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“And how the hell are you just standing here, looking as if this isn’t a big deal, Mom?” Cassius raised his voice, his eyes intense and on his mother, thinking wrongfully that Karen was getting Oberon contained.
Karen did nothing but glance back. I could tell that Oberon was worried, though. Not about his son, but about what was about to happen to him next.
I had a feeling that she didn’t understand the severity of this situation, because if she had, she wouldn’t have taken him over there to talk to him. She’d have slapped the set of cuffs on him and not Coran.
But something was really, really not right here.
Not at all, or even a little bit.
“It is a big deal, Cassius! But I’m standing here, because where the hell would I be standing? I live here, and what the hell is going on?” she cried out. “Why haven’t you come to see me?”
Lived here.
What. The. Fuck.
“I’m sorry, what?” Cassius rasped.
Oh, he looked so adorably confused in that moment that my heart stuttered.
“You heard me, Cassius Ulysses Costas! I’ve been waiting for you to come see me for years! You haven’t said a word to me. And I didn’t even do the thing you accused me of, thank you very much!”
Whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa.
“Mom,” Cassius ground out. “What the hell do you mean, accused you of? I don’t know what you’re talking about right now.”
She frowned in confusion. “We’re just going to ignore the fact that you said that I was a piece of filth for marrying Oberon?”
Married. “What?”
Those were my words, which caused both Cassius and his mother to look over at me.
Cassius with the same look of confusion. And Crista with a look of utter sadness and indignation.
“Me marrying Oberon shouldn’t have ‘tainted me’ as you told him. I can’t believe you wouldn’t come here and talk to me about this. I’ve been waiting for years, Cassius.” Crista threw her hands up. “You were always so freakin’ stubborn! Just like your father!”
Cassius looked like he’d been straight-up punched in the gut. “Mom…”
I wasn’t sure whether I was happy she’d been lied to all these years, or sad. I mean, logically, I would’ve really fucking hated that she was stuck here against her will. But, illogically, I would’ve rathered her be unhappy as hell and fighting mad at Oberon.
I was a selfish prick like that.
CHAPTER 16
I’m having people over to stare at their phones later if you want to stop by.
-Text from Cassius to Kobe
CASSIUS
Her words were like a punch straight to the gut.
For her to think, all these years, that I would ever stop coming to see her just because I didn’t like the man she was married to…
Hell, it might’ve really fucking pissed me off, but I would never let Oberon stop me from seeing her. Not when she was all I had left.
“Mom,” I said quietly. “I searched for your body at sea for a week and a half.”
My mom looked at me with wide eyes then. “What?”
“Oberon told us that you fell overboard while you were out on his yacht the day I last saw you,” I explained. “He was drunk. And he claimed you were drunk. For the majority of the last few years, I’ve been in prison because I beat the shit out of him. I couldn’t have come looking for you, even if I’d known I needed to. Because I was incarcerated.”
Her mouth fell open. “What?”
Her fully astounded self was quite comical.
I loved the fact that she was here, and alive and healthy.
I loved even more that she was now raving mad.
She rounded on Oberon then, looking for the object of her ire.
“You told my son that I was lost at sea?” she shrieked. “What the hell, Oberon? You told me that he didn’t want anything to do with me after I fell and hit my head! You said that he hated me for us being married now.”
A sick, almost niggling thought occurred to me.
“Mom, do you remember getting married?” I asked.
She held out her hand, looked at the ring, and then opened her mouth to immediately agree. But then she shook her head. “No. I have memory loss after that fall. The day that you said that I disappeared? I had a really bad slip on the yacht. He brought me here, and I haven’t really left since.” She looked out at the water. “I’ve been terrified to get on another boat since. The sea…”
The sea terrified her.
She’d been trying to overcome that for a while when she’d gone onto the yacht the last time I’d seen her, but it was obvious that the sea still really fucked her up.
“I’ve tried to do the Xanax thing, but I still freak out. I’ve tried so many times to get onto that boat… but I just can’t do it.” She shook her head sadly. “That’s why I was so mad that you never came to visit. And you never answered your cell. Why?”
