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When Valen gets out, he changes, finally smelling and looking like the man I love.
“So, where are we going?” he asks as I retrieve my bag and keys.
“You'll see,” I tell him, leading him down to my car—his mother's old car.
“This was hers, wasn't it?” he asks, stepping aside and staring at it. Biting the inside of my lip, I nod before chuckling.
“She taught Zoe how to drive in this thing. That's why it has a dent in the back,” I chuckle, pointing it out. He looks on the back tailgate at the pole mark where she reversed into a sign.
“I almost crushed it,” he whispers in horror.
“But you didn't. Good thing too. All the letters were in the glove compartment,” I tell him before climbing in. Valen hops in beside me as I start her up. He stares vacantly out the window for most of the drive.
“What was she like?” he asks as we pull up to my hotel.
“I'll show you,” I tell him, climbing out of the car. Valen's brows furrow, but he reluctantly gets out. Grabbing his hand, I walk him around to the storage sheds at the far back of the property closest to the reserve.
Digging through my bag, I retrieve the keys, unlock the padlock, and kick the slide lock.
“It wasn't until after she passed, and I was going through her things, that I realized why your father was so afraid to have her by his side. This. This is who your mother was,” I tell him, lifting the roller door. The shutter groans as it rolls and bangs open. Leaning in, I flick on the lights. The fluorescent bulbs blink before buzzing and staying on, lighting up the huge shed. Valen gasps and steps inside, and I follow behind him.
The room is not only filled with all her belongings, but her past. “Your mother came from a wealthy family. This hotel was the first one built in Mountainview City. The city was built around it. Valarie's father refused to join any packs as they formed around the city.”
“All this is hers?” he asks, looking around the place in awe. I nod. Valarie had plenty of secrets—most I keep close to me, ones I never knew in my time with her but that she trusted me with after her death.
“After her parents passed, they left her this place. Your father discovered her, and they had you, but because of all this, and the uproar she caused in her younger years, your father worried about it damaging his reputation,” I tell him, glancing at all the banners, posters, and huge blown-up pictures of all the rallies she attended that hang from the walls.
“She wasn't a rogue whore like everyone thought. I believe she was like me. It wasn't until she died that I understood what she meant when she said that me and her were the same. She was mislabeled, like me. She allowed everyone to see her that way, but she wasn't. Your mother was an activist—an activist for the rogues—and all this and the hotel were hers; her legacy and what she fought for,” I explain, grabbing a picture off the wall.
I hand the blown-up newspaper clipping to him. Valarie is pictured front and center, leading the protest with her banner held high. I pass him another; it’s of her standing on the roof of a cop car to rally her troops.
“She stopped when she got pregnant with you. Everyone eventually forgot. Then I met her, and she met her grandson, and she started fighting all over again. Only this time, instead of fighting in the streets, she gave the rogues a home, and she asked me to continue it,” I tell him, looking around at the memories that were once hers.
Moving to the back, I grabbed an old scrapbook. It’s aged and heavy, filled with every news clipping of her son, and at the back are photos of every event he attended that she snuck into. Grabbing another down, that one reveals even more pictures of him growing up. I hand it to him, and he looks down at them before moving to clear off a box. I stand off to the side and watch him look through it.
“She always watched, Valen. She was there; you just didn't know it.”
Valen nods, turning the pages. I hand him back his letter before giving him the key.
“I’ll let you look. Just lock up when you're done,” I tell him before pressing my lips to his shoulder.
“You kept it all these years?” he asks, and I look over at him. My lips quiver, and I clear my throat. This place always reminds me of her.
“Yes, because she wasn't just your mother, Valen. For a while, she was also mine.”
Valen nods, turning back to the scrapbook. I smile sadly before turning and walking back to my apartment, wiping my tears as I went.
ChapterSeventy-One
Everly
I’m not sure how late it is when Valen comes in, but I feel him slip into bed beside me before snuggling into my back. When I wake up later, though, he’s gone; his side of the bed is cold. I wonder what time he got up and left. I do, however, notice Valarie's letter has been opened because it’s sitting on the bedside table. Picking it up, I place it back in its envelope before tucking it away in the top drawer where it won't get ruined.
Racing around, I quickly get dressed for work. Marcus took Casey to school for Zoey, and she’s also running around getting changed, hopping on one foot as she slips her shoe on because both of us are already late.
Kalen had already taken Valarian to school. He’d sent me a picture of him and Valarian at the school gate, so the only thing I have to do today is pick him up when he finishes.
In the meantime, I have a never-ending list of work at the hotel, having fallen behind recently with all the added drama. There’s the cleanup from the event to be finished, as well as taking care of the multiple rooms that need cleaning after the place was packed last night. I already feel exhausted just thinking about it all. With a groan, I drag myself down to the restaurant, knowing that’s the first major task: taking inventory to order new stock in. However, Zoe comes rushing in halfway through, scaring the living daylights out of me when she squeals loudly.
