Page 119 of Diary from an Inked Throne

It was only then I realized I’d said the words out loud.

My cheeks went pink with embarrassment, but Kara and Isabella both had the same kind of determination and excitement in their expressions.

I grinned. “Someone get me a notepad and a pen. We have some brainstorming to do.”

36

DAX

Dear Diary,

One generation destroyed this family. Maybe ours can rebuild it.

The sun sank outside the hospital windows, and visitors all drifted away. All but our family of five and Isabella, who had reluctantly given up the baby to Nyah to feed, but now scribbled note after note onto a pad of paper, recording all the ideas the two of them had for the women and children’s center.

“It really needs a better name,” Isabella said thoughtfully, staring down at her notes. “The Saint View Women and Children’s Center is a mouthful.”

Nyah glanced over at me. “We could call it Virginia’s Place.”

I swallowed hard. “For real?”

Nyah nodded.

I blew out a long breath. “She’d tell you it’s too much. You should name it after Isabella or Kara or one of the other women…”

Isabella shook her head. “Your mom was the closest thing I had to a mother until Kara. I don’t really remember my own, Luca does, but I was too young when she died. All I knew about warmth and love came from Virginia. That’s what women will want to feel when they come to our place. Cared for and seen. And besides that, I certainly don’t want the Guerra name anywhere on it.”

Isabella had seen and experienced way too much to ever truly sound like a teenager. I hated that for her and prayed that when James got to be her age, all he knew was sports and friends and fun, and that the darkness of this world Isabella and Luca and Nyah had grown up in hadn’t touched him.

There had already been a lot of tears shed today, and I didn’t want to set Nyah or Isabella off again, so I bit back my own emotions. “All the decisions that need to be made for the center need to come from the two of you. If you want to call it Virginia’s Place, then my family and I are honored.”

Isabella wrote it down in big blocky letters on her notepad, her mouth turned up in a smile. “It’s perfect.”

Nyah hummed softly. James, with help from a lactation specialist who worked at the hospital, was latched at her breast and sucking down his dinner like he’d been waiting all his life for it.

She leaned back against the starched white pillows. “We’re going to help so many people. Not just trafficked women. Women in abusive relationships. Women who need financial or educational support. We can run learning programs, provide free, hot meals…”

“That would have meant a lot to me when I was young,” a voice said quietly from the doorway.

Constance, Nyah’s mother, stood there, a small blue teddy bear clutched in her fingers.

Nyah stiffened, the joy on her face evaporating. “What are you doing here?”

Constance’s long, flowy dress, expensive jewelry, and perfectly done hair were so out of place amongst the bleak hospital walls and the hoodies and jeans the rest of us wore. She took a step into the room and slowly, almost as if she was waiting for Nyah to tell her no, moved to the side of the bed.

Nyah’s gaze met mine.

I knew I didn’t have to ask her out loud if she wanted her mother here. She could see the question in my expression, and I could read hers just as easily.

She hadn’t been expecting it, but she wanted this.

I settled back in my chair a little, still on edge and ready to stand up and intervene if that’s what Nyah wanted me to do.

But I could see the tremble in her bottom lip. The burning in her eyes that said she had things to say to the woman who’d birthed her.

But that also, maybe, she was just glad to have her here.

Constance didn’t deserve a second chance with her daughter, but I couldn’t blame Nyah for considering it. She’d watched her father die. Her brothers were no doubt walking in his footsteps and stepping in to take over his business. And she had a brand-new baby.