Page 120 of Begin Again

Aubrey hesitates.

I see it before she says it. The moment her lips part, the moment her eyes dart too quickly to the side like she’s weighing if she should keep going.

But she does.

“Because I had to carry the pregnancy to term,” she snaps, the words laced with resentment. “I got pregnant on purpose, alright? I was seventeen and stupid, but I knew George was going into the military. I knew he’d leave me. So I did everything I could—took every supplement, tracked everything—so he’d get me pregnant before he left. I thought if I had his child, he wouldn’t abandon me. But it didn’t matter. Nothing I did ever mattered to him.”

Selene’s breath catches, and Mo stares at her, stunned. But Aubrey isn’t done.

“I gave everything for that pregnancy,” she continues, voice trembling with bitterness. “And then I found him with Cassandra on our wedding night.”

“So you poisoned him,” I say, my voice flat, dead.

She doesn’t deny it. Just lifts her chin like she’s proud of it.

Selene’s arms tighten across her chest. “And your son? What happened to him?”

Aubrey scoffs, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “I gave him up. Handled it through the courts, and kept it all anonymous. I couldn’t have a child holding me back, not when I had to start over, and I couldn’t let your father ruin everything,” Aubrey continues. Her voice growing colder with each word. “He would’ve told Gabriel. He would’ve told everyone. So, yes, I poisoned him. I made sure he wouldn’t have the chance.”

Mo’s voice cuts through the tension like a blade. “And Gabriel?”

Aubrey freezes “Gabriel was…different,” she says quietly. “He was the love of my life. My everything. But he was too good. Too honest. When someone started looking into George’s death, and Walter’s, I knew he’d find the truth. And I couldn’t…” Her voice breaks, and she presses a trembling hand to her chest. “I couldn’t let him make that choice. To prosecute me. To hate me. It would’ve destroyed him.”

“So you destroyed him instead,” I say, my voice cold.

Her head snaps toward me, her eyes blazing with a mix of anger and desperation. “I didn’t have a choice!” she cries, her voice cracking. “He would’ve hated me. He would’ve turned me in. I couldn’t let that happen!”

The tears come again, but they’re different this time. Desperate. Self-pitying.

“You killed him,” Mo says, her tone flat. “You made the choice for him.”

Aubrey’s hands shake, and she clutches them to her chest. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like that.”

Selene shakes her head, her voice cutting through the air like a whip. “You’re not a victim, Aubrey. You made these choices. And now, it’s time to face the consequences. You killed four people and hid the fact that you were pregnant. He never got the chance to know most of his family because you killed them to keep him a secret.”

The silence stretches for half a second too long before Aubrey starts to chuckle. It starts low then like out of a horror movie her laugh turns maniacal before she asks “You think you’re so smart and know everything, but you don’t even know the best part?”

Anger coursing through my veins, “The best part is when you are taken away in handcuffs.”

Shaking her head she looks into my eyes and whispers, “The best part is that they were twins.”

It’s so quiet I almost think I misheard her.

Selene takes a slow step forward. “You had twins. And you gave them up separately?”

“Why?” Mo asks, a dangerous edge creeping into her tone. “Why the hell would you do that?”

Aubrey presses her lips together, shaking her head.

My temper snaps. “What kind of sick, twisted monster are you?” I demand, my voice shaking with fury. “You trap a man with a pregnancy, murder him when he cheats on you, then rip apart two innocent children before they even had a chance? Do you even hear yourself?”

Aubrey’s mask shatters. “Don’t you dare judge me, Theo,” she snarls. “You think you’re better than me? You’re nothing. You’ll never be anything more than a pathetic little boy playing house in that cafe, trying to fill the shoes of a dead man.”

My vision goes red.

But before I can react, there’s a sharp crack of knuckles meeting bone.

Aubrey jerks backward with a strangled cry, clutching her nose as blood gushes between her fingers.

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