Upcoming of Dawn

• TEASER •

I present to you (fans of Aveline) the official teaser to Upcoming of Dawn!!
This is the sequel to Aveline which will be slowly progressed in writing and publishing. Please bear with me because I suffer sometimes from writers block and I want to make it the best I can 🥴
ENJOYYY!!

• • •

I watch my daughters content face as she sleeps. I was reading her a bedtime story when she fell asleep. Chase looms over my shoulder.

"Did you tell her?" He whispers, making sure not to disturb her.

I shake my head, my throat clogged with tears.

"I'm going to wait," I tell him, closing the book and setting it on her nightstand. Evan designed her room just the way she imagined it. She's got black and pink furnishing everywhere and her bed is white with a skull at the top.

Frighteningly enough, she loves skulls and scary dolls and ghosts and witches. She's definitely got taste.

"Are you sure that's the right thing?" Chase asks.

I press a finger to my mouth and stand up, leading us both out of her room. I close her door softly behind us and turn towards him.

"I can't do that to her, Chase. What if we don't get him back? If I told her to get her hopes up and then crush them because— 'my bad, I thought he was alive. I didn't know he was actually dead.' —I can't."

He places his hands on my shoulders, gently squeezing them.

"You don't have to then. It'll be like a big surprise when he comes home."

I still don't like the way that sounds. I'll be throwing Dawn into a whole new lifestyle and she will have to adjust to this new life I'll have to explain to her. She will have a lot of questions. Questions I'm not ready to answer until she's a teenager.

She will have to know that Leo was a mafia boss. She will have to know that I am now the current boss.

I've killed people.

Everyone around her has killed people.

I can't tell her all of that.

But I also can't hide her from the truth. It's more dangerous trying to protect her than exploiting her to what's real.

I grab Chase's arm and take us into the living room. I take a seat on the sofa.

"I never expected any of this to happen. I thought I'd have to adjust to Leo being gone forever. And after six years he will be coming back. Chase—I don't know what to even feel or think," I explain.

"What if," I add, licking my dry lips. "What if he's grown accustomed to wherever he is and he isn't the same?"

I think that's my largest fear.

Chase closes his eyes for a moment, exhaling through his nose.

When he opens them, he says, "I don't doubt that he will have changed. In this life when things like this happen, it does change people. He might be different. We just have to be prepared for that."

Tears sting at my eyes.

"What if he doesn't want a daughter? What if he changed his mind and doesn't love Dawn?"

Chase scoffs. "Are you kidding, Aveline? How can anyone not love her? She is the best damn little girl I've ever gotten to get to know."

I laugh through the blur in my eyes and nod my head.

"You're right. She is," I say, blinking away the tears.

He smiles at me.

"I'll go over everything with Lillian tomorrow while you take Dawn out for Leo's anniversary. You'll be updated as soon as we find more information," he tells me, standing up and getting ready to leave.

I nod.

"Thank you," I tell him.

He nods, leaving the room. I close my eyes, focusing on my breathing.

I look at the ring on my finger, the one I've kept on for six years.

A smile touches my lips.

Because for the first time since I walked away believing there was no out—I have hope.