Read Online Unraveled by Jennifer Estep - Free Book Online

kept watching as I opened one of the doors and stepped inside. Even then, one of them peered in through the glass, tracking my movements.
    The doors opened up into an enormous, elegant lobby that had a light, bright, airy feel. Seams of white swirled through the gray marble floor before snaking up the walls and spreading out onto the ceiling, where they curled around several impressive crystal chandeliers. Dark, heavy antique desks and chairs were clustered together in groups throughout the lobby so that folks could have a bit of privacy as they talked about their finances.
    Given that this was a weekday, several folks moved through the area. People coming inside to make deposits, others leaving after having handed over their money, bankers carrying papers from one desk to another. Tellers typed away on their keyboards, and the murmur of half a dozen conversations filled the air, along with an occasional high-pitched beep-beep from a cell phone.
    Once again, my gaze was drawn to the giant guards, all eight of them, stationed in teams of two in the four corners of the lobby, all on high alert, with their hands on their guns, just like the four guards outside had been. Normally, I would have gone over to the receptionist—another newly installed giant guard—sitting at a desk close to the entrance and told her whom I was here to see, but a man standing by the tellers’ counter waved at me.
    â€œGin!” he called out. “Over here!”
    His voice wasn’t all that loud, but compared to the other hushed murmurs, it boomed like thunder through the open space, and everyone stopped what they were doing to look at him, then me. I grimaced and tightened my grip on the box of food. Still aware of the guards’ gazes on me, I walked over to the counter, which ran along the back wall.
    Finnegan Lane, my foster brother, straightened up at my approach. To the casual observer, he looked the same as always—a handsome investment banker poured into a slick Fiona Fine suit. But his walnut-brown hair was more mussed than styled, his white shirt was rumpled, and his navy-blue suit jacket hung loosely on his shoulders, instead of being impeccably tailored. He’d lost weight these past few weeks, despite all my attempts to coax him to eat.
    Finn eyed the cardboard box in my hands and sighed. “More food? I still have leftovers from the barbecue chicken that you brought over for lunch a few days ago.”
    I passed the box over to him. “Well, now you have more.”
    He nodded his thanks, but his green gaze moved past me and darted around the lobby before focusing on a spot along the left wall—the same spot where he’d first found out that Deirdre Shaw was his mother. Finn’s shoulders sagged, making his suit jacket droop even more, and I could tell that he was reliving her betrayal yet again.
    Deirdre had claimed that Fletcher had threatened her, forced her to leave Finn behind, and kept her away from her own son for almost Finn’s entire life. She’d swooped back into Ashland a few weeks ago, saying that with Fletcher dead, she could come home, get to know her son, and finally be a part of Finn’s life.
    Damn, dirty lies, all of it.
    In reality, all those years ago Deirdre had threatened to freeze a newborn Finn with her Ice magic if Fletcher didn’t let her leave town. She hadn’t cared about Finn at all—until she needed him to help her rob First Trust in a desperate, last-ditch effort to pay back the millions that she owed to Tucker and the rest of the Circle.
    Finn stared at that spot along the wall a second longer before turning away and screwing a smile on his face, as though everything were normal, and he were still the carefree, happy-go-lucky guy he’d been before Deirdre had blown into town. Before she’d ripped his heart to shreds and betrayed him in the worst way possible. Before she’d tortured him with her Ice magic. Before he’d