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Squeezing my eyes shut and forcing drops to fall from the corner of my eyes, I nod, acknowledging his words. And despite not wanting it—despite wishing for everything and anything but that heartbreaking feeling—I rasp, “I love you too.”
“Good girl,” he sighs with relief. It’s as if there would have been no point in all this if I couldn’t have added that I still loved him. Everything tells me he would have grabbed that gun and pointed it at his chest had I not made it worth being alive.
“Tamar is going to take you to your mom’s car now. She’ll be in there waiting for you.”
When a small gasp escapes me, he presses his thumb to my bottom lip, mesmerized by it. “I want you to tell her what your dad did to you. The truth about the abuse. All of it. Then I want you to explain exactly what happened tonight. Your plan. What I did. Everything.”
I feel my brows furrowing as I look up at his face. “I don’t understand.”
“There’s nothing to understand, only the truth to tell.”
“But what about you—”
“Don’t worry about me. Now go, baby.”
“My bunnies,” I whisper. I think deep down I know Xi so well that I can imagine what he’s about to do to this entire house.
“Fucking hell, Alex,” he chuckles, like remembering who he’s facing. “I’ll take care of your bunnies. Don’t worry.”
Tamar is back before I know it, and she grabs my hand, pulling me. “Come on, Alex. Every second we waste is a second closer to chaos.”
Xi kisses the top of my head, his eyes already longing for me. Does he not see my heart attempting to crawl out of its cavity so it can stay with his?
Does he not understand I would kill anyone for him too?
Tamar guides me outside. My mom is standing by her car, wearing a silk robe. Her eye mask is pushed up to her forehead, and she runs to me when she sees me.
“Alex,” she cries out, her hands coming to rest on either side of my face. She checks my face and the rest of my body. I’m shaking and must look pale because she asks, “Are you alright, sweetie?”
“I’m okay.” I nod sternly. “Get in the car.”
I help her into her car, and I don’t even know who’s driving. All I know is that she holds me close to her chest and her beating heart calms mine.
I don’t know where we’re driving to, but I do know she’s holding my hand, and that’s all that matters right now.
The adrenaline disappears as we get further away from the house, the fear choking me. Suddenly, having my mother near me is something I didn’t realize I would need so much. And when she asks what happened for the tenth time tonight…I tell her.
She cries with me when I share the abuse her husband put me through. I see the guilt in her eyes when she realizes the extent of the things she didn’t see. And when I tell her my own dad had orchestrated my kidnapping to benefit his reputation and win the sympathy of the public, I feel her heart fissuring.
“I should have known,” she rasps.
“How?” I snort. “He was so good at making me terrified of telling anyone.”
“Because he tried on me once.” My eyes widen and she caresses my swollen cheek from when he hit me earlier. “He stopped as soon as I threatened to leave him and take my money with me.”
Of course. My dad’s entire career, hell, his entire life relied on my mother being a billionaire with a famous name.
“But you’ve been married for so long. Surely he was entitled to some of it by now.”
She snorts. “Give your mother some credit, Alex. I’m not such a fool that I would marry a man as power angry as him without a prenup.”
My mouth falls open. I don’t know my mom, only from afar. I’m a stranger to her as much as all the people she invites to her Gatsby-like parties. I always took her for a weak, looked-after wife. That so long as someone made the decisions for her and she could have her fun, she wouldn’t bat an eyelid.
But she’s smarter than I thought. Or at least not a complete idiot.
“Why did you stay with him, then? You have everything. You didn’t need him.”
She can hear the desperation in my voice because her eyes close softly for a few seconds. “At first, I thought I loved him. Then we got married, and what I thought was love quickly disappeared. By then I was pregnant. Life flashes before you when you age. You blink, and your baby is eighteen and you still never got to know her. You’re with a man you hate, but you don’t want to be the horrible mother who broke her family.” Her eyes dart around my body before she talks again. “Of course…I had no idea. I should have, but I didn’t because…” Her voice dies, and she swallows.
