Page 24 of Mostly Shattered

Everything inside me turns cold. I have no choice. I have to do what they ask. I want to cry, scream, run myself right off the side of the building to fall to the sidewalk so I don’t have to face it.

This isn’t fair. This can’t be my life. I beg the fates to make it go away. What did I do to deserve this fresh hell?

“Are we decided?” Mortimer asks.

My parents nod even as I’m shaking my head. Isee Conrad grinning, the dark expression mocking me. Of course, he’s enjoying this. He knows how I feel about Chester. His spirit slowly fades from view.

“I’ll make the necessary approaches.” Mortimer stands.

“Get some sleep first,” Astrid instructs. “You need to be at full power.”

Mortimer nods at her advice.

My father stands and helps him to his feet. “I’ll walk you out.”

I turn to Astrid next to me on the couch as we are left alone. “I don’t love Chester. I don’t even like him. Please, you can’t ask me to do this.”

“These arrangements are never about love or like.” Astrid’s expression holds a touch of pity. It’s slight, but it’s there.

“Is that why you married? You were told to?”

She takes a drink, finishing her martini before setting the glass on the floor next to the couch. She studies the rings on her hand. “Who knows? It was so long ago. I’m sure there were many reasons.”

I want to say something comforting to her. Blood or not, she’s been my mother my entire life. Things may be complicated, but that fact is not. I might not always like her, but I do love her.

“I’m…” I don’t know how to say what I’m feeling. We don’t talk about feelings. “I’m sorry.”

She arches a questioning brow.

“It couldn’t have been easy for you,” I clarify. “Having me around.”

Her expression changes, and her brow furrows. “Life is not meant to be easy. It is meant to be lived.”

It’s not what I want to hear from the woman, but then, it is what I expected her to say. I want to ask if she loves me, if she ever did. I want to ask if any part of her feels connected to me. I might resent her and her coldness sometimes, but I feel that invisible thread of family—even if it’s worn and scraggly.

To my surprise, she touches my hand gently. It’s a rare moment of contact.

“I regret the way you found out about your birth.” Astrid releases my hand. To the outside world, it might not look like much, but to me, knowing my mother, the contact is equivalent to a hug. “That color isn’t right for you. Go change and leave the dress on the bed.”

Chapter

Six

Twenty-Eighth Birthday Fire, Manhattan, Three Months Ago…

“Tamara.”

My head is fuzzy. I can still smell Conrad’s flesh burning. Fear has me locked in the horrible moment.

“Tamara.”

One second, I’m standing in my birth mother’s living room in California, and the next, I’m on a sidewalk in New York, choked by the acrid smell of smoke and ash from a burning building. I stare at the hand that had been stained with Paul’s blood. I can’t believe Conrad shot him. My vision blurs and I’m forced to blink. Instead of red, it’s now smeared with black soot.

What’s happening?

“Tamara!”

I turn toward Lady Astrid. She’s patting my face, saying, “You’re all right. Don’t move from this spot. I’m having them bring the car around.”

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