Page 165 of Brutal Prince

Indi

Istand at the threshold to the Davis house and my shoulders sag as if there’s a ton of weights strapped to my back, not just a backpack.

There wasn’t much to say to Addy after we’d both calmed down. She swears she doesn’t know what Briar was talking about, and I so badly want to believe her.

When I asked, she said she was supposed to leave with the moving men, but she wanted to spend a few minutes saying goodbye to her childhood home.

I still don’t know what shit her parents were involved in that made them a target for the IRS. She didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t ask her to. Right now, I just want to climb into bed and forget the past two weeks of my life ever happened.

Which is what I would have done if I hadn’t run into Marigold.

She’s waiting for me in the entrance hall, skinny arms crossed over her chest. The lecture begins before I’ve even let out my first long-suffering sigh.

“How far do you think you’ll get in this world, young lady?”

“Quite far,” I snap back. “Starting with moving fuck far away from this hell hole.”

“And then what?” Marigold says, following me relentlessly up the stairs. “You get a job, your boss gives you an order, you throw it back in their face?”

Well, at least she’s not expecting my boss to be male. That’s gotta count for something, right?

“I dunno, granny,” I say. “But let me think it over while I remain grounded for the rest of my life, yeah?”

I turn to close my bedroom door in her face, but she sticks out a hand before I get there. I scowl at her, and she glares back at me.

“This isn’t the life your mother wanted for you,” she says quietly.

“Don’t you dare,” I say, lifting a finger at her and wishing it was my knife instead. “Don’t you dare!”

“She put me in charge of you, Indigo. Me.” Marigold presses her fingers to her chest. “I’m responsible for her daughter. This—” she flicks her hand at me “This excuse of a child.”

My mouth drops open. “What?”

“I never wanted kids,” she goes on with barely a pause. “Did your mother ever tell you that? Not one. Until I had your mother, of course.”

She shakes her head.

“That’s when it all changes, you know. That one moment, when you’re holding your baby in your arms. The burden you’ve carried for nine long months. The thing that made you throw up every morning, that made you spoil your bedsheets more times than you’d care to remember. That thing…”

Marigold blinks a few times, and I realize she’s keeping back tears. “That thing consumed my life. She was everything to me. Everything!”

I start misting up. That’s how I felt about Mom too, especially after Dad died. She was my world.

I like to think I was hers.

“But then I lost her.” Marigold holds up a hand and extends two fingers. “Not once. Twice.”

“I don’t—”

“Your father took her away from me.” Marigold flicks her hand, shakes her head. “Dragged her thousands of miles to that nowhere town. He kept us apart.”

I open my mouth, but she doesn’t let a word get out.

“And then someone killed her.”

Those two fingers lift, trembling ever so slightly. “Twice, I’ve lost her. I’m not losing you too, even if it means you hate me. Because at least you’re here to hate me. At least you’re here.”

She drops her arms to her sides, swallows visibly, and takes a step back. “Now think about what you’ve done.” She nods, and a single tear breaks free to race down her wrinkled cheek. “You think about your life, Indi. And you don’t come out of this room until you’re ready to tell me how you plan to spend it.”

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