show you to your room.”

“What’s your solution?” I wondered as I kept pace with him.

He flipped on a light in the first bedroom right off the living room, and my lips twitched. “This is really sweet.”

“Lysander has a son. He really liked race cars,” he said. “When I bought this house, he was barely two and demanded to decorate one of the rooms. Seeing as I didn’t care what it looked like, I let him. But now he’s nearly nine, and race cars aren’t his thing anymore. Nor is hanging out with a teacher from his school. ‘All the kids make fun of him.’”

“I doubt that.” I grinned. “He’ll be pretty popular having you as an uncle.”

“As for my solution,” he said. “As of a couple of hours before the accident, the Cowgirls and the Condors have new owners.”

I gasped. “What?”

He explained his vision to me, telling me about his friend, Courtland. He also explained about his other friend, Charleigh, who also had some shares in the company.

“So when will the news be shared?” I wondered.

“My lawyers say it’ll take about twenty-four hours to hit the news,” he explained as he turned on the light for the en suite bathroom. “We’re probably going to be halfway through that game tomorrow when my sister finds out.”

“So your dad owns ten percent of the company now?” I asked as I took a seat on the edge of the bed. “How is he able to remain the owner?”

“I think it was just an obligatory title,” he explained. “He’s still the CEO. The board voted him in as such shortly after he’d switched the shares over after Sonja’s death.”

“Do you like your dad?” I found myself asking.

He leaned his broad shoulder against the door jamb and shrugged, his amber eyes darkening. “At one time, I liked him. But since Sonja died…I haven’t exactly liked how he’s been acting. It’s always him protecting Seraphina. After Sonja passed, he spent all of his time at the police station trying to get Seraphina bailed out of jail. Didn’t help with Sonja’s funeral. Nothing.”

“He should’ve left her there to rot,” I admitted.

“Exactly,” he growled. “But he didn’t. He lost a day and a half helping her. Literally hours left to live, and he chose the kid that helped shorten Sonja’s life.”

“It’s an impossible decision,” I agreed. “You’re supposed to always put your children first. In that situation…”

“I think I might’ve understood it better had Seraphina not fucked us over long before that,” he shifted on his feet. “She literally was such a bad kid. Fighting. Getting herself kicked out of school so we were forced to move, too. Eventually, we found this new school, but instead of kicking her out and forcing us to move, they just swept her actions under the rug and my dad donated. She did drugs. She constantly wrecked her cars. Hell, I’m sure some of those times she was high or drunk. She was pregnant by fifteen. Again at seventeen. But she was so hard on her body that none of the pregnancies stuck. Nothing woke her up. Not even Sonja’s death. She was more worried about getting a new car when she got out of jail after she killed her than Sonja herself. She didn’t even go to the funeral.”

That sickened me.

“I can’t imagine treating my sister like that,” I said. “I pretty much stuck to her like glue. She could’ve been so mean and forced me to stay away, but she embraced the suck. Never cared when I was talking to her friends more than she did. Sonja deserved so much better. You all do.”

“She didn’t get much better after high school. We all graduated back to back to back. Seraphina first. Then me. Skipped a year since Sonja passed. Then Lysander.” He shook his head. “She lived off of Dad’s money. Didn’t care that she was the cause of our parents’ divorce. Hell, she still lives with him.”