Page 134 of The Legend (Rivers Wilde 2)

“What utter garbage,” my mother shouts. Disgust narrows her eyes and curls

her lips. She stands up and walks toward Gigi. “You are selfish, entitled, and fragile.”

Her words are a sequence of poison-tipped arrows that she flings with breathtaking speed. Gigi flinches like she’s being pierced by them. My mother comes to stand directly in front of her. She glowers, her body is rigid and her hands are planted firmly on her hips.

“You think getting to fuck the man you love is more important than my children knowing their father?”

Gigi blanches, but recovers and rises to her feet. She’s a tall woman, my mother is not, and she uses her height to her advantage. She looks down her nose at my mother, her expression glacial.

“I do not think that. But clearly you do.”

It’s my mother’s turn to blanch. She takes a step back. Gigi presses on. She points a finger accusingly at my mother. “You are the one who decided that if he wasn’t sleeping next to you, that your children wouldn’t see him. You are the one who told them he was dead and threatened him with persecution if he didn’t go along with it. You are the one who is selfish, entitled and fragile,” she spits back at my mother.

My mother laughs. It’s loud, brash, and false. She spins around to face me. “Do you see why I was so dead set against Kal? She would have ruined your life. And thought somehow she was in the right. You would have ended up in a ditch somewhere and I wouldn’t have been there to save you.” Her eyes widen in horror as she realizes what she just said.

“Mom,” I call her name quietly. “What happened the day you tried to kill him?”

Regan gasps and looks at me with shocked eyes. I don’t know why. I told her I was going to ask.

“Stop saying that,” she says and her chin, for the first time I can ever remember, trembles.

I feel a pang of guilt but press on. I knew tonight was going to be uncomfortable for everyone. I didn’t exclude myself from that expectation. There’s no stopping this train. We’ll all leave here different people than we were when we arrived. But it’s time to end all of the secrets and lies that have held sway over our lives for so long. I cross my arms over my chest and look my mother squarely in her eyes. The exact same as mine and I drop my bomb.

“This is my house. Here, we tell the truth. When I first discovered the true circumstances of his leaving, you told me you and Pops had decided to tell us that because you were trying to spare us the knowledge that he left us. But why didn’t you tell me six months ago that you found him alive and took him to a hospital?”

Gigi’s moan is tortured, and she covers her mouth to muffle it.

My mother’s eyes widen in shock. But she recovers a

nd her mask of indifference is back.

“So, you know,” she says as if she’s the one who has to accept an ugly truth.

“Yes. Now I know for sure.”

“That’s unfortunate,” she says stiffly.

“You knew he was out there, and you never thought that maybe you should bring him home?” I ask incredulously.

“So he could go back to her?” she yells and points at Gigi.

I slam my fist down on the table with such force that everything on it rattles.

“What about his kids? She remarried, moved to Italy. She hasn’t lived here in almost thirty years. We were here. We needed him.”

Her eyes sweep across me and my siblings. “You were the most ungrateful children. You wanted him. Him. Who was not worthy of the title of your father. Who didn’t give enough of a shit about his children to stay with them.” She’s raging.

“You hate him. You kept him away. Tell us what you did to him. Did you try to kill him and get cold feet?”

“I saved him.” Her voice crackles with anger. “He was lying in that ditch and I dragged him out. Me.” She pounds her chest and turns her eyes, burning hot with accusation at Gigi.

“She sat in her house for days before she even went to look for him.”

“I didn’t… I looked for him,” Gigi yells back. I look at Hayes and he’s staring blankly at my mother.

“How did you know he was in that ditch?” I ask.

“Because she put him there,” Gigi shouts.

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