The Rules of the Red - 2014 Watty Award Winner |✓|

Chapter Twenty - Part Three

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” I said politely, pausing on the last step of the staircase to lean against the banister. I smiled at Ethan, and then addressed my mother. It was the second time that I had officially met her, and also the first that I could see her eyes – which were large like mine, but a light brown rather than green. And while Ethan and I were both dressed in jeans and t-shirts, here my mother stood in a black, pencil neck skirt, with Gucci heels, and a sleeveless, cream-colored blouse tucked into the skirt’s high waist. Her long hair was pulled back into a high pony-tail, showing off her bare, slender neck. And she was a natural beauty with very little makeup, and appearing much younger than I had expected. But her arrogance and disdain seemed to take away from her youthful appearance, causing you to notice her unkindness first, rather than her exquisite looks.

“We need to talk,” Paris said, shooting Ethan an icy look of reproach. “And alone, preferably.”

“Naomi, I was here first,” Ethan replied, petulant, and folding his arms, but still unable to meet Paris’ Medusa-like gaze. And from the way she looked at him, it wasn’t hard at all to picture him turning into stone.

“Ethan’s my Champion, Paris. You may not attend Pack meetings, but surely you knew that. So anything you have to say to me, you can say in front of him.”

I met her gaze squarely, and descended the last step. We were equal of height, and she was only a few feet away. We would be a level match-up in a fight, I knew…

“I beg to differ, Naomi. This is family business of a rather sensitive nature that needs to be discussed –”

“I’m sorry, Paris, but was your discussion about killing your husband really supposed to be private?” said Ethan, interrupting, with his eyes wide and full of innocence. “Because if you’re here to talk about how you paid off a couple of coroners to hide the truth about your husband’s death, then I can totally just leave…”

Paris turned to look at me with a horrified expression, and I knew Ethan had successfully caught her off guard.

“What? He’s my Champion.” I said with a calm shrug.

“You think you know everything. You think you know the truth –”

“It’s in black and white,” I said, with immediate bitterness. “And you have the proof right there in your hands. You killed him…”

“Is that what you think?” she asked, taking a few steps toward me. “That I could kill your father? That I could murder my own husband in cold blood?”

“How can you expect her to believe otherwise?” Ethan said, stepping in again. “You were never there for her. She doesn’t know you like the rest of us do, Paris.”

“True, Ethan,” Paris said. “But a mother knows her daughter. And I know that if Naomi is capable of unraveling a pack of lies, then she is just as capable of discovering the real truth.”

“So what are you saying?” I said, with a hard grin. “That the evidence is a lie? That you didn’t really kill my father?”