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EMMALINE
James was missing when I woke up the next morning. And surprisingly, he didn’t have Jaxon in the room on guard duty, either. I slowly sat up and pushed myself into a sitting position, a low groan of pain sliding past my lips. James stepped out of the closet, looking down at his shirt as he buttoned it up.
“You good, little one?” he asked me as he looked up.
I nodded. “I need to eat so I can take my medicine,” I told him. I winced as I tried to get more comfortable.
He leaned over the bed and softly pressed his lips to mine. “I’ll text Mrs. Judy and have her bring a plate of food up for you. I need to head down to the office. I’m behind on some shit.” He tucked my hair behind my ear. “Jaxon is on his way up.”
I ran my eyes over James’s face. “Are you going to try talking to him about your childhood?” I asked.
James sighed and shook his head. “Not right now, little one. I’ve got too much shit to deal with at the moment.” I frowned. He shrugged. “I won’t remember anyway, so it’s not high on my priority list.” I sighed softly. He pecked my lips again as a knock sounded on the door. “I really need to go. Text me or call me if you need me,” he ordered.
With that, he walked towards the door, nodding once at Jaxon in passing before he slipped from the room. I frowned after him.
“Rough morning?” Jaxon asked.
I shook my head as I looked back at my bodyguard. “No, but last night I did tell him about you being his childhood best friend.” Jaxon frowned at me in disapproval. “He knows he had an accident, but his mother led him to believe that it was because of his father.”
Jaxon shook his head. “She hates being tainted in the eyes of her children,” he informed me. “It’s the way it’s always been with her. She’s a . . . complicated woman, to put it simply.”
I reached up to rub my temples, suddenly feeling a headache coming on. “If she was so afraid of his father, then wouldn’t she have told the truth, though?” I sighed. “It’s all so confusing. I worry about him. He’s been lied to so much.”
Jaxon took a seat in the chair across the room. “James is a tough one to knock down,” he assured me. “I just pray for everyone that crossed him when he finally snaps.” Jaxon let his eyes meet mine. “Because he will snap, Emmaline. James was raised to be a cold-blooded killer. He has no remorse for the shit that he does. He’s not the man people want to cross.”
I swallowed thickly, my mind flickering back to that day James had shot the man that ran his club. A chill raced down my spine. I knew James would never hurt me but seeing him like that? It was a bit terrifying.
I grabbed my phone and quickly pulled up James’s contact, typing out a quick message to him, something that I hoped would calm him down and ease his mind at least a little bit.
I love you. -Emmaline
Not even ten seconds later, my phone pinged with a text back. I couldn’t stop the smile that curved over my lips as I read his simple response.
And I love you – always. -James
I only hoped that when he snapped, he would come back to me still as the same James that I had fallen in love with.
~*~*~
JAMES
I took a seat in front of my mother, nodding once at Mrs. Judy in thanks when she handed me the bottle of water that I had requested. Once she slipped from the room, I leaned back in my chair, watching as my mother shifted slightly on the couch, her eyes nervously darting around the room.
The first sign that she knew I knew something.
“So, I found out something interesting,” I began.
“What’s that?” she asked, trying to come off as nonchalant, but she wasn’t fooling me. There was a slight catch in her voice, almost as if she knew that I was aware of everything that she had done – everything that she had lied about.
“I was apparently in a car accident with you when I suffered my brain injury.” She froze for a split second, but I caught it. I clenched my jaw, forcing myself not to curl my hands into fists. I remain relaxed – uncaring. “But yet, you led me to believe that my father beat the hell out of me, making me lose the majority of my childhood.”
“James—" she started, her eyes pleading with me to let her explain, but I was done hearing explanations. I was done fucking being lied to.
If there was one thing that I valued the most in this world, it was honesty.
The only thing I wanted to do with a liar was bury them in a fucking unmarked grave.
“Don’t,” I quietly warned her, a dangerous edge to my voice. She clamped her lips together. I set my bottle of water on the table between us and leaned forward in my seat, narrowing my blue eyes on her. “You know, you were the one person in my family I thought I could fucking trust besides Darren.” Tears built up in her eyes, but I didn’t care. I had no fucking sympathy for her. “Yet, for years, you fucking lied to me.”
“James, I did it to protect you—"
“From what?!” I roared at her. She jerked back from me, fear springing in her eyes. I slammed my hands on the table. She jumped. “What the fuck were you trying to protect me from by lying to me?!” I barked. “Lying to me about the reason I suffered a fucking brain injury was you protecting yourself!”
“Your father—"
I jumped up from my chair. “I don’t give a fuck!” I shouted. Tears slid down her cheeks. I wanted to hit her for having the fucking audacity to cry in this situation. “All of these fucking years, I tried my damnest to convince myself that you’re just too fucking afraid of him to have been what Darren and I needed, but you were just fucking selfish. You’ve always only been concerned with yourself.” I shook my head. “You deserved everything Dad did to you.” She sobbed, but I meant those words with every fiber of my being.
“James, son, please,” she whimpered.
“Why did you lie?” I asked her. I narrowed my eyes at her. “The fucking truth,” I snarled when she opened her mouth to speak.
“I wanted you to hate your father as much as I did,” she said quietly. I scoffed. “I was miserable, and you and your brother looked up to him so much even though he was such a shitty father to you.”
“Lie,” I corrected. “You hated him because he trapped you, because you couldn’t divorce him. He beat the shit out of you because every time he turned around, you were betraying him by sleeping with the guards, the help, and his own fucking enemies.” I gripped her chin. She whimpered in pain. “You were looking for any fucking reason to tear him apart and to ruin anything he had going for him because he had ruined your life. Don’t bring me and Darren into this shit. This is all on you.”
I’d been doing research since two this morning, talking to my men that had been part of the Family since I was a kid. They’d spilled the beans, some of them even having slept with my mother themselves.
She’d even paid some men to kill my father herself
“He killed my family and forced me to marry him, James!” she finally yelled.
