Beneath the Stars (Falling Stars 4)

I’m finished playing nice with you, Maggie Penelope. Come back home. Immediately. Before we both regret the consequences of your actions. I know you took it, and you won’t get away with it. There are some things that cannot be stopped once they’re set in motion. I trust you will stop being spiteful and make the right decision.

I guessed in her desperation, she’d resorted to outright threats. No longer trying to pretend she didn’t know.

I swallowed down the terror that threatened to take me under.

I’d made the decision that I would no longer be paralyzed by fear.

Lifting my chin, I clung to it then. I would no longer let my insecurities hold me back. I would no longer cower in the back of a closet hidden by my clothes the way I’d done for years, frozen in terror that someone would come for me.

No.

I would stand.

I would fight.

I would give what little I could back and pray that it made a difference.

A well of emotion slammed me.

I’d been lucky that I’d had my brother to stand with me. One who’d fought for me. And I had the rest of this amazing family, not born of blood, but who’d become a part of me. People who’d come along beside me while I found my feet. While I discovered who I was and what I wanted.

As I’d grown and changed and tapped into a strength that, for many years, I’d been too brutalized to realize existed.

Not everyone was so fortunate.

It was just a reaffirmation that this needed to happen.

And soon.

I could feel my mother losing her cool.

The fine strands of her patience unraveling and fast. I lifted my phone, glancing around at the few sparse cars in the parking lot as I made the call.

Lily answered on the first ring.

“Maggie. Hi.”

Lily was Violet’s sister. Her sister who’d been held captive for years by my father. Unbeknownst to her family. Missing for years until the day Richard had stumbled upon her and found a way to set her free.

I’d met her right after my father had been killed. I’d bonded with her quickly. Fiercely. But once I’d gotten her involved in my plan, we’d decided it would be safer to pretend as if we hadn’t connected. As if we never spoke.

My brother would lose it if he knew what I was up to.

Forbid me, which was the reason I hadn’t told him or involved him. Besides, the sacrifices he had made were already too great.

This one—this one was on me.

With her voice, relief thrummed through my spirit. “Hey, you. How are you?”

“I’m good. Really good,” she promised, and I could feel her truth.

Hope blustered. As fierce as the gust of wind that rushed over the waves.

“That makes me happy,” I told her.

In that moment, I felt a crush of her happiness. Shimmers of joy that bled from her wounded spirit.

There was so much this woman had to offer.

Kindness and decency and light.

Cruelness and vileness had kept it trapped for so many years. Had shackled her by their greed and debauchery.

This.

This was why I would risk everything.

“You sound happy,” she returned, almost like she recognized something new in me.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised it was that obvious.

Affection curled my lips into a wistful smile. “I am.”

“That is wonderful.” When she cleared the easiness away, worry replaced it. “So, what’s going on?”

My spirit sank back to the unanswered text left sitting on my phone. “I don’t think we can wait until next month. My mother is certain I have it.”

And it wasn’t like it wasn’t the truth.

“I can feel her patience has hit a dead end. I can’t keep playing it off that I don’t have it, and I’m not sure the lengths she will go to get it back. It needs to be distributed.”

Placed safely in the hands of the ones to whom it was owed.

Dread banged through the line. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

She’d been questioning me since I’d contacted her about it. When I’d uncovered that stash and knew it was my responsibility to get it where it belonged.

“It’s the only thing I can do.”

“Okay then.” She cleared her throat. “Kade was able to help me track down seven more women. He’s goin’ to help us get it to them.”

Kade’s own daughter had fallen victim to my father’s heinous crimes. He’d been intrinsic in getting so many out of that house and giving them shelter until it’d been safe for them to go free.

Now, he was right back in the middle of it again.

But I trusted him…trusted him implicitly.

Then she started to rush, her voice lowered with emphasis, “And all of them need it, Maggie. This will give them the fightin’ chance they’ve been missing.”

My chest squeezed. “Everyone deserves that.”

A fighting chance.

She sniffled a little. “I still can’t believe you’re doin’ this.”