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“Please …” Her pleading voice is my undoing. “I need to know what happened to my mother. How is she involved in this?”
It’s time. “Did you know you have birthmark on your neck?” I ask.
She immediately touches it. “What does that have to do with this?”
“Everything,” I reply. “Just tell me if you know.”
“I think … A friend told me about it a long time ago, but it never bothers me.”
I sigh, almost unable to say the words out loud.
“What?” she asks, approaching me. “What aren’t you telling me, Chase?”
I can’t even bear to look at her, knowing what I’ve known all along. I chose to hide it from her out of sheer selfishness. But I can’t do it any longer.
She has to know, even if it means she’ll leave me for it.
“It was … the same birthmark your mother had.”
She sucks in a breath and stops moving entirely.
I glance at her, forcing myself to look her in the face as I tell her the truth. “After you and I had sex, I found out it was the same one. I recognized it, so I went to Graham immediately.”
She puts her hand in front of her mouth. “So I do have a mother? She’s alive?” She grabs my arm. “Tell me about her. Tell me everything. How do you know her? And what does Graham have to do with it? Can I … see her?”
I shake my head, licking my lips. “I’m sorry … She’s no longer—”
“No,” she says, tears welling up in her eyes again. “Please tell me it isn’t true.”
“It is.”
“Why? Why are you doing this now?” She vehemently shakes her head, like her heart is already breaking … and so is mine when I look at her.
But I can’t falter now. “Because I need to be honest with you. For once.”
“What happened to her?” she screams.
It shatters what remains of my resolve.
“She … she died because of me.”
Accompanying Song: “Back To The Start” by Digital Daggers
Syrena
“Wha …?” I can’t even get the words out of my mouth.
My throat has completely clamped up, unable to even let out a breath.
“I didn’t know you were hers,” he says, but it doesn’t make any sense in my mind.
What is this? What is happening?
Why does it feel as if my world just shifted on its axis?
“You knew her … and you killed her?” I mutter, the words reverberating in my ears.
My heart feels heavy, and my body so dizzy I almost fall, but he catches me. But feeling his arms around me is like poison to my skin right now, and I push him away.
“Let go of me,” I snap.
I push past him and stumble into the living room naked.
“Let me explain, please,” he says as I stumble toward my room.
“No,” I reply coldly.
I need to put on clothes. Need to have something on me because I don’t want him looking at me like … like he owns me. Like he has a right to see me.
Because he doesn’t.
If what he said is true, he has no right to even touch me.
“Syrena …” He followed me.
So I turn around after putting on a simple dress and yell, “What did you do to her?”
“She …” He sighs. “She was Graham’s captive. Just like you and Ella, except it was years ago.”
I swallow away the lump in my throat at hearing his words because they don’t really register even though they should. It feels so unreal.
“Years ago, he kept her to make babies … to sell. But after a while, it stopped working. Her mind and body couldn’t cope. He lost his shit and sold her.”
I shake my head, not wanting to believe this as the truth. It’s too heinous, too despicable… and he’s talking about … my mother?
“I was the one who bought her.”
In shock, I take a step back. “What?”
“I wanted someone for my own. Someone who would never, ever question what I do. The killings. I needed someone who’d never tell a soul. Someone who I could … someday come to love.”
What is he trying to say?
His footsteps come closer, so I back away again. “But there was a problem that I hadn’t foreseen. When I bought her, she was already pregnant … with you.”
“What?” I mutter, not knowing what to say.
“She carried her secret for months, not allowing anyone to come close, not even me. We didn’t tell a soul. When you were born, she made me promise I would take care of you. But I didn’t know she’d run straight back to him the day after.”
“No.” Clenching my jaw, I shake my head. “She wouldn’t do that.”
“He had her under his thumb, Syrena. Like a puppet. Nothing I did could sway her. Nothing.”
“Don’t …” I bury my face in my hands. “My mother wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t leave me.”
