Found Family 2

Found Family 2
Ayla

Rhonda pulled one of the cards free and stared at it. Suki was already tearing into another envelope while Marla studied her own picture.
“Oh, that's good.”
Jill looked at her. “You haven't even read it.”
“I was talking about my face.”
Rhonda raised her card over her head. “I CAN DRIVE.”
Larry shouted from across the room. “NO, YOU CANNOT.”
Heads turned as he came through the crowd.
“Ma, having a license does not fix the fact that you can't see over the steering wheel.”
Rhonda shoved the card toward him. “The government disagrees.”
“The government hasn't ridden with you.”
“I survived a war.”
“You were not driving during the war!”
“I drove several times.”
“You stole vans!”
“We needed vans.”
Larry rubbed both hands over his face.
Rhonda looked at her crew. “We're going on vacation.”
“No.”
She turned back toward him. “That sounded like a challenge.”
“It was a plea.”
Suki had started laughing.
Rhonda spotted Mikhail holding Tarrick. “Hot Stuff! We're legal!”
Mikhail froze.
I turned slowly toward him. “Hot Stuff?”
“No.”
“That didn't sound like a denial.”
“They have called me many things.”
Rhonda cupped her hands around her mouth. “ROAD TRIP!”
Mikhail closed his eyes.
I laughed hard enough that Thane put a hand against my back.
“I am fine.”
“You are still recovering.”
“I am aware.”
“Then stop laughing.”
That made it worse.
Amani cornered me later while I was feeding Tessa.
“We're taking over Moonhaven.”
I looked up. “What?”
“Not taking it away from you. Taking the work.”
Cherry appeared over her shoulder. “We have plans.”
“That sentence concerns me.”
Damon joined them. “I have people ready to oversee construction. Amani can handle the design and operations. Anything important still comes through you.”
I looked between them. “You already arranged this.”
Amani smiled. “You have newborn twins.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the only one you're getting.”
Behind her, Cyrus muttered, “I still have to get those fucking boulders out of the holes.”
Thane heard him.
Cyrus immediately found somewhere else to look.
I glanced down at Tessa. “Fine.”
Amani blinked. “Fine?”
“I said fine before I remembered how controlling I am.”
She kissed my cheek. “Excellent.”
The DNA papers came later.
Cyrus handed the packet to Raven while she was sitting near me with Meatball asleep against her leg. She looked at him suspiciously.
“If this is a parking ticket, I'm not paying it.”
“Open it.”
“That was evasive.”
“Red.”
She opened the packet. I watched her eyes move down the first page, and the joke disappeared from her face.
“Well.”
Thane came closer. “I ran comparisons between your DNA, Ayla's, and Stevens's.”
Raven looked up. “I assume this gets worse.”
“Stevens was your half-uncle.”
She looked shocked. Thane looked at me next. “He was also your full-blooded uncle.”
I stared at him. “My uncle?”
“Yes. Your mothers are full-blooded littermates, but Raven's mother is only his half-sister.”
I looked at Raven. She was already looking at me.
“So we're cousins,” she said. "I had no idea."
Apparently we were.
“Huh.”
“Exactly.”
Mikhail moved closer and took the papers when Raven held them out. His expression hardened as he read.
“They were your aunt and uncle,” he said to me. I didn't particularly want them.
Raven leaned back in her chair. “So, sorry I killed your aunt and uncle.”
I stared at her. “You are absolutely not sorry.”
“No.”
“That may be the worst apology I've ever received.”
“I wasn't trying very hard.”
Cyrus nodded. “I thought it was respectable under the circumstances.”
Mikhail looked at Raven. “I am sorry for what they did to you.”
Her humor disappeared.
“Don't be sorry for them.”
“I am not.”
He looked back at the results. “This may explain why your body survived some of what they forced into it. You already shared part of the bloodline they were working with.”
Raven flexed her fingers. “That's comforting.”
“It was not intended to be.”
“Good.”
Mikhail kept reading.
“It does not tell me exactly what they changed or what the long-term effects will be.”
Cyrus became very still beside her, and Raven noticed.
“No research project.”
Mikhail looked up. “No.”
“I mean it.”
“So do I. We ask. You decide.”
She studied him before giving one short nod. Then she looked at me.
“Cousin.”
“Don't make it weird.”
“Too late.”
The papers explained why we shared blood. They didn't explain Raven, and I already knew the parts of her that mattered more. She had dug through a collapsed mountain with her bare hands until they bled. She had stayed beside me while I gave birth. She had threatened Cyrus for being Cyrus.
A DNA test wasn't going to improve on that.
By the time Thane decided I had been out long enough, both pups were asleep. Tessa rested against my chest while Tarrick was tucked against Thane with his white head beneath his father's chin.
The hall was still noisy behind us as we reached the doors. Larry was arguing with Rhonda about whether stolen vans became legal property once the thief had a driver's license. Amani was explaining something to Damon with enough hand gestures that I suspected construction had already become more complicated. Raven was trying to put Meatball's hat back on while Cyrus insisted he preferred it crooked.
Mikhail had told me three times that he would be at our house in the morning.
I knew he would.
Before I stepped outside, I looked back. Monica's candle was still burning. Her mother stood beside the table cutting the last of the cake while her father stacked the empty plates. Across the room, Mikhail was carrying one of Tarrick's blankets over one arm even though Tarrick was no longer in it.
Three days ago, I had been underneath a mountain wondering whether any of us would get out. Tessa shifted against my chest, and I looked down and tucked the blanket closer beneath her cheek.
Thane stopped beside me. “Are you all right?”
I nodded.
This time I meant it.
“I'm ready to go home.”