Broken Promise (The Denton Family Legacy 1)

It wasn’t just the way he looked but also the way he talked. Lou finally understood what her brother said about Landon not seeming like a sixteen year old boy.

Before they could say anything, their mother was on Riley, pinching his cheeks and cooing over him.

Releasing her brother, Louisa folded her arms and watched the pathetic display from their parents. Looking at them, anyone would think that they loved their son when the real truth was, they had stopped him from getting a real chance in this life. It was moments like this that she had to wonder if Riley even had a clue what they had done to him.

“I see you brought your sister with you,” her mother said.

“Hello, Gertrude,” she said. It had been a long time since she called her “Mom”.

“Louisa,” Gertrude said. “What are you doing here?”

Laughing, she folded her arms. “Seeing as I was the only one there to clean up your precious son, I figured I’d come by to keep an eye on him. Make sure you’re not going to turn him into a sex slave.”

Riley groaned, and Lou didn’t care that they had an audience. She’d seen the way Riley looked, covered in blood tonight. Their parents hadn’t been there to offer him support, but they were prepared to take the credit now, and she wasn’t going to allow that to happen. Riley had won tonight, not them.

“Louisa, enough!”

“Do you really think people don’t see how damn false you are?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be working tonight?” her father asked.

She turned to Eric, her father.

“I got the night off.”

“You shouldn’t be working at such a place. If you just did as you were told—”

“I could be settled down with a nice husband, being used as nothing but a damn incubator for kids, right?” She cut her mother off before she got into the flow of telling her how damn good she’d be if she just did as she was told.

Lou was done with playing by the rules, and had been when she was eighteen.

“You rude girl!”

Before long she was yelling at her mother, and her mother was yelling right back at her.

After minutes passed, Riley finally stepped between them. “Go and

have a drink, Lou,” he said.

“You know I’m right.”

“I know, but they’re never going to listen. There’s no point in wasting your breath.”

“Ugh!” She walked away, not watching where she was going. People moved out of her way, which she was thankful for.

Leaving the main part of the party, she moved past the stairwell and paused. There at the top was a young girl. She had to be around ten and was so adorable with her dark brown hair and grey eyes.

“Hello,” Lou said.

The girl pressed a finger to her lips, and then waved for her to come forward. The young girl was so out of place that she found herself walking upstairs. There was a time when she was the same girl sitting on the stairs, waiting, listening. Taking a seat beside the young girl, she tucked her own hair behind her ears. The young girl was wearing some teddy bear pajamas.

“Hello,” she said. “I’m not allowed down there.”

“How come?”

“I’m too young, and my daddy says that young girls are not allowed around his not-friends.”

“Not-friends?” Lou asked.