Sawyer Quinn.
Her only family. The one constant variable in her life. Iona loved Sawyer so much she felt her heart stretch at the thought of her as if it wanted to be bigger to have more room to love her sister.
Sawyer loved Iona too, loved her more than she loved herself. Iona knew it because Sawyer had sacrificed her heaven and earth for Iona and they weren't even blood sisters.
The Quinn sisters, destinies bound together by one cold night in April 1997.
They had both been separately abandoned near an orphanage that had been in the news for it's success rate in finding good homes for the children it housed.
Sawyer had been four years old and self aware enough for her to know her name and age. Iona had just been ten months.
The story, which the orphanage workers had discovered from warching cctv, was that Sawyer had chased after the woman who had abandoned her. When she lost track of the woman Sawyer wandered about crying and in her wandering found Iona in a basket.
Little Sawyer had forgotten her tears and did her best to tend to the chilly ten month old.
It wasn't long till a passerby found both girls and took them to the orphanage.
Sawyer had had a hard time letting go of Iona so the orphanage workers kept them close. And close they remained as they grew older, constantly hoping to be adopted by a family who would love two girls sworn to never be apart.
When Sawyer turned eighteen and neither of them got adopted the two girls officially adopted each other and choose a surname to share. Quinn, inspired by Sawyer's then obsession of Harley quinn.
Despite their shared love and strong bond they both wanted different things out of life, so while Iona pursued the degree that would earn her value, Sawyer bought a home bus going on a never ending, guessing game adventure of figuring out her blasian ethnicity.
Regardless of distance, Sawyer and Iona always kept in touch mostly through text and the fact that Sawyer was suddenly surprising Iona with a visit meant one thing.
Sawyer and Santino had broken up...again.
Her sister couldn't stand being by herself and that was probably why she was vising Iona.
When Iona had first told Sawyer of her plans to go to college, it had caused the biggest fight of their lives till date.
Sawyer had wanted her sister by her side when she went adventuring.
Even after, Sawyer had grudgingly respected Ionas choices, the sisters had lived with constant tension between them until Sawyer had begun dating a man named Joey who agreed to explore the world and investigate her heritage with her.
After three months of exploration Sawyer returned with the news that she and Joey had broken up. She had then stayed with Iona for a month until she met Santino with whom she went travelling with again.
But she and Santino were far from healthy. Iona could have told Sawyer that from her first meeting with him. It wasn't that Santino was a glaringly bad partner but it was the little simple things that wrote him off. On the drive home from Ionas first meeting with Santino, Sawyer had been chatting on and on about her new boyfriend excited that he was open to life on the road. They had come to a stop at a traffic loght and Iona had wanted to point out her concerns about Santino but one look in her sisters eyes told her she didn't have to say anything.
Sawyer knew, she knew everything about Santino that was bad for her but she was choosing to ignore it and with her eyes she was pleading with her sister not to voice out anything that would make his imperfections too real for her to ignore.
So Iona had shut up and listened to Sawyers talk about her compatibility with Santino. They were both tattoo artists, they liked the same flavour of icecream, their go to McDonald's order was identical, they both loved exploring and culture was important to them.
The first leg of their relationship had lasted longer than Iona expected, eight months, and then they had broken up which had caused Sawyer to visit her sister. They got back together only three weeks later and Sawyer had driven to Canada to be with him. That leg had lasted five months, the exploring couple had called it quits somewhere in Brazil but had gotten back together before either had left the country and that had been three months ago.
Iona wondered what was going on now.
She was still lost in worry about her sister when she came face to glass with Onyx's front door.
Pushing away all negative thoughts that were swirling in her head, Iona rang the bell and waited.
She didn't have to wait long this time. Onyx Bentley pulled his large front door open in what felt like seconds.
He acknowledged her with a polite nod and a tiny smile.
'Good morning Iona, you are right on time'.
Iona returned his tiny polite smile.
'Good morning, Onyx', she said as she walked through the door he held open for her.
Onyx shut the door and the two strolled through the entry hallway into the living room. Iona could not help but notice how clean the place looked despite the clutter of boxes.
She knew it wasn't Onyx doing the cleaning. She could spot a professional cleaning job because she had once been one...sort of.
She wondered about his lack of staff about the grand house.
The Stevensons had a smaller house but still had a butler, a chef, a cleaning lady, a gardener and maids.
Curiosity got the best of her and she found herself asking
'I never see any staff around here. It's a big house I figure it will take a lot to maintain it'.
Onyx didn't even seem a little offended by her audacity to ask such a question.
'Too much staff around 24/7 doesn't make it feel like home. If I had so much staff here it would feel a lot like the office. Too many employees referring to me by a professional title in my home feels a bit stuffy'. He smiled 'That's why Its simply Onyx to you. As for maintaining the house, certain services come around thrice a week to polish every corner and I do my best to not mess up the work quickly'.
Iona nodded, 'That makes sense...' she paused then added 'Onyx' in a tone that was familiar. Onyx grinned.
'Let's get work done, Iona'.