His Name Is Kenai: Now I Own You, Little Sister

Chapter 8

SHANNON.

It all felt like a bad film trick as I watched my husband put his luggage together.

I could barely even speak much to him because his phone was buzzing nonstop. He kept talking to HR, MD, the team, everybody except me!

He hadn't even had the time to explain to me the reason for the sudden change of plans.

I was losing my mind. George wasn't the owner of The Dial, yet they drowned him in enough tasks to make one mistake him for the CEO.

That should be something I should be proud of, but I wasn't.

“Jesus. George. They said Monday. You said we had four days just yesterday.” I sobbed, my voice sounding small and shaky, even to me.

George, who was walking frantically around the room, making sure he'd taken everything he needed, paused and gave me a quick kiss on my forehead.

“They accelerated the transfer,” he said, already pulling his phone up and showing me the screen – the only time he wasn't speaking to anyone over the phone.

The subject line glared at me: Reassignment Acceleration – Immediate Travel Required. The first lines hit me so hard and twisted my stomach: Flight booked. Car arranged. Report to the office tomorrow at 08:00 am. Housing provided. Non-negotiable.

I stared at the words and felt the room tilt again. “George… I can’t be alone in that house. Not now. Not...” I clamped my mouth shut before the ugly sob spilled. "I mean... Tomorrow is a Friday! You should be resuming on a Monday!" I let out a sob.

He rubbed his thumb under my eye, catching the tears I hadn't felt fall. “I know this is awful timing. I know. But I don’t have a choice.”

I sniffed and wiped my face immediately, “Then I’ll come with you. I’ll pack a bag…”

“You can’t.” He winced, like the answer hurt him. “Your new assignment starts first thing in the morning. CEO’s office. HR said you need to report by eight.”

The words made my skin crawl.

CEO’s office.

Him.

Kenai.

I opened my mouth to argue, but my phone vibrated in my hand. I glanced down and saw a text from an unknown number.

Unknown Number: “You still shake when you're scared. I missed that.”

The blood drained from my face so fast I went lightheaded. I swallowed, locked the screen, and flung the phone on the bed with fingers that didn’t feel like mine.

George was still talking. “We’ll figure it out. We could ask Valerie to stay with you for a few days until your transfer comes through.”

“Valerie’s phone is still off.” I hated how scared I sounded. “She’s not answering. I still don’t know where she is.”

“She’ll call back,” he said, too quickly. His eyes flicked to his wristwatch, then back to me. “Please, baby. I should be at the airport in an hour. We’ll talk the moment I touch down, okay?”

Before he'd leave to attend to something else, I blurted out before I could stop myself, "I'm leaving the job, George."

The silence that followed was epic. I'd never felt such silence before. It was the kind that made you want to take your words back before they had the chance to land.

George froze, his hand halfway to the suitcase zipper. For a second, I thought he didn’t hear me. But then he turned slowly, and the look on his face made my chest cave in.

“What… did you just say?” His voice was way too quiet. The calm before something ugly.

“I said I’m leaving the job,” I repeated, barely above a whisper. “I can’t do this anymore, George. I…”

He snapped before I could finish.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” His voice cracked, and I flinched instinctively. “You want to quit your job now? Now? When everything is already falling apart?” He ran a hand through his hair, pacing. “Jesus, Shannon. We owe three months’ rent, the car has been at the mechanic for two months, and we can barely afford a decent meal without punching our calculators multiple times — hell, we can’t even afford a damn vacation without cutting into savings. And you want to walk away from the only steady thing we have?”

I tried to speak, but couldn’t even form the right words. My throat burned.

“I’m going to a different state to make things better for us,” he said, raising his voice as he threw his hands in the air, “to get us out of this hole we’ve been in for years — and you’re telling me you’re going to quit because of what? Because you’re scared of working in some rich guy’s office and coming back to an empty house? What’s next, Shan? You gonna start believing in ghosts now?”

Tears spilled down my cheeks before I could stop them. I hated how they made me look weak and pathetic.

“I am always away from the house, four days a week, and even more in some weeks. Why is this different? Huh? Because it comes with a relocation tag?” He hissed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

I wanted to tell him. God, I wanted to tell him everything. That the ghost wasn’t in my head. That I had a stepbrother named Kenai, and that he was real. That he was here. That the dress, the texts, the sudden gifts — they weren’t coincidences.

But, how could I tell my husband that the man who went to prison for me — the man I never told him about — was the one pulling every string around us?

But I guess I was paying the price of keeping secrets in the first place. I’d built my marriage on half-truths. Now, the truth was clawing to come out, but I couldn’t let it.

“I just… can’t, George,” I cried softly, wiping my face with trembling hands. “I can’t work in that place anymore. Please, just listen to me…”

“No, Shannon!” He slammed his palm against the dresser, making me jump. “I can’t keep doing this alone! Every time I think we’re getting somewhere, you find another reason to pull back! Do you think I want to leave you here? You think this is easy for me?” His voice cracked, the anger bleeding into something raw. “I’m doing everything I can for us, and you’re talking about quitting because I'm leaving?”

He sank onto the edge of the bed, his hands on his knees, his voice trembling with exhaustion. “I need you to hold it together, okay? Just a little longer. Sit tight. Keep your job. Keep the house running. Please, Shan. Don’t make this harder than it already is.”

I bit my lip so hard I thought I’d bleed, the guilt crawling up my throat like raw acid. He didn’t understand. How could he? He was fighting to save our future, and I was drowning in a past I never told him existed.

I wanted to scream the truth at him, but all that came out was a choked sob. “Okay,” I whispered, even though I didn’t mean it.

George stood, pressed a quick kiss to my forehead, and pulled me into a brief, weary hug. “That’s my girl,” he murmured. “We’ll fix this, I promise.”

He didn’t see how I trembled in his arms.

He didn’t even see the phone still buzzing on the bed.

When he finally grabbed his suitcase and walked toward the door, it felt like the beginning of something I wouldn’t survive.