Toasty Embers (Book #1.5 Of Fire Series)

1

I woke up feeling sick to my core.

Something just isn't right here.

Opening the door fully I stand in the doorway.

Across the hall Jayden stands and I see the same unease in him.

"What's happening," I ask quietly as I stare at him wide eyed.

"Whatever it is, it's not good," he murmurs as he looks towards the other end of the hall.

Leigh tiptoes out of Enzo's room, about to shut the door.

A squeak leaves her mouth as she catches up sticking our heads out of our doors, watching her.

Enzo pops his head out and gives us a puzzled look.

"Were we too loud," Leigh whisper yells across the long hallway with a guilty look on her face.

Jayden and I look at each other briefly and shake our heads.

Lifting her arms and shrugging her shoulder, she asks what's wrong.

I shrug my shoulders and sigh.

My mother appears in our hallway with a worried expression and she quietly speaks, "I think you guys might want to come down to the front yard."

We all give each other a look and rush down with her to the front yard.

Ethan stands with an arm slithered around the thin waist of a blonde with her eyes on the floor.

"Isn't that Franceska, Lexi's friend," I question as I look at her confused.

"Yea, she's also the daughter of the very family that's involved with David and the taxi owners that put us in this mess," Jayden seethes quietly.

His bright blue eyes look a deep navy and I've never seen him so angry.

Sighing sadly, I focus on the arm snuggly wrapped around Franceska's waist.

"What the fuck did you do, Ethan? Of all the blondes you could've fucked and knocked up, you decided Haines's daughter was the unlucky woman," Stefano barks as Susanne holds him back, attempting to calm him down.

Knocked up?

Another fucking kid?!

Has Ethan no sense?!

"It just happened, Stefano. I would never-" Ethan begins with a venom in his own voice.

"Don't give me that, Thusi. Don't you dare. Do you have any idea what you've done," Stefano seethes.

"Honey, please let's give it some time to settle and we'll talk to him and the girl properly," Susanne voices cautiously.

"You better get your ass up to your room and out of my sight, young man," she switches instantly as she speaks to her youngest son, her voice low and venomous.

With his head lifted to the heavens, he saunters towards the house as Franceska smirks subtly next to him.

As they waltz past Stefano, he suddenly grabs a fistful of Ethan's hair and yanks him backwards so that they are face to face.

Franceska shrieks beside him and scrambles a few metres away.

Susanne guides the petrified girl into the house, leaving us jaw slacked at the information we just learned of.

"You're lucky your mother wants you here. If it was up to me you'd be on the streets. Your kid and sister taken away from you," Stefano spits.

He releases him and stomps over to his car and speeds out of the driveway.