"You look like you had fun."

My eyes snapped up to the bathroom mirror were I met my moms gaze. She looked amused as she eyed up the state I was currently in. A small smile graced my lips at the thought of her not freaking out on me, she trust me to do my best to stay safe.

Looking back down I started to scrub my hands again trying to get the blood of them. Blood that I hadn't even noticed until I had gotten home and properly looked at myself.

"Just following in the families footsteps." My remark earned a laugh from my mom who leaned against the doorframe with a air of power that I wished to one day hold.

Mom was five foot five but somehow her whole presence seemed to take up the whole room. It was like she demanded attention where ever she was, and no one could look away.

"So I hear." Mom tilted her head as she took me in properly. At the same time I looked at her and couldn't help but feel a little jealous how beautiful she looked even just out of bed.

When I finally washed my hands raw I turned off the tap and turned my attention to my face. Small scraps graced my jaw and cheek but nothing compared to the gash on my forehead. I hadn't even noticed when or where it happened but I had a feeling it was when that man slammed my against the wall. My head must have hit something and I didn't feel it through the adrenaline.

"Sit." Spoke my mom as she pointed towards the corner of the bathtub. She hadn't even looked in my direction as she started to pull out the stuff she needs for my head.

Without saying another words I did what I was told. Watching her was how imagined I did when I was five and cut my knee. Back then I had been trying to hold back tears because I didn't want my mom to think I was still a little baby.

Now, tears never graced my eyes. It was almost like the pain was nonexistent in her presence.

Slowly I watched as sat beside me and started to work on my forehead. My eyes glanced at her right hand where a small tattoo graced the side of her wrist. Mom was covered in tattoos, something that I had followed her lead in. It was rare in her line of work but it never seemed to hinder her.

In fact if you asked me it made her sound more deadly when she had to stand in front of a room full of men and tell them what to do.

When she had a business meeting you could sometimes hear them gasp when they spotted one of the tattoos on her leg, arm or shoulders. They always whispered but they would never dare judge my mom.

Not when she controlled everything they did and will do.

What really drew my attention was the diamond ring on my moms wedding finger. It was the engagement ring dad had given her and under it was her wedding band.

Both rings were the most beautiful rings I had ever seen and if I knew my parents they probably cost just as much as our house.

They were simple and elegant. Not over the top, which would be something that just got in moms way. At the same time though they were something that you would notice without it being pointed out.

At the sight of the rings my eyes wandered to something else.

"Do you miss dad?" My voice was low, almost childlike as my eyes clashed with my moms once more. A small smile graced her lips as she finished up on the gash on my forehead.

"Of course I miss him." She hummed as she started to put the stuff away. "Don't tell him that though, he'll think I'm going soft."

Letting out a laugh I gave my mom a pointed look. "I don't think anyone would accuse you of going soft."

"I heard Zane spoke to you." Mom threw the rubbished in the bin at the side of the sink carefully watching for my reaction.

"He was right." I said shrugging not bothering to deny it. "I should be learning everything I can from you and dad. Someday this world is going to be Reagan's, which means I'll be in the heart of it too."

"Reagan's?" Questioned my mom once again tilting her head as she questioned me. "There's no guarantee that your dad's world will become Reagan's"

Her words shocked me for a moment as I questioned what she meant by them. Of course this world would become Reagan's, it was what he was raised his whole life to become. Every second, every choice has lead Reagan to were is.

To become the future King.

"You don't think Reagan will become King?"

Mom waved my off as she sat beside me once more. "Reagan isn't the only one out to become King. Where there is our family, there is ten more ready to challenge us. There is no guarantee that our family will always stay on top. We could lose it all in your dad's lifetime before your brother even gets ahold of it."

"You don't truly believe that do you?" I asked slightly surprised mom was throwing around such sentences. "You don't believe dad would lose everything."

She shrugged not seeming one bit bothered by her words. "One move, right or wrong, and every single one of us can live a completely different life."

"But-"

"Before you go on that wasn't what I meant by my sentence." Mom turned to me a challenging look in her eyes that I've never seen before. "What I meant was, why Reagan? Why not you?"

Once again I didn't know what to say, the thought of it had never crossed my mind. As the middle child who always lived behind her older brother I never thought about it. My whole life I've always grown up assuming Reagan would take over our father's role.

"Reagan is a hell of a lot smarter than me for a start." I scoffed as my mind raced with reasons Reagan was the better choice. "He thinks just like you, he's able to come up with a plan to solve any problem. I on the other hand have been lucky to pass any of my classes."

Mom laughed and her shoulders moved with the action. "I don't know about that if you ask me, you're just as smart. You just don't seem to notice it yourself."

"You're joking right?" This time I laughed. "Reagan was able pass everything in school without opening a book, while I on the other hand was barely scraping by."

"You struggled in school because you had no interest in it. Reagan had an interest because like me he needed to prove to himself and others that he is the smartest person in the room." She paused and gave me a pointed look. "I've seen your tests Layla, I know you're far from stupid. In fact I would say you're smarter than your brother."

"Don't know what you're talking about." I looked away no longer wanting to make eye contact with the woman who found out everything.

