Page 105 of Holy Sinner

My men have taken me apart and put my back together in a way that my mother can’t recognize. I know she doesn’t from the sneer she’s giving me now. I remember her eyes being so sharp, so capable of tearing me to shreds. She didn’t even have to say a word against me but in the bright light of the building I see she looks tired. She’s wearing makeup and her mascara is smeared across her bottom waterline and the thunderstorm has done her no favors. She’s soaking wet and there’s a smear of mud up the side of her boot. I wonder idly if she slipped coming down the stairs. She probably did from the way I see mud on her jeans and the side of her dark raincoat. Her normally perfect light brown hair is plastered to her head and she’s standing in a puddle of water that’s dripping from her raincoat. She looks so mundane now.

So…average.

The power she had over me doesn’t feel the same and a laugh bubbles up in me.

This is who I was afraid of?

A middle aged woman with a sneer on her face and mud on her boots. I laugh. My mother frowns.

“Shut the fuck up, Kit.”

“No.”

“No?” She blinks at that one word. “You call me a cunt and tell me no? You think you’re going to disrespect me after all these years? You’re going to give me what you owe me.”

“By what? Telling you no? What are you-” I shake my head and look from her to Alexia and then to Jax. “What are you doing? I never wanted to see you again, not after you ran me off.”

“You think you could hide from me at Harvard? That I wasn’t going to find you?”

“You had no right to find me!” I scream. “You made my life a living hell and now you’re back to do what? Do it again? What the fuck are you doing?”

My mother lifts her chin and points a finger at me. “Getting what’s mine.”

“Which is?”

She surprises me when she crosses the space to come right up to me. She still smells like the expensive cloying floral perfume I remember she wore. She grabs my arm and I gasp as he yanks the golden bracelet Rafe and Grant gifted me off my arm.

“Your fortune. I want it. I earned it. You think it was a joy pushing your screaming carcass out of my body? You ruined my life! I want my life back!” She waves the bracelet in my face as she screams at me, each word she hurls at me so guttural that it sounds like it’s being ripped from her body.

I want to bash her beautiful face into the ground. I lunge for the bracelet but she moves away from me and back to Scott’s side.

“Give that back to me! It’s mine.”

She smiles evilly and slips it on her wrist and turns it to admire it in the light. “I think it looks better on me, don’t you?” My blood boils watching her wear something precious to me. Something Grant and Rafe gave me as a token of our love being on here, even being touched by her is too much. “And besides you owe me for what I did for you. You wouldn’t have anything if I hadn't buried that boy for you?! You should be in prison, not famous!”

I look away from the bracelet and to her. “It was an accident. He tried to rape me. You know that. I was scared and young and I called you. You made me do it.” I point at her and my hand shakes. I take a deep breath and squeeze my fingers into a fist to stop the shaking but it doesn’t do anything.

“You made me do it! I didn’t want to bury Mark like that. I was just a kid!”

“You think the judge was going to see a kid when you walked in? He would look at you and know what a whore you were. Do you think I was going to let you embarrass me like that?” My mother sniffs and walks closer to me. I feel smaller the closer she gets to me. When I look up at her, she’s looking down her nose at me with a haughty sneer.

How can she make me feel so insignificant? She does it so subtly that I don’t realize I’m drowning until there’s no air in my lungs.

“I did what I had to. I’m your mother, after all. Aren't I? And now you’re going to pay me back or I’m going to let every tabloid and limp dick paparazzi know exactly what you did to poor old Mark. I’ll even draw them a map if they need. If you want me to keep your dirty little secret, you’ll pay up, Kit.”

“How much do you want?” I ask, even though I already know the answer.

“All of it. Every fucking cent you’ve made, I want it.”

The talk of money snaps Alexia out of it. I know it when her eyes dart nervously from me to my mom. She looks at Jax pleadingly but the man doesn’t look at her. He’s watching my mom.

“Mark? Who’s Mark?” Alexia asks. She’s off to the side, looking at us in confusion. There’s a slow realization starting to seep into her eyes and part of me feels sympathy for her. Whatever game my mother is playing, she tricked Alexia into being a part of it.

“The boy my darling daughter murdered.”

“I was defending myself. He slipped. I never meant to hurt him.”

“You should have listened to me and stayed home but you didn’t, did you? You ruined my life and yours that night. The difference is, that I’m going to be just fine after this. It’s you that the world is going to finally see as a heartless monster. Jax and Scott are going to make sure of it. Aren’t you, my loves?” she asks and I freeze at hearing her tone to the two men. It’s softer, intimate, the kind of voice used between lovers. I hear it.

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