Flock (The Ravenhood)Paperback

Chapter One

THEN

Pulling up to the massive iron gates, I punch in the code Roman gave me and gawk as the sprawling estate comes into view when I drive in. Acres and acres of neon grass littered with trees surround the massive house in the distance. The closer I get, the more I feel like a foreigner. To the left of this palace sits a four-car garage—which I forgo—choosing instead to park in the circular drive at the foot of the porch.

Exiting the car, I stretch my legs. The drive wasn’t long, but my limbs grew heavier with every mile as I got closer. Though the house is impressive, it feels more like a prison to me, and today is the first day of my sentence.

Opening the trunk, I gather a few of my bags and head up the steps, scanning the pristine deck. Nothing about this place feels inviting, aside from the land it sits upon, and everything about it reeks of money.

Toeing the door closed behind me, I glance around the foyer where a lone table sits with a large, empty vase that I’m sure costs more than my car. There’s a grand staircase to my right and to my left, a formal dining room. Deciding to skip the self-guided tour, I cradle my phone on my shoulder as I haul my bags up to the second floor. She answers on the second ring.

“Hey girl, I made it.”

“This is bullshit,” Christy greets as I enter my designated “cell” and glance around. Inside sits a stark white four-poster bed my dad has had delivered, along with a matching dresser, chest of drawers and vanity. It’s regal in taste and nothing at all like me, which isn’t surprising. He doesn’t know me.

“It’s just until next fall.”

“That’s a year, Cecelia, a year. We just graduated. This is our last summer before college starts, and your mom decides to take time for herself?”

It’s not the whole truth, but I let Christy believe it for my mother’s sake because I’m still at a loss for how to explain it. The sad truth is, my mother had a breakdown of epic proportions that led to her losing her job and scraping to pay bills she could no longer afford. Her boyfriend offered to let her stay with him—the operative word being her, not her bastard child. My mother and I have always been close, but even I don’t recognize her anymore. Despite my best efforts of being her good girl, she retreated into herself a few months ago, drinking White Russians day and night for weeks until one day she stopped getting out of bed. She’d all but abandoned me in her quest for a daily buzz. Though I’d tried, and desperately pressed for reasoning and answers she wouldn’t give, I didn’t know the first thing about how to help her, so I didn’t give her grief about entertaining my father’s proposed and conditional living arrangements.

Seeing her unravel like that was terrifying, and in her state I didn’t want her going without, especially after all her years of being a single parent. When times became desperate, I asked my father to extend child support—just temporarily—to get her through financially, even though the money he sent monthly and without fail was a drop in the bucket for him—the cost of one of his tailored suits. He refused, and shortly before I graduated, he signed his last check, the act making it seem more like a final paycheck of services rendered, like my mom had been his employee.

In my wildest dreams, I can’t fathom how they ever coupled at any point, or how they could have been the two to conceive me, because these are two people who had no business procreating. They are universal opposites. My mother is—or was until recently—a free spirit with plenty of vices. My father is a conservative with a critical tongue and militant self-discipline. From what I remember, his schedule is like clockwork and rarely changes. He wakes up, works out, eats half a grapefruit, and then goes to work until the sun sinks. His only indulgence when I was younger was a few tumblers of gin after a long day. That’s the whole of the private information I know, due to his discretion. The rest I can look up online. He owns a Fortune 500 company that used to deal in chemicals but now manufactures electronics. His high-rise is a little over an hour away in Charlotte; his primary manufacturing plant here in Triple Falls. I’m certain he built here because it’s where he grew up, and I have zero doubt he revels in rubbing his success in the noses of his former classmates, some of whom now work for him.

I’m to be another one of his employees starting tomorrow. I’m no trust fund baby; at least that was the case in the years I spent with Mom in our rented, run-down house. On my twentieth birthday, I’m to inherit a large amount of stock in the company along with a lump sum, and I know that the timeline is purposeful because he’s never wanted my mother anywhere near his fortune. His grudge for her clear in that sense. Add that to the fact he’s given the bare minimum over the years; keeping Mom in her respective place in his food chain makes it easy to see he has no lingering feelings for her.

For a brief time, I’ve lived on both sides of poverty due to their night-and-day lifestyles, and to spite his wishes, I’ll take the stock and money and go against every one of them. The minute I’m able, my mother will never work again. Any amount of success I have, I’m determined to earn for myself, but the fear of failing along with the possibility that gambling on myself would ultimately cost her is what brought me here. But in order to carry out my plan, I have to play along with his, and that includes being “appreciative and respectful enough to learn the business, even if it’s from the ground level.”

The hardest part of that will be to tame my mouth and silence my resentment, which is front and center since he could have spared us both an awkward year together by simply having a fucking heart when it comes to the woman who has done both their jobs as my parent.

I don’t exactly hate my father, but I don’t understand him or his unapologetic cruelty, and never will. I’m not about to spend the next year trying to figure him out. Any communication on his part has always felt mandatory and rushed. He’s always been a monetary provider, not a dad. I respect his work ethic and success, but have zero understanding as to the whys of his lack of empathy and the chill of his sub-zero personality.

“I’ll come home every chance I can,” I tell Christy, unsure I can make it a promise due to my schedule.

“I’ll come up too.”

Opening the top of my chest of drawers, I toss in a pile of socks and undies, “Let’s see how the Overlord feels about you occupying a guest room before you gas up, okay?”

“I’ll rent a hotel with my mom’s card. Fuck your dad.”

I laugh, and it sounds odd in the massive room. “You really aren’t feeling my parents today.”

