Well Aware (Don’t Date Him #9)

Prologue

If you’ve lost your appetite today, I’ve found it.

—Magnolia’s secret thoughts

MAGNOLIA

“Do it, or I’ll blow your head off.”

I closed my eyes as my sister’s on-again, off-again, baby daddy—not that he knew that he was a baby daddy—held a gun to my sister’s head.

I was frozen to the spot, my hand hovering over the tiny baby in the bassinet at my feet, praying that she didn’t wake up and spoil everything.

If Cain knew I was here, he’d lose his shit.

He didn’t like me.

I was a “bad influence” on my sister.

When, in actuality, I was a person who went out of her way to help my sister break free of the chains that Cain had placed around her.

I’d been begging Rose to leave Cain in the dust for two years now, and for two years, he pulled her back at the moment that she got a little too far away from him.

It was a miracle that my sister was able to hide her pregnancy from him.

Thank God for good genetics and loose shirts.

It also helped that Cain was gone doing his civic duty.

Cain’s parents, some of the richest people in the state of Tennessee, had required every male in their line to serve their country.

Sadly for Cain and his family, just because he was a McDuff didn’t mean diddly squat to the US military.

He’d been deployed just like all the rest of them, and Rose had stayed home.

She’d grown their baby, then she’d shoved that baby into my arms and ordered me to pretend like she was my own.

And, because I loved my sister with all of my heart, I’d pretended.

On paper, Iris Rin Baker was my daughter.

Lucky for Rose and I, we looked almost identical.

Meaning, Iris looked exactly like us.

Unluckily, she also had a bit of her father in her.

Iris shared her father’s eyes and hair texture.

Hopefully, our genes won out, though.

Her hair was already getting darker.

With any luck, her eyes would change to a brown like ours.

“I can’t,” Rose said. “I’m at work.”

She was at work.

I’d come to see her because she missed Iris, and I could tell.

In between class and soccer practice, I’d picked Iris up from daycare and brought her here for a lunch pick-me-up.

Neither one of us realized that Cain would drop by, too.

He only dropped by when he couldn’t get a hold of Rose fast enough. He had to be in constant contact with her whenever he felt like it, and when she didn’t appease his obsession, he’d start stalking her.

I should’ve known that he would find her today.

“You’ll make it up to me when you get home.” He shoved her away.

I winced when her back slammed against the locker behind her.

Since Cain’s family funded this entire hospital, it wasn’t abnormal to find the McDuffs circling around the hospital, checking to make sure their money was well spent.

“Yes, I will,” Rose promised.

She would, too.

Because she liked to breathe.

God, how did this become our life?

He walked out and both of us stood silently, praying that he actually left.

We stood there for a solid five minutes before Rose finally looked at me.

I came out of the bathroom and pushed the stroller into the room.

“He’ll never leave me alone,” she whispered as she looked down at her daughter. “She’ll never be safe.”

“Rose…”

My sister moved surprisingly fast for someone that had just had the shit beaten out of her.

Even if the only way you could tell was by the bruises on my sister’s fingers where he’d shut the locker on her hand when she hadn’t acknowledged him fast enough.

“No, listen to me, sister,” she whispered, cupping my face with bruised fingers. “This isn’t an option anymore. You have to take her. And you have to go.”

Like me, my sister was adopted.

Though, we were both adopted from the same family, so she was my full-blooded sister. Our dad, a half-Japanese visiting dignitary, had fallen in love with our mother, a lovely Southern Belle who had begged for him to stay.

So he had.

They flew to Japan several times a year so that my dad’s side of the family could meet us and spend time with us, but the majority of the year we lived in Tennessee, where we lived with my mother’s family at her estate.

Dad was a businessman that made bookoos of money doing something with finance. Mom was a stay-at-home mother who loved taking care of us.

Then they’d both died in a car crash.

A drunk driver had hit them so hard that the front half of their vehicle had detached from the back half.

Both Mom and Dad had died on impact.

At the time, Rose and I had been six and seven.

Aunt Daisy and Uncle Angus had adopted us shortly after, taking us in as their own.

We’d grown up safe and protected, but only realized after they’d both died in a drunk driving accident of their own—though they’d been the transgressors this time—that they’d not only taken care of us, but they’d also spent every single cent of money doing so.

At eighteen and nineteen, Rose and I had a harsh reality check.

We hadn’t had the money to pay for our college. We hadn’t had the money to pay for the estate’s taxes. We hadn’t had the money to pay off all the debtors.

We’d been metaphorically fucked.

But we’d persevered.

We’d both gone off to college, accruing more student loan debt than we should’ve, and graduated with our bachelor’s degrees in nursing.

Though, only Rose went into nursing full-time.

I’d continued to take advanced college courses while simultaneously playing professional soccer. I’d also worked part-time, and I’d lived in my big sister’s apartment with her.

At least, until she met Cain.

The moment they’d started seeing each other, I’d moved out.

I’d gotten an apartment with a teammate and left my sister to Cain.

I should’ve never left my sister to Cain.

Maybe if I’d thrown a fit, we wouldn’t be in this predicament.

“No arguments,” Rose said. “You had that offer a week ago. I’ll bet it’s still good.”

I was already shaking my head. “Rose…”

“Go,” she ordered. “Take Iris with you. And don’t ever come back.”

“Won’t he think it’s suspicious that I’m not here anymore?” I tried.

“No.” She stepped back from the stroller, a look of determination on her face.

“He told me a week ago when I made mention of you moving to Texas that it was a good thing that you were leaving. That you were a bad influence on me, and that he was tired of wondering what we were plotting together. He gave me an ultimatum. Him or you.”

I closed my eyes as I felt tears well in my eyes. “This is the worst idea ever.”

My sister smiled, and it was the saddest smile I’d ever seen. “It’s for the best.”

I hugged her fiercely. “We’ll find a way out for you, Rose.”

She squeezed me so hard that I was breathless when she finally let me go. “We will.”

Except, we didn’t.

I moved to stupid Texas for a soccer career and the promise of daycare and free tuition for the rest of my nurse anesthetist degree.

Four months after I moved, Cain called me to tell me that my sister was dead.

Apparently, she had found a way out of her life after all.

One that came at the bottom of a pill bottle.

The sad fact was, I didn’t blame her at all.

And when the letter came in the mail two days later, explaining her reasoning, I knew that no matter what I did, I’d see that Cain McDuff paid.

I didn’t care if it took me twenty years to do it.

One day, I’d slide a knife between his ribs and smile as I watched the life bleed out of him.