I was lied to.
My mouth opens but nothing comes out.
A little life she never got the chance to tell me about is gone. A life that was half me and half her. The product of our love.
“And I didn’t know I was pregnant when you left. I took the test right before your father’s goons came for me. I barely had a chance to process it before I was tied to a chair and beaten as a tool to make Dad talk.” She spits the words, her anger just as thick as my despair.
All these years I thought she walked out the gates and never came back.
I was fed the lie that she took my child and ran.
But the reality is so much worse.
Because not only did Chloe only leave to save herself and our baby, but I’ve spent the last decade hating her for it.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHLOE
NOW
There are three things I’m sure of as I stare at the man who may as well be a stranger.
The first is that I need to get out of here before Damon inevitably shows up, because while I have a chance at appealing to Ronan, I don’t with his brother.
The second is that whatever he’s been told is wildly different from what actually happened, and that’s likely by design. Salvatore didn’t want him looking for me, and that’s exactly what would have happened if he’d told the truth.
And third is that despite all the years we’ve spent apart, I’m desperate to comfort him, which can absolutely not happen under any circumstances.
The only person I’ve spoken about the baby with in recent years is my therapist, and it hasn’t gotten any easier. It’s like tearing my heart open all over again, forcing myself to relive the worst days of my existence.
But this is worse. So much fucking worse.
“Why didn’t you ever reach out to tell me you were okay?” His voice sounds as broken as my heart, but I refuse to allow myself to be fooled by a Lombardi man ever again, no matter how much love we once had for each other.
A scoff tears from my throat before I can swallow it, because that might be the dumbest question he’s ever asked. “Why didn’t I, a terrified, grieving eighteen-year-old who barely escaped being tortured to death byyourfather, ever contact someone I couldn’t be confident wasn’t part of betraying me? Yeah, I wonder.” Sarcasm drips from every word.
“How could you think I would be a part of that?” he snaps.
“How could I know you weren’t? I didn’t know what to believe. I was fucking terrified. I watched your father’s men cut every single one of my dad's fingers off. I listened to his screams, listened to my mother’s cries as they did unspeakable things to her. I didn’t think Damon was capable of that either, and yet he stood there and watched it happen. He stood there and watched as they cut me, hit me, assaulted me.” I’m screaming now, unable to stop myself from falling back to that place, to the place I still see every time I close my eyes.
Hot angry tears fall against my cheeks as violent sobs tear from my chest.
As if his very presence isn’t enough of a reminder of everything I lost, now he’s making me relive it?
“You may have lost me, Ronan, but I losteverything. So don’t you dare come in here and make assumptions based on the lies you were told by the men who stole everything I’ve ever loved from me.”
My chest burns with each word that falls from my lips, a pain I almost forgot was possible beating through every nerve in my body.
I need to get out of here.
I need to get as far from the man in front of me as I can, if not to stop him from taking me, but to stop myself from having to relive the worst moments of my life over and over.
Ronan still stands between me and the door, but his eyes are glazed, his mind processing everything I’ve just told him, uncovering the lies he’s been told by those he trusts most.
If I can just get to the door, I can run.
Dragging in a stuttering breath, I map out every step I need to take to get out of here as quickly as possible, factoring in the time it will take to unlock the door and slip out into the hallway.