"Those tests you did in school, you did the questions at the back first. You did the hardest questions first, with the most marks. You scraped by because you only allowed yourself too. You had calculated what you needed to pass and didn't do one point over it. In fact you knew you would get the answers right, so much do you didn't do any extra questions as backup."

There was no point in trying to hide anything from her, she had probably known this since I did it on the first test.

"You know when I was a kid my dad did an IQ test on me without me knowing." She laughed like she remembered a memory. "In fact the first time I had found out about it, I was sitting in the F.B.I headquarters meeting Davis for the first time."

"David?" I asked frowned in thought.

"Remember the man who you met at the headquarters?" I silently nodded and she continued. "He questioned me and it was something he brought up about my family to try and throw me off."

"Why did your dad do that?"

Mom sighed like she was thinking about something before finally settling on an answer. She fully turned to me so she had my full attention.

What ever she was about to tell me was big.

"He was testing me because my mom was basically a genius in more sense than one and he wanted to see if I was too." Her eyes never left mine and I knew she could see the questions running through them but she stayed silent waiting for me to voice them.

"I love gran but she's definitely not what you would call a 'genius' in the sense."

Thinking gran she was too carefree and always getting herself into situations that would otherwise could be avoided. Nothing about her or her personality summed up what mom was talking about.

"My mom, isn't actually my birth mother." She let the words settle in the air for a while before she spoke on. "My birth mother was Nisha Brooks, have you ever heard of her?"

Frowning I thought back but nothing came to mind so I shook my head no.

"Nisha was my birth mother but she was never a mom, that was always Rachael. There was a few years where mom and me had fallen out when I was a teenager but I realised in the end it was because she didn't want to watch me get hurt by the news. She took me and Damon on like her own and no one had asked her too. She opened her arms up to us and she couldn't watch us being take away from her."

"Wow." There was nothing else I could say, frankly I didn't know what to say. "That mustn't have been easy when you found out."

I wasn't sure how I'd react if I found out mom wasn't actually my real mom. What I did know what that it wouldn't be pretty.

My temper was short at the best of times, never mind if I was told the woman I looked up to and admired the most wasn't my mom at all.

A fake.

Gran though was never a fake in moms eyes though and I could see it. Not once did mom sound like she had any emotional connection to Nisha and something told me there was a hell of a lot more to this story that she told.

"Frankly when I found out I didn't have time to react. Zane's parents had just been killed and soon after that her men were holding a gun to your dads, Zane's and Damon's head. My first thought was about them, not about the woman who didn't care about me. All she cared about was what my mind could do."

"She wanted to use you?"

Mom shrugged not seeming to fully know herself. "Nisha used everyone and everything around her. Her mind was what had made her Queen."

Mom let the words sink in before they dawned on me. Quickly I shot to my feet as mom still stayed sitting looking as calm as ever.

"She was Queen? As in what dad-"

"As in what your dad rules over now." Nodding mom with a grin on her face. "Me and your dad took everything from her because she tried to take everything from us. She wanted to use me, turn me into another her. Nisha's only mistake was that she had left me with my dad to grow up. Sometimes I wonder how my life would be if my dad hadn't taken that risk to take me with him and it's something I'll forever be thankful for. Who Nisha wanted me to be was someone I could never imagine me being."

"So grandad did that IQ test to find out if you were as smart as she was?" It wasn't a question, it was a statement. My mind was racing with thoughts as I pieced everything together.

"I'm not sure why he did it really." Shrugged mom something in her voice told me she didn't really want to know. "Maybe he wanted to know if I was as smart as I claimed, maybe he wanted to know if the school tests were right or maybe he wanted to know if he should fear what I could become. What I do know is that the second Davis told me about that test, I knew what I was capable off."

"Which was what?" I asked curiously.

"That, I no longer thought I was the smartest person in the room. I knew that I was."

Her words sunk in and Zane's words from earlier on rang through my mind once more.

He was right.

As I looked at my mom I realised the confidence in herself that she held. No matter what situation she was thrown or what life threw at her she knew she would come out on top. She never doubted herself because she knew what she was capable off.

Something that I had long sense forgotten about in my own mind. Being in Reagan's shadow I had always just assumed my roll was to help him conquer but maybe I could be something more.

After all I was the daughter of Lyra and Riker Kennedy.

Mom stretched out her arms in front of her and stood up so that we were face to face. That grin was on her face once more as she took me in. "There is no doubt in my mind I had wanted nothing to do with Nisha but there was one thing I always thanked her for."

"Which is what?" I was almost breathless as I spoke, taking in all the information that mom had thrown at me.

"It's written in our veins and flows through our very blood, that woman are far more powerful in our family." Mom then leaned on close like she was sharing a secret. "Which is why I know you are going to become something far more than your brother."

A wide grin crossed my face, one that matched my moms and the next question out of my mouth was light hearted. "Did you do an IQ test on me?"

Mom scoffed and walked towards the door like I had just told the funniest joke. "I don't need a test to tell me what I already know." She then turned to me a stern look on her face. "What ever block you've put on yourself because you've put yourself in Reagan's shadow I would snap out of it if I was you. I have faith you can become something more but you, yourself have to believe that too. Otherwise you're just going to stay where you are and forever Reagan's little sister."