“Wait,” I say, wide-eyed. “You kissed him?”
“Yeah,” he laughs. “I was shocked too. I’m all talk and no game. I didn't even know I had it in me to make the first move like that.”
“Well, shit. What did he do?”
“He pulled back and we both just kinda stared at each other in shock and then without warning, he kissed me back and since then … well, you know.”
“No way,” I laugh. “That’s insane. You guys literally just figured everything out in the space of a day while Colton and I were tiptoeing around the topic for months.”
“That’s true. You two were giving me whiplash for ages, but now that everything has calmed down, you guys can just focus on being together and being happy.”
My mind instantly takes me to all the bullshit with Nic and the Wolves which then reminds me of the goddamn bandage at the back of my neck. “Well, nearly everything has calmed,” I remind him.
“Yeah,” he says with a heavy sigh. “Were you ever planning on going down to the police station and making a statement about you being Jude’s other rape victim?”
“I mean … yeah, may—”
My bedroom door swings open with a bang and my mother gapes at me in horror. “Excuse me?” she breathes, staring at me as though I’m some kind of stranger.
My eyes go wide and Milo looks at me as though he’s about to be sick. “Mom, I …”
“What did he just say?” she demands, not taking her eyes from mine for even a second.
I sit up on the bed, feeling my heart begin to break as she realizes that I've kept this massive secret from her. “I …” I shake my head, not able to get the words freed from my throat, but nonetheless, I keep trying. “I … I…”
Milo peels himself off the bed from beside me and gives me a heavy stare. “I’m going to go and give you guys some space to talk,” he murmurs, not making any sudden movements as the tension in the air continues to rise. “I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah? Call me if you need me.”
I try to swallow over the lump in my throat and give Milo a small nod as he slips past my mom. He gives her a gentle kiss on her cheek. “I’m sorry you had to find out like that,” he whispers before moving past and slipping out of the pool house.
I’m left with my mother staring at me with her heart shattering into a million tiny pieces. Not just for the fact that her baby girl was hurt and abused, but because I kept it from her. I kept one of the biggest secrets and I can only imagine the kinds of things that would be going through her mind. Betrayal, heartache, devastation. She probably fears that I don't think I could tell her something like that. She’s probably busy trying to convince herself that she’s failed as a mother when in reality, I just didn’t want her to feel the same hurt that I did. I wanted to spare her. She has such an innocent heart and I desperately wanted to keep it that way but all I’ve done was made it a million times worse.
A single tear streaks down her face and I see the very moment she breaks. “I’m your mom,” she whispers, her voice shaky and broken. “How could you not tell me?”
My own shame and fear come up and cripples me as the tears spring freely from my eyes for what I went through, what I've neglected to deal with, and for the fact that I've just betrayed my mother’s trust and broken her heart.
She deserved so much better than that.
She deserved the peace of mind to have been able to sit with me the morning after, holding me and telling me it was all going to be alright. She deserved the chance to be angry, the chance to go after Jude for hurting her child. She deserved it all and I took that away from her. Instead of being truthful and remembering that she’s so damn strong and can take on the world, I hid it away. I lied and for that, I'll never forgive myself.
She raised me better than that.
How many times am I going to be the reason for her heartache?
I wipe the tears on the back of my arm and swallow over the growing lump, making it nearly impossible to breathe. “I’m sorry,” I cry, feeling the weight of the world drop down over me. “I should have—”
“Yeah,” she says, ever so slightly nodding her head. “You should have.”
And just like that, her already falling tears shoot from her eyes like a waterfall, completely devastated and crushed. Unable to even face me, she walks away without another word, taking every little piece of hope along with her.
I listen for the soft click of her bedroom door and hear as she collapses into her bed and cries into her pillow, knowing all too well that her tears are filled with guilt for not having paid enough attention and the self-doubt for being too busy with work.
The need to go in there and comfort her rocks through me but I just can’t. I can’t face her knowing that I betrayed her trust. She counted on me to always be honest with her and I held back something so big, something that changed my world and turned me into this dark person that I've become. She could have saved me from that, she could have made it all better and I robbed her of that chance.
My eyes begin to sting with the constant tears but I can’t make them stop.
I need to go to her and I don’t doubt that she’s feeling that same need with me, but neither of us is making the move, neither of us strong enough to face what we’ve neglected.
My phone chimes on my bedside table and I reach for it while wiping my tears on the back of my sleeve, feeling the ache of my raw skin as I drag the material across it.
I unlock my phone and read over the words, feeling my soul somehow shatter even more.
Nic - I guess your boy isn’t as clean-cut as he’s been making himself out to be. Marco DeCarlo was just found dead in his kitchen. One bullet through the chin, just like your friend. Maybe that bastard has a pair of balls after all.
No.
Chapter 29
I don’t remember the walk from the pool house to the Carrington mansion but one second I’m sitting in my bed, reading over Nic’s text for the fifth time, hoping that my sore eyes are deceiving me and the next thing I know, I’m searching through Colton’s mansion, desperately seeking him out.
I know he didn’t just kill a man. He couldn’t have. That’s not who we are. Sure, we did some fucked up things and the whole Jude situation was fifty shades of messed up, but Colton was there when I was about to slaughter Jude and he stopped me. Colton saved me from myself, saved me from endless amounts of guilt because that's not who we are.
We’re better than that.
We’re not cold-blooded murderers but the evidence pointing toward Colton is just too much to deny. He was coming after each of the DeCarlo brothers, he vowed that much and then promised to go after Vincent.
He said that he was putting them in prison. He said nothing about putting them in the ground.
Colton couldn’t have done this. Please, someone, tell me that this is some kind of horrible coincidence. Colton isn’t a killer. He's an amazing guy with a big heart. He’s the guy that I've maybe fallen in love with. I couldn’t have fallen for another killer. I just can’t. That can’t be my life.
I only just escaped guys like Nic who think the world revolves around them and the bullets in their guns. Colton isn’t like that. I know him. I refuse to believe it. He's cold and calculating, but he’s no murderer.