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PERCI MANAGED TO KEEP herself together with Rhea Masterson only because her mother had raised her to be able to handle herself in any situation with grace and dignity. She might spit and fight when called for, but Perci knew how to behave.
Perci wondered if Nate’s mother did.
The woman was just too sly for her liking. Too all-knowing. It was irritating as hell.
Much like her son.
The idea that Rhea had taken off and missed almost a year of her sons’ lives just so Perci and Nate would get together was insane.
And not something Perci was going to be sharing anytime soon.
Her shift ended. Her little red car was waiting. It had been vandalized a while back when one of her sisters had been attacked, but it had been fixed by one or two of her brothers-in-law. She wasn’t getting rid of that car anytime soon, though. It had once been her mother’s. She appreciated it, of course. But every time she drove that car she was reminded of the hell they had all been through on the mountain that day.
Phoebe had come so close to dying—and Perci and Pip hadn’t been that far off, either.
It had changed them all that day.
Changed everything.
Her father was gone when she pulled in at the house. As were the boys; no doubt they were off somewhere with her sister. Phoebe had once been responsible for their brothers’ care. Now at almost seventeen, twelve, and eight, the boys were either with their father of the evening or Perci. Phoebe still came over every day to tend the house and oversee the boys’ homeschool lessons. They lived too far out of town to make public school a good option.
Until recently, Tylers kept to themselves.
Remnants of the hell they’d gone through since Perci had been nineteen and the sheriff’s son had attacked her twin.
He had come back not even three months ago to harass them again. It had nearly proven fatal.
Perci would never forget that. She had the scars to remind her of Jay Gunderson and the hell he had brought them all.
He’d been in her bedroom at least once that she knew.
Something else she hadn’t forgotten. She’d taken some of her spare cash—a rare occurrence in the Tyler family—and purchased paint and some new secondhand furniture for her space. Frivolous or foolish, maybe, but she’d needed to do it. To erase the taint of evil that she hadn’t been able to forget.
She had the entire second floor of the house to herself now. Pip was gone, Phoebe was gone, Pan was gone. Even their younger brother Phoenix was gone, having followed the film crew back to California when they’d left. The house that had once seemed so full of life, love, people was barely that anymore.
Even her three youngest brothers were gone more often than not, splitting their time between their sisters’ places. With the Mastersons.
Her dad spent a great deal of his time working on his Hail Mary plan to save their ranch—in Finley Creek, Texas.
Perci pushed aside the melancholy and checked the doors one more time. Just to be on the safe side.
It seemed like she’d been afraid of her own home since the moment those assholes had attacked Phoebe.
But tonight. Tonight, it just seemed so much worse.