CHAPTER ONE
“Chin up, tits out, back straight, head held high. I’ve got this.” I coached myself and inhaled a hard and fast breath while staring at my image in the entryway mirror of my childhood home.
Kerrighan House.
A home for orphaned girls. Well, it used to be. Now it’s just home. The place each of us “sisters” visited on a regular basis just like any normal siblings would to see their parents. In our case, it was parent, singular. But the love Mama Kerri gave to each and every one of her girls was a thousand times that of any family I’d ever seen or stayed with before arriving here almost two decades ago. I was eight then, a frightened and scared little girl. At twenty-six now, I was back in my old bedroom and once again frightened and scared out of my mind.
“He’s dead,” I told my image while staring in the mirror. “He can’t get you.” I watched my reflection and forced myself to unlock my jaw, soften my appearance, and gaze into the mirror as though it were a camera. This was the same way I prepared for my photo shoots. As a model, I had to be a master at masking my feelings. And I used to be the best at it. But now, when I look in the mirror, I not only see the mass of scars running up and down the insides of my forearms, but also the fear I have yet to shake even after three months.
Parents I didn’t know and would never meet blessed me with medium brown hair with incredible natural auburn highlights that I grew to the middle of my back. Emerald green eyes with a hint of a blue sheen stared back at me. Plump lips on a heart-shaped face that women and men around the world adored. I ran my hands over my large breasts and down the sides of my waist to hips that were once very rounded. The hourglass shape I normally rocked was looking a little thin. I’d lost weight after the ordeal, but then I put some back on. My clientele preferred me to model their clothing, bathing suits, and especially lingerie when my body was between a size fourteen and sixteen. After three months of physical healing and mental hell, my size fourteens were a little loose. But I knew my body looked smokin’ hot, soft, and sensual at that size and larger. That didn’t mean I hated on women who were smaller than me. Every single one of my seven foster sisters weighed less than me, and all of them looked amazing in their own skin. Which is how I used to feel, until a portion of my skin was blistered and burned beyond recognition.
“Addy! Baby girl, you ready or what?” my foster sister and best friend Blessing asked while clomping down the stairs in her sky-high stilettos.
I glanced at my sad self in the mirror one last time hoping I could fulfill this new contract. It was going to set me up for a huge payday, not that I needed it. Still, I liked knowing I had a ridiculous amount of money saved in the event that me or one of my sisters needed to be bailed out. I’d lived my adolescent years prior to Kerrighan House uncertain where my next meal would come from, worrying whether or not I’d have to fight other hungry kids in one of the many foster homes I stayed. Until the day I walked into the open, loving arms of Mama Kerri and my new sisters. Once I was settled at Kerrighan House, I promised myself I’d become something amazing one day. Make enough money to take care of myself and everyone I loved. Which meant basically Mama Kerri, the world’s greatest foster mother of all time, and my seven foster sisters: Blessing, Sonia, Simone, Liliana, Genesis, Charlie, and the recently deceased Tabitha.
Tabby.
My eyes started to tear, and my heart pounded a loud bass drum beat against my chest as flashes of Tabby teasing me, of taking my picture, of her laughing sprinted across my mind.
“Girl, I said are you ready to hit it or what? These are huge clients of mine and now yours. They’d understand if it were too soon, but Boo, they’d have to hire another model. Now you know I prefer when you rock my clothing and lingerie, but this client has the power to get my designs into the regular box stores. We’re talking Macy’s, Nordstrom, Dillard’s and more. Right now, everything I sell is boutique and upscale, but I want to rake in the real cash. You know what I’m talkin’ about.”
I closed my eyes and swallowed as I nodded. “I do, Blessing. I understand and I’m ready. I swear I am. It’s just scary this first time out.”
Blessing wrapped a long arm around my shoulders and stared at the two of us in the mirror. Blessing was an inch shorter than me, but in heels, she towered over my five-foot, eleven-inch form. Her corkscrew ebony curls were bouncing all around her head in a perfectly stylized ’fro. Her black skin shone like silky smooth river rocks and felt just as soft. She smelled of her customary coconut oil mixed liberally with a light, breezy perfume that reminded me of Spring on the stony shores of Cannes, France. A place we’d visited many times together on different photoshoots.
“I’ll be right there. Every second, every minute. You’ll never be alone, okay?” Her reflection spoke and her onyx-colored eyes seared straight into mine with a seriousness that couldn’t be denied. My girl was in “Big Sister Mode” and had been since Simone and I had survived a madman. Blessing on a good day was protective of the family she chose in all of us and Mama Kerri. After our lives were threatened and we lost Tabby, that protection gene of hers became extreme. Knock down, drag out, she’d cut a bitch if they so much as looked at one of us cross. Unfortunately, this did not help the situation with the paparazzi.
Once word got around that Senator Sonia Wright’s biological sister Simone was involved in the Backseat Strangler case, and that two of her foster sisters were also involved, the press went insane. I had been kidnapped, but Tabitha ended up dying. When my identity was released—Addison Michaels-Kerrighan, international plus-sized model—and the world found out I was famous in my own corner of the market, things got intense. The paparazzi followed all of us incessantly. They camped outside Kerrighan House waiting for one of us to exit and go about our daily routines. By now, Blessing and I were the only ones still staying with Mama Kerri. The rest of our sisters had gone back to their homes and schedules, only coming back here to meet up for family dinner each week as usual.
I clenched my teeth and grabbed my giant sunglasses from the table underneath the mirror where I’d left my purse and plopped them on my nose. Blessing grabbed hers, a fashionable circular pair with gold trim that went perfectly with her stunning blue jumper and gold belt cinched around her tiny waist. Her booty, however, was high, rounded, and so hard you could bounce a quarter off it. Blessing worked out almost as much as Sonia did, but mostly to offset her insatiable appetite. Probably one of the things that we bonded over when I arrived and was put in the same room as her all those years ago.
“Lunch after?” I put my purse over my shoulder and my other hand on the doorknob.
Her lips pursed together in a small grin. “For sho,’ Boo. Now let’s give the vultures a good shot, eh? Good to show ’em we’re all just fine. Maybe they’ll move their smarmy asses back to whatever hole they crawled out of and leave us all alone.”
“One could only hope.” I chuckled and opened the door.
Instantly we were hit with what felt like a thousand camera flashes and a roaring blast of questions.
“Ms. Michaels, how does it feel to survive the Backseat Stranger?”
“What does the Senator have to say about all of this?”
“Is there anything you can tell us about Wayne Gilbert Black?”