Filed to story: The Daughter in the Shadows (Yunice) Book by Una Norris
Paul muttered, “That’s just weird…”
Owen said quietly, “Sometimes I wonder if my mom was right-maybe Yunice really did take the Saunders family’s luck with her.”
Paul frowned. He was about to call him superstitious but then paused, thoughtful.
Come to think of it, ever since he started dating Elsie, it felt like everything had gone downhill. He’d constantly found himself dragged into one mess after another for her, and even his father and grandfather had started voicing their disapproval.
Meanwhile, Wyatt-ever since word got out about his engagement to Yunice-had barely been scolded by his OWEL grandfather. The land deal in Northvale-no one even tried to fight him for it.
Could it be that Yunice actually brings luck to her man and his family?
Owen didn’t notice the shift in Paul’s expression. He crouched down, picked up a stack of bills, and stayed quiet for a while.
Then, under his breath, he tried to rally himself. “One hurdle at a time, the road ahead is long, but it’ll shine bright.”
Just as he tried to summon some determination, his gaze dimmed again.
That line he’d just used-that was something Yunice used to say all the time….
His eyes began to sting. Red-rimmed, he kept picking up bill after bill, as if burying himself in work could numb the feelings building inside.
Even after everything today, he still missed the obedient, thoughtful Yunice from before.
Under the starlit sky outside the car window, Yunice sat in the same car as Wyatt. The leather seat felt like it had needles in it; she kept shifting restlessly, glancing back toward the rear window every few seconds.
Yunice had planned to ride with Gill, but when Jordan came to call her over, she couldn’t keep pretending anymore.
Not seeing Gill’s ear now, Yunice sat up straight and looked down at her hands, playing with her fingers.
She still remembered what Wyatt had said back at the Saunders mansion. “We’ll settle this when we get back.” So now he is taking me back to settle it! But…what exactly is there to settle?
She stole a glance at Wyatt from the corner of her eye, waiting for him to speak. But, of course, he was frustratingly quiet-making her guess everything.
So she had to go first. “Why…did you go to the Saunders mansion?”
Wyatt sat stone-faced, clearly not in the mood to respond. His eyes were fixed on the window outside.
Yunice was starting to feel awkward-until Jordan chimed in to save the moment. “Come on, Ms. Saunders, Wyatt keeps a close eye on everything about you.”
Keeps an eye on me… Probably just because she was the woman he had to marry. It was a matter of appearances-if she embarrassed herself, it would make him look bad too.
Husband and wife, tied at the hip.
Yunice glanced at Wyatt again, then pointed at his sulking expression and asked Jordan, “Why does he look so mad?”
She’d noticed that the people around Wyatt were all pretty decent-friendly, even. As long as it was something they could talk about, they were never stingy with words.
Jordan glanced up and checked the rearview mirror, not clear if he was looking at Wyatt or Yunice. He smiled and said, “Of course, he’s mad at you.”
“You’re Wyatt’s woman, but instead of coming to him, you went to that slimy old Quinton for help. Doesn’t that make it seem like you look down on Wyatt?” Jordan’s tone lifted playfully at the end, like he was deliberately putting her on the spot.
But Yunice could tell-this wasn’t a trap. Jordan was throwing her a lifeline. More friends, more options; fewer friends, more hoops to jump through.
Yunice didn’t want to let Wyatt down. She looked at him and said, “I thought you guys were too busy; I didn’t want to bother you with something this small.”
“And what exactly counts as something big?”
This time, it wasn’t Jordan stepping in as the mouthpiece-Wyatt turned his head and asked her himself.
“Was dangling off a high-rise like some death-defying stunt not dramatic enough for you?”
Yunice went quiet. He knew about that? But why is he so angry? We had barely met enough times to count on two hands.
“You’re my fianc?e,” Wyatt said, his voice tight. “The wedding’s almost here. You trying to die and stick me with a reputation as some sort of wife-killer?”
Yunice blinked in disbelief-again and again-until she heard his words. That’s when it finally clicked.
Wyatt didn’t care about her-he cared about his reputation, about whether or not he could still marry someone else in the future. And fair enough, his reputation was already terrible. No proper lady wanted to marry him in the first place. If he tacked on the whole “bad luck in love” label on top of that, even regular girls would run for the hills.
Wyatt leaned back in his seat, eyes dark, clearly irritated. “What a pain. Maybe I should just kill them all.”
Jordan kept driving smooth as ever, but Yunice said, “No. Their lives belong to me.”
Wyatt gave her a cold look.
Yunice didn’t flinch. If something needed to be said, she would say it. “You didn’t kill Jackson-was that because you couldn’t?”
Jordan shot her a quick glance. He hadn’t expected her to be so bold.
“I’m sure you wouldn’t care if people called you a patricide,” Yunice said. “But you didn’t go through with it. Why? Because you wanted the ones who failed you to end up crawling at your feet, begging for mercy!”
“Killing them isn’t hard. If I wanted someone dead by midnight, I could slip something in their food, and they’d never make it to dawn. But what’s the fun in that?”
“I want them to see just how wrong they were. I want to give them back everything they ever dished out to me. I want them to feel the same suffering I did. I want their nights to be sleepless, filled with regret-not just some clean cut that buries them and me in one go.”
Wyatt didn’t say anything, but his eyes darkened in thought.
Jordan chuckled. “If I weren’t the one driving, I’d be clapping for Ms. Saunders’ grand ambitions.”
Yunice replied, “Not as grand as Mr. Cooper’s. I’m just fighting small fish; he’s gambling with sharks.”
Taking on the Powell family made the Saunders family look like child’s play.
Jordan gave a low whistle. Not bad, she sure knows how to flatter when it counts.
Maybe it was just her imagination, but Yunice felt like Wyatt’s mood had eased. The rigid tension in his shoulders had relaxed a bit; now he just looked comfortably indifferent.
He said, “Didn’t expect you and I were on the same page. Even better.”
Yunice blurted out, “Sounds more like a setup to me.”
Wyatt said, “Glad you know.”
She glanced his way again, then heard Jordan say, “Since Ms. Saunders is new to the family, there’ll definitely be some…friction. So we kindly ask that Ms. Saunders not cause Wyatt any unnecessary trouble over irrelevant people.”
What’s that supposed to mean! But no one gave her an answer.
Jordan continued laying out the plan like it was no big deal. “There are some arrangements for the dinner, so Ms. Saunders will stay at Pavilion Hall tonight. It’s easier for me to coordinate that way.”
Of course, what Jordan meant was what Wyatt meant.
The car turned into Pavilion Hall, Jordan guided the way and gave her the rundown. “Ms. Saunders, you’ll be on the first floor. Wyatt’s room is on the third. You only go up there if he tells you to.”
Yunice looked up and saw that Pavilion Hall had a kind of castle-like architecture. When you looked up from the lobby, the railings of every floor were in plain view. Likewise, from any upper floor, you could clearly see down into the living room. The floors were stacked in layers-like an Ivory tower.
She turned around and saw that Wyatt had already entered the elevator alone, clearly heading to the third floor.
The moment he left, Yunice felt so much more at ease.
She asked Jordan, “Why don’t I see any staff around?”
For a place this big, it was strange to have no servants.