Page 84 of Shattered Vows

“Why are you doing this?” Sobs heave out of me. She finally drops my arm, and I cradle it to my chest, crying into the ground.

“I’m saving you from yourself. I’ve already had to save you from this evil man once.”

“He’s not evil! You’re the one who’s evil!” I look up at her with tear-stained cheeks. “You’re the one who’s lied to me my entire life. You’re not even my real mother!”

She moves so fast that it doesn’t register that she’s hit me across the face for a few seconds until the stinging sensation settles in my flesh.

“You ungrateful brat! After everything I’ve done for you, everything I protected you from your whole life, this is how you repay me?”

“So it’s true? You’re not my mother?”

Her dark eyes widen then narrow on me, growing cold. “Did your liar of a boyfriend tell you that?”

How ironic that the man she’s calling a liar is the same person who bared all his sins to me, showing me exactly who he is. And the woman accusing him of being a liar has been pretending to be a good person her entire life, but she’s anything but.

“Is it true?” I don’t know why this matters so much right now, but it does. I need to know. I need to know if the woman I trusted, lived under the same roof with, always believed had my best interests at heart, is not who I thought she was.

“In all the ways that matter, I am your mother.”

My face crumples, and more tears come. “What does that mean? What happened to my real parents? Was I adopted?”

I feel like a baby bird in a nest with its mouth open, looking to its mother for sustenance. Give me what I need. Tell me that I’m adopted.

Her face morphs from anger to pity, and she nods. “I never wanted you to find out. To me, you were just my daughter.”

My tears dry up. “What about everything you said about being assaulted?”

She frowns. “I’m not proud of it, but I wanted to give you some of the truth. That’s your biological mother’s story. She tried to raise you, which is why I don’t have any pictures of you as a baby. She found it too hard. It was too much of a reminder to her of what had happened.”

I guess that makes sense. Looking up at her from below, she looks so much like the mother I knew growing up. The one who loved and nurtured me and protected me at all costs.

“I knew as soon as I saw you that I could love you like you deserved to be loved. That you were meant to be mine.”

“You could have told me,” I whisper.

“That was my mistake. All I ever wanted was to protect you.” She bends at the waist and cups my cheek with her free hand. “Now why don’t we get out of here? You may not see it now, but this place will destroy you, Rapsody. That man will destroy you.”

I lean away from her touch. “Kol would never hurt me.” I know those words to be true. He may be a dangerous man, but I have nothing to fear from him.

“He will. He already has. You think I don’t know that he stole you from your own wedding?”

I look away from her.

“A man like him is used to getting what he wants. How do you think I knew where to find you? I knew he’d never rest until he’d taken what he thought was his. He was the only explanation as to why you disappeared the day of your wedding.”

At her words, something dawns on me. I frown. “Mother, why didn’t you call the police when I went missing that day?”

She opens her mouth, then closes it before she speaks. “Because I knew it had to be him. You had no money, you wouldn’t have been able to survive. With all the money and influence this family has, involving the police would have no effect. All they have to do is to pay off the right people to make it all go away. I figured it was better to find you myself so that they wouldn’t know what I was up to and couldn’t be tipped off when I was close to getting you back.”

That makes sense, I guess… sort of.

“She didn’t call the police because she was worried she’d be identified as the woman who kidnapped a child two decades ago.”

I whip my head around at the sound of Kol’s voice. He’s standing at one of the other entrances into the courtyard in blood-soaked clothes. His face looks like someone used it as target practice for their fists.

“Hello, Margaret,” Kol says in a menacing voice.

I turn to look back at my mother. Who the hell is Margaret?

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