One-shot Collection

Not My Sister

"Bye Mia! Bye Paige!" My mother and father call from the front door of our three story mansion. They're going on another business trip, leaving the staff to take care of me and my six year old sister. They were barely home two days.

"Bye!" I yell after them from the top of the staircase. It's been like this since I was seven, so about ten years now. My parents are home for a few days, but then they leave for another month going who knows where. I've never really asked about their job. It just never really interested me. All I know is that it apparently makes a lot of money.

"Mia! Can I go to a friend's house to play this afternoon?" My sister Paige asks, running up the stairs towards me.

"Of course. I was planning on going out tonight anyways. You want me to take you now?"

"Yay! Let's go!" She yells, jumping up and down. It never ceases to amuse me how energetic she is, but I suppose that's to be expected of six year olds.

"Let me grab my purse and my phone from my room, then we'll go, okay?" I tell her.

"Yay!" she yells again, running back down the stairs. I walk to my room and grab my purse, checking its contents for everything I need. Once I'm satisfied, I run back down the stairs where Paige is waiting for me by the door.

"Charles!" I shout, not knowing where in this giant house he could possibly be.

"Yes, Mia?" He says rounding the nearest corner. Charles is our family's butler. He's basically raised me and Paige since our parents are never home.

"I'm taking Mia to a friend's house, and I'm going... out," I hesitate before saying where I'm going. I've been doing this for two years. You would think my cover stories would be better than that, but luckily he doesn't question it.

"Alright. When should I expect you back?" he asks.

"I'm not quite sure. It'll probably be late tonight though."

"Be safe."

"We will. Bye, Charles," I say to him over my shoulder as I close the front door behind me.

The car ride to Paige's friend's house consisted mostly of Paige singing as loud as she could to the different songs on the radio and flipping stations whenever she didn't like a song. It always has amazed me how she can memorize lyrics so well at her age.

Once I had dropped her off, I directed my car towards a warehouse on the outskirts of town. I have a meeting to attend to. I enter the building through a side entrance. It's a large open space with the only light coming from the skylight above my head. The sides of the room are obscured in shadow. Silence greets me. "I know you're here. You're never late to these kinds of things," I call into the darkness. Evander is always pestering me about being on time.

"Hello, Mia." A tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed man who's definitely not Evander steps out of the shadows near the wall opposite me. "It seems like just yesterday that I first heard about the stuck up fifteen year old rich girl that had somehow managed to start up her own black market."

"Jace," I whisper to myself. This was unexpected. You could call him my rival in this business. If you could even call running a black market a business. Something has to be up if he's here, especially in person. "I was told I was meeting Evander."

"Evander, your second in command? Sorry, he couldn't make it."

"What did you do to him?"

"You'll find out soon enough. For now, I have some business terms we need to discuss."

"Whatever your terms are, I don't want to hear them. Release Evander from wherever you're holding him, and I won't give my men orders to hunt you down."