Bond Deeper Than Blood
Quickly, I let myself into my apartment building and take the stairs up to the top floor two at a time. Mercy will be next door at Edna’s. I have a key and come to get her whenever I get home, which is always late. When I reach her door, there’s a note tacked on it.
We’re at your place. – G
My blood boils as I snatch the note down and crumple it. I throw it to the floor as I stalk over to my apartment. Edna knows the only people allowed to pick Mercy up are me or Jude or Loey. Never Griffin. I’m going to have to set that old woman straight tomorrow morning.
My apartment is unlocked, which has me growing more furious by the second. I push inside and quietly close the door behind me. Straight across from the door, Griffin sits in the open window, staring out at the alley below. A quick sweep of my living room tells me Mercy is already in bed.
Good.
She won’t hear me bitch this bastard out.
My old foster brother. My nemesis. Her father.
“You were out late tonight. Does this happen often?” His deep voice rumbles through the air, vibrating my bones. “Had I known Mercy spends so much time with the neighbor, I would have come sooner for her.”
He turns his head, cutting his blue eyes my way. I try not to tremble under his stare. I may fight villains with sharp teeth every night, but Griffin unnerves me in a way no one else can.
“Leave, Griff.” I pull off my poncho and hang it on the hook just inside the front door.
He abandons his perch by the open window and prowls my way, a sinister grin curling his lips up. “You look good, Casti. I’ve missed you.”
His hand reaches up to touch my face and I recoil, shooting daggers at him with my eyes. He frowns and drops his hand. “Still mad,” he grumbles. “You have to get over it eventually, babe. I’m her dad. We made her together. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”
“Time to go,” I hiss. “Now before I make you.”
His blue eyes flash with challenge, but then he steps back. He may have overpowered me once when I was only thirteen, but he is in no way as skilled as I am. I’ve been fighting off evil, including him, since I was a kid. I know he must sense it too.
“I’ll wear you down eventually,” he murmurs. “Like old times. This time, you won’t run me off.”
Disgust has me wanting to choke him with my bare hands. Griffin is delusional to think he’ll ever catch me at a weak point again. We grew up in the same foster home together. Since he’s six years my senior, I trusted him like a big brother. I remember crying my eyes out when he aged out of foster care and left me alone. Every visit after felt like a gift.
Until I was thirteen.
When he held me in bed while visiting me, comforting me and consoling me. The kiss felt all kinds of wrong. What came after was what nightmares are made of. He obliterated the trust and love I had for him by trying to force a different type of relationship with me. Back then, I’d been weak. No matter how much I fought, he won. The man I saw as a brother fucked me. A brutal invasion that physically injured me and caused me to pass out from the pain. And then, he left me.
I met Jude by accident. I’d been waddling home from school one day, pregnant with Mercy and about to give birth any day, when I heard moaning in an alley. I was curious and found him bleeding out. He was quiet about how he got in that predicament and I was in no position to ask. I simply brought him water and food and did my best to nurse his injuries. Once he could stand, he asked me about the baby and how I got pregnant at such a young age. It was my turn to be quiet. He handed me his business card and told me he owed me a favor.
I cashed in on that favor not two weeks later in the hospital. When the State of New York was telling me my kid would also go into the system. Not with me. I’d called Jude bawling and begging for help. He stepped in, found me a group home for mothers, and paid for the legal representation to keep Mercy as mine.
“Go, Griffin,” I snap, leveling my glare on him.
All those year ago, I said the same thing to him when he showed up out of nowhere at the group home and demanded visitation for his daughter. I lied to him then and I’ll lie to him a million more times.