Each person started piling their plates with Mom’s ziti, my favorite. Hunter came over and took Ryder from me to place him in his bouncy seat.

Mom placed a plate of ziti, salad and a can of soda in front of me. “Here you go baby girl.”

Smiling, I said, “Thanks Mom.” Something’s going on and I needed to know. Hailey’s being cryptic, Mom’s cooking my favorite food, and Hunter’s been a little distant since the mall. After we’d all gotten together last night I’d thought things were going great, but clearly I was missing something.

Dad walked up behind Mom, who was about to sit down next to me, “Elle dear, can I talk to you in the other room for a second?”

That’s it! I can’t take this anymore.

Jackson, Chloe and Alex were sitting across from me at my parents’ huge square dining room table; Cooper, Jaylinn and Mason were to my right. Ms. McCormick was sitting by herself on my left. Everyone was digging in. I looked from one person to the next. No-one, not one single person, looked at me. Not even Hunter when he sat next to me.

I cleared my throat, I was getting answers. “What the hell’s going on? And don’t say ‘nothing’, I’m not stupid and I’m not a little girl anymore.”

No one moved. No one said a word. No one looked at me until Mom and Dad walked back in.

He took a deep breath, “Baby girl, we need to have a family meeting.”

What. The. Hell. Is. Going. On?

20

“Well, I can tell this family meeting’s going to be bad, not a damn one of you will look at me.” I snapped.

Hunter reached under that table and placed his hand on my thigh. Normally, that would calm my nerves but not this time. I didn’t have a clue as to what the hell was going on; all I knew was that everyone had been acting strange all day. Even Chloe, who never let anything get to her, wasn’t herself.

Mom grabbed Dad’s hand on top of the table; he looked over and gave her a smile and then he quickly glanced around to each of us before he started, “Well you know that I work in New York?” I nodded, “Well I don’t actually work for the New York Stock Exchange. I’m actually an FBI Agent.”

Huh? I’m confused. Was this a joke? Why would he lie about that?

“You may not understand baby girl, but I didn’t want you to know. I deal with some pretty dangerous people and I never wanted my career to touch you in any way. That’s why the boys were so protective of you for all these years, I instilled it in them.”

Wasn’t this some shit? My family had hidden this from me all these years. “So you’d rather lie to me than tell me the truth?” I was getting more pissed off by the minute.

“I did it for you MacKenzie. We did it for you. I never wanted anything to happen to you.” Dad explained, his eyes begging me to understand why he’d done what he had.

“You could have told me and still had them protect me, Dad. Everyone knows but me?” I looked around the table and still no one was looking at me, not even Hunter.

I grabbed Hunter’s hand and threw it off my thigh; he looked up at me then. “You knew?”

He didn’t have to answer; his eyes told me everything I needed to know. “This is great. I’m damn near twenty years old; I have a child for Christ’s sake. I can handle shit. I mean, my God, I was damn near killed a few weeks ago in a car accident. I handled that, I’m still handling it.” I was livid, “I was in danger when I left the house that day and no one was there to protect me.” Hunter flinched, “What was the point in lying to me?”

“CC…” Hunter spoke up.

“Don’t CC me anything. You knew about this and you didn’t tell me?” I was now turning my wrath on him. “You got pissed off that I didn’t tell you about Dominic visiting me that one time. I’ve told you everything from that day forward. You didn’t think you should have told me about this?”

I dropped his hand, I was disgusted. He’s so hypocritical.

“Sweetheart, in his defense he didn’t know ‘til just recently.” Mom expressed.

“I don’t give a shit, he should have told me. You all should have told me.” I was ready to leave, I needed fresh air. “Hell the secret isn’t even the end of the world. But I think I had the right to know a lot sooner than now.”

I looked over at Hunter, about ready to ask him to take me home, when I saw the look between him and Mason. Was something else still going on? I chose to believe that if there was, it would have come out now. I’m already pissed off; they might as well pile it on.

“Take me home.” I told Hunter, his head jerked towards me.

He shook his head, “No. You need to eat, and then I’ll take you home.”

If my ankle wasn’t still sore, I would’ve gotten my ass up from that chair and walked out. Hell, I thought about doing it anyway. “I can’t even finish now.”

Ryder started wailing from behind me. Shit, I’d forgotten he was in the room. Aside from Hunter, Ryder was the only one who could read my moods. When I was pissed off, he was pissed off, when I was sad, he was sad.

“Get him for me.” I spoke to anyone who would pick him up. Hunter’s mom was the closest; she hopped up and handed him over to me. Once he was snuggled up against me he calmed down. I rocked him for a few minutes and he fell back to sleep. No one talked. Everyone’s eyes were darting all around.

Dad reached for a fork and started eating, everyone else followed his lead and the conversation was over for now. I was pissed off and hurting. Your family is always supposed to love, protect and cherish each other. Right now I wasn’t feeling any of that.

When Hunter finished his dinner we packed up all of Ryder’s stuff and went home. I left without a word to anyone except Jaylinn and Hunter’s mom. I was sitting on the bed, holding Ryder while he was finishing his bottle before I laid him down to sleep, thinking about all the lies I was fed. Do I even really know my family? While I was thinking Dad was on a business trip he was really out fighting bad guys. There could have been a chance my dad never made it home, then what would have they told me?

I tried to burp him a few times before I laid him down, but he just wasn’t having it. Hunter came over and took him from me. He tried a few times himself to get Ryder to burp but he still wasn’t cooperating. Giving up, he rolled the bassinet closer to the bed and then laid him in it. Ryder was snug as a bug in his comfy and cozy little bed and would hopefully be out for a couple of hours.