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I stared, unseeing, at the almost empty bottle of Velvet Fire. I was stuck somewhere between the past and the present, unable to pick which place suited me best.
Fucking Mueller took me back to a time and place I never wanted to revisit, a time when I was weak and helpless when I didn’t know my own power. I knew my power now, and though the ends—Bonnie—justified the means, I would never forget.
The door smacked open, and I didn’t even flinch, not even when the angry voice started to speak.
“I guess getting drunk was more important than looking at wedding dresses with me.” Kat spat the words out, each one angrier than the last. “I’ll just take care of it myself, but if you weren’t interested, you didn’t have to pretend you were.”
Shopping for wedding dresses was something I’d dreamed of doing with my mother and then later, my own daughter. Even though that was a dream that belonged to Old Sadie, New Sadie still wanted to indulge in tradition. But this life made it damn near impossible. “I’m sorry, Kat. I have a lot on my mind.”
She let out a frustrated sigh. “And I don’t? I would have had this done already if you didn’t insist on us doing it together, Ma.”
She was right, but she also didn’t know fuck all about, well, fuck all.
“You’re my little girl,” I slurred and took another sip, slower and longer than the last one. “I want to be the mother you deserve, Katherine, I do, but sometimes the past…fuck.”
I took another drink and let the fire weave its way into my veins, fortifying me to give up some of my past.
“You always say the past is the past and has no place in the present.”
I smacked my fist on the desk and glared at Kat’s angry blue eyes.
“The past, when it matters, is always there, Kat, but you don’t know anything about that, do you?”
“Not for lack of trying,” she shot back. “The only one you talk to is Jasper.”
“The past,” I spat at her and poured the rest of the bottle into my tumbler. “The past is sitting back and letting grown men molest your sons because their father was so deep in debt that you had no other choice. The past turns a blind eye because you chose a man who believed that was something a child could recover from. The past is staring at the face you used to love with hate and anger because he wouldn’t stop gambling, which meant he subjected my boys to that torture over and over again. He did it for years, and I’ve had to carry that weight, that burden on my shoulders for thirty years.”
The hate that started with Owen and grew with Colm was all I knew. It made me the boss bitch I was today, the powerful and ruthless woman that all of Nevada feared. It was also what made me a shit mother to my little girl.
Kat eased herself into a chair, her voice choked with emotion when she said, “Oh my God, Ma, I didn’t know.”
“Because I made sure you didn’t.” I flashed a bitter smile at Kat as I took another sip. “I made sure you only saw a powerful woman when you looked at me. Not the teenage whore that helped your father grow the Ashby Organization. Not what we had to do when times were lean, and cash was tight, thanks to his gambling habit.”
Colm had turned me out slowly, making it seem like an adventure at first, a way to stick it to my folks for throwing me away so easily.
“You?” Kat asked, incredulous.
I nodded. “Fucking for money was my job. I was beautiful and naïve, and I was the first victim of Colm’s gambling addiction, fucking his gambling buddies to pay off the debts he couldn’t and Cillian wouldn’t. I did it because I loved him, and I thought that was what love was.”
Kat sucked in an outraged breath. “He didn’t deserve you, Ma.”
I smiled. “You love your father.”
I watched my daughter wipe tears from her eyes. “Yeah, because he was good to me, but it turns out he wasn’t a good husband or a good father. Maybe not even a good human.”
I drew in a breath, letting it out along with years of resentment and anger. “Definitely not a good man, but Colm gave me you and Jasper and Virgil and Calvin. His actions forced me to find my strength and my power. That one little act of fucking to pay off his debts helped keep money in the Ashby coffers. Helped build us up so that when he met his untimely end, I took over an empire worth billions.”
Kat’s eyes went wide. “Billions? We’re billionaires? I had no idea.”
I snorted a bitter laugh. “It’s not your business to know!”
“Obviously,” she said, impressed or disgusted. I couldn’t tell.
I stood and leaned on my palms to stare at my only daughter with more hate in my heart than I realized.
“You’re a weak woman, Kat, and I failed you. I failed to turn you into a strong woman. Capable as hell, without a doubt, but you wouldn’t last five minutes dealing with the underside of this business. And that is my biggest fucking regret.”
Those words took the last of my energy, and I fell back into the plush leather chair with a sigh.