“I love your mom, but I don’t get it. Maybe I need to go by and see her.”

“She moved in with Timothy.”

“Really? When?”

“Yesterday. Just give her time to get settled.”

“Okay . . .” she pauses, “why am I just now hearing this? I knew things were getting bad, but what’s really going on?”

“Honestly, I don’t know.” I sigh, giving in to the resentment I’m starting to feel. It’s not like me to hide anything from Christy. “She’s going through something. Timothy is a decent guy, and I trust him with her.”

“But he wouldn’t let you move in.”

“To be fair, I’m an adult, and he doesn’t exactly have the space.”

“I still want to know why she’s okay with letting you live with your dad now.”

“I told you, I have to work at the plant for a year to get her set up. I don’t want to worry about her while I’m at school.”

“It’s not your job.”

“I know.”

“You’re not the parent.”

“We both know I am. And we’ll resume our plans the minute I get back.”

It was a surprise to me that my father agreed to let me attend community college here for a couple of semesters, rather than make me take a sabbatical to start a year late at a more acceptable school. It’s his dime, as he’s the sole source of my college fund, so that win during negotiations let me know he wanted his way enough to compromise—a depart­­­ure from his controlling personality.

I glance around the room. “I haven’t spent more than a day with him or summered here since I was eleven.”

“Why is that?”

“It was always something. He claimed it was overseas trips and expansion that kept him from being able to care for me for weeks or months at a time. The truth is, I got my period, boobs, and an attitude, and he couldn’t deal. I don’t think there’s anything Roman fears more than being a real parent.”

“It’s weird you call your dad by his first name.”

“Not to his face. When I’m here, it’s Sir.”

“You never talk about him.”

“Because I don’t know him.”

“So, when do you start your job?”

“My shifts will be from three to eleven, but I’ve got orientation tomorrow.”

“Call me when you get off. I’ll let you unpack.”

It strikes me when we disconnect that I’ll be stuck with the silence in the room, of the house, and utterly alone. Roman didn’t even have the decency to meet me here to get me settled.

“Cee?” Christy’s voice sounds as uncertain as I feel.

“Uh, shit. Okay, I’m feeling it now.”

I open the French doors that lead onto my private balcony and stare down at the pristine grounds. In the distance is nothing but a blanket of the greenest grass cut in a diagonal-shaped pattern. Beyond is a thick forest of trees that surround a cell tower. Closer to the house is a well-kept garden that screams southern opulence. Wisteria covers several trellises that canopy statuesque fountains. Hedges covered in trimmed honeysuckle trickle over sporadic fencing. The scent of several blooms wafts to my nose as the breeze hits me in hushed welcome. Plush seating is placed strategically throughout the manicured garden, which I decide will be my reading nook. The large, sparkling pool looks inviting, especially due to the budding summer heat, but I feel too ill at ease as a new resident of the palace to consider it for personal use.

“God, this is weird.”

“You’ve got this.”

Her nervous tone is unsettling, and we’re both unsure at this point, which instills more fear in me.

“I hope so.”

“A little over a year and you’re home. You’re almost nineteen, Cee—if you hate it, you can leave.”

“True.” It is the truth, but my agreement with Roman is a different story. If I go back on spending my time at the plant, I lose a fortune, a fortune that could erase my mother’s debt and set her up comfortably for the rest of her life. I can’t—won’t—do that to her. She’s worked herself stupid to care for me.

Christy reads my hesitation.

“This isn’t on you. It was her job to raise you, Cee. That’s the obligation of a parent, which you should never feel obligated to repay.”

It’s true and I know it, but as I survey Roman’s lifeless palace, I find myself missing Mom more than ever. Maybe it’s the distancing and treatment from my father that makes me feel such gratitude for her. Either way, I want to care for her. “I know my mother loves me,” I say more for myself than for Christy. Mom’s withdrawal, from life, from me, after all our years together was a cruel and confusing surprise.

“Well, I for one wouldn’t blame you if you liberated yourself. I love your mom and all, but they both seem worthless at this point.”

“Roman is tolerable, strict, but we managed a few summers. Well, we managed to avoid each other for a few summers. I’m not looking to bond, just survive. This place feels . . . cold.”

“You’ve never been there?”

“No, not this house. He didn’t build it until after I stopped coming for the summers. I think he lives mostly out of his condo in Charlotte.” Across from my bedroom door a few feet away sits another. I open it, relieved to see it’s a guest room. To my left at the top of the stairs is a mezzanine overlooking the foyer on the bottom floor, leading to a long corridor with more closed doors. “It’s going to be like living in a museum.”

“I hate this.” She lets out a sigh, which is more like a whine, and I can feel her bitterness. We’ve been friends since middle school and haven’t been separated a day since we met. I don’t know how to do life without her, and quite frankly, I don’t want to. But for my mom’s well-being, I will. A little over a year in a sleepy town nestled in the middle of the Blue Ridge Mountains and I’m free. I can only hope the time flies.

“Just find yourself a distraction. Preferably one with a penis.”

“That’s your solution?” I make my way back into my bedroom and out onto the balcony.

“You would know if you would give just one the time of day.”

“I have, and you saw how that worked out.”

“Those were boys—find a man. Just wait, girl. You’re going to tear that town up when they get a look at you.”

“I couldn’t give a shit right now,” I stare at the spectacular mountain view just beyond the private forest. “I’m officially living on the opposite side of the coin. This is so weird.”

“I can only imagine. Chin up. Call me after orientation tomorrow.”

“’K.”

“Love you.”