Page 40 of Unleashed
“It’smylife,” I counter.
“Just shows how damn selfish you are. It’s your life. Your choices. No matter how many people you hurt in the process.”
“That’s a?—”
“You married the man who killed my husband in a church!” she snaps, rage flaring hot across her face—then just as quickly, she inhales deep, reins it in. Her spine straightens, chin lifts. Composure clicks back into place like it never slipped at all. She's always in control. Even when she's bleeding, she bleeds quietly. “But, honestly, I wasn’t at all surprised. You always had zero regard for anyone else’s feelings.”
“That’s not true.”
“I’m afraid it is, dear.” Her voice isn’t raised, but it doesn’t need to be. It cuts with the precision of a blade sharpened over years of silence and disappointment. And it leaves a wound so deep, I’m not sure how to stop the bleeding.
She turns away from me like she can’t stand the sight, her heels tapping sharply against the pristine marble floor that echoes too loudly in the hallway’s silence. Then she stops—elegantly, purposefully—in front of a narrow glass side table tucked beside the wall. Chrome legs, spotless surface, not a smudge.
Sitting dead center atop the gleaming glass is a single ivory envelope. Her fingers glide across the edge of it, delicate, practiced, like everything she does. Then she picks it up between two fingers and turns, holding it out—not to give, but to display. Like evidence. Like proof.
“What do you see, Everly?”
I blink through the blur of tears. “I… I don’t know. A table. An envelope.”
“Exactly.” Her voice is clipped, cold. Her mouth presses into a hard, thin line. “One envelope. One invitation. Theonlyone I’ve received in months.” She turns her gaze on me—dry, unreadable, stripped of warmth. “Do you know why?”
I shake my head, throat burning, too tight to speak.
“Because in this world, a sickly widow tied to scandal is social cancer.” Her voice drops to a near-whisper, venom laced beneath the calm. “Because no one wants to be seen sipping champagne next to the woman whose daughter married the man who murdered her husband in a goddamn church.”
She spits the last word like it’s poison, like it’s something foul lodged in her throat. Then, with eerie grace, she lowers the envelope back onto the glass tabletop—as if she’s setting down a tombstone instead of paper.
“I gave my life to this world. To being proper. To fit in. And now?” She shrugs one elegant shoulder. “They look at me with pity. Whispers behind glasses of wine. They send casseroles instead of invitations.” She gestures around her immaculate, sterile foyer. “You think I care about your apologies? I can’t even show my face at fundraisers without carrying the humiliation you caused.”
I press a hand to my stomach, nausea twisting so hard I think I might be sick. “Mom, I didn’t want this. I didn’t plan any of this?—”
“But you allowed it.” She crosses her arms again, tighter this time, like she’s wrapping herself in armor. “And now the consequences are mine to carry, too.”
My voice splinters. “I didn’t ask for any of this. I didn’t ask for him to die.”
“You may not have pulled the trigger, but my husband’s death is on you, dear.”
The envelope still sits there, like a monument to everything I ruined. I stare at it—just a stupid square of paper—and want to rip it in half. Not because it matters, but because it’s the only thing in this house honest enough to reflect how small I feel.
“I came here because I had nowhere else. Because I need you.”
“Because you’re pregnant.”
It’s like a hit to the head. “You know,” I murmur. “How? Wait.” My eyes narrow as realization sets in. “Anthony. He told you.”
“Of course he did. Poor man has no one to talk to. I’m the closest thing he has to a mother.”
“But you’remymother.” My voice cracks. “I walk in here—scared, alone, pregnant—and you treat me like a stain on your carpet. Like Ideserveeverything that’s happened to me.”
She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t blink. “I’ve always treated you with the realism this world demands. You never could stomach the truth, Everly. That’s your problem.”
“No,” I breathe, the ache rising in my chest like floodwater. “My problem is that I keep hoping you’ll love me. Even now. Even after everything.”
Her expression doesn’t change. That stony, detached mask she’s worn for as long as I can remember stays perfectly intact. Like my words bounce off her before they even have a chance to cut.
“I buried a husband,” she says coolly. “And the gossip buried my reputation along with him. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be whispered about at galas I used tohost? To be pitied by women whose shoes I used to outbid?Youmade me small, Everly. Not the other way around.”
The room spins slightly.
