Between Shadow & Ruin (Fangs & Fae Saga Book 2)

thirty-three.

Zane was flipping through the last of the pictures when Val pulled out a small stack of photos that were in a plastic bag. Her eyes opened wide.

"Liz!" she said, loudly.

"What?" I asked, confused.

"What are these and why have you never shown us these!?" Ava leaned over the table to grab them. "No!" Val yelled as Ava sat back in Zane's lap with some of the photos. "Ava, don't look at those!" Zane's eyes also opened wide as he slowly pried them from Ava's grasp.

"Momma! Why are you dressed like that?" Ava said. I took them from Zane. I immediately covered my face with my hand as I recognized which photos they were. It was a black and white pin-up photo shoot where I wore a corset and heels. The photos Ava grabbed were pretty risqué but nothing inappropriate. I remembered how the rest of that photo shoot went when I saw Val tuck away the rest of the photos Ava didn't manage to grab into the pocket of her sweater.

"I, uh...before I was with your dads and mom... like long before... I was a model. We were doing a pin-up shoot. I took these for that shoot," I said, holding tightly onto the pictures. I saw Ava yawn. "Maybe you kids should get up to bed?" Ava slid off Zane's lap, rubbed her eyes and said goodnight to us as she slowly walked up the stairs holding on to the picture of Odette and me. Braylen and Ella said goodnight as Odie and Noah led them up their rooms. Noah and Braylen were talking about the video game they were playing on their phones again and Ella didn't say a word as Odie led her upstairs.

"Boys, don't forget that the door stays open!" Val said. Odie held up a sarcastic thumbs-up as he disappeared at the top of the landing.

"So?" Val asked, pulling the picture from her pocket. The rest of the pictures had progressively less clothing and a few I had a whip and some I was on the floor, or hanging from a pole, or bent over a bench. "Were you ever going to tell us about these?" she asked, intrigued.

"Yeah, there has to be more to the story than 'I was a model doing a pin-up shoot'," Chris said. Zane grabbed the photos from Val, and I saw his eyes light up.

"...Liz..." he said under his breath.

"Okay, okay!" I said, taking them back. "Can we stop looking at those?" Chris started to flip through them, so I snatched them from him and sat across the table from him.

"What? You look hot!" Chris said. "Not that you normally don't, but I've never seen you like that." I was silent. "What is it? When did you take those?"

"And why did Odette have them?" Val asked. I found the one photo where I wasn't alone and turned it over to show them. It was a group shot of all the models, ten of us in total. I pointed to me and the model next to me.

"This is Betty," I said. "Her and I kind of had a thing. It was the late forties, so being out with another woman like that was a no-no. But I compelled the photographer to stay late with me one night to take these," I said as I spread out some of the more risqué shots. "Once they were developed, he gave them to me, and I was going to take them to her, but she wasn't at our next photo shoot."

"What happened?" Zane asked. I cleared my throat.

"At first, I didn't know. I was upset that she wasn't there to give them to, so I went to her house. I didn't know that she was married. She never told me anything about her husband or much of her life at home honestly. I asked if she was home and..." I had to stop for a second as I remembered what happened that night. "I could smell the blood on him. He'd killed her for cheating and being with a woman. I never found out if he knew the woman was me, or if she was with other women."