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Lorien
I held my hand in a tight fist, something between anger and disbelief raging through me.
I’d received word from a contact of mine, but I wrote their claims off as unreliable. It made no sense and thus couldn’t be the truth. Even so, when I’d gotten a text from my mother, a worry grew and gnawed inside me.
I walked up the stairs in her home, the place making my skin crawl. This wasn’t my home, had never been my home. My siblings had grown up here, but I’d always been a stranger. I had come to visit as a child with the people who pretended to be my parents, had seen this place from the position of an outsider.
My mother had wanted me to live here, just as her daughters did. She’d wanted to bring her children all together, but the idea never sat well with me. This house represented everything stolen from me, a birthright they’d denied me. Even after I took over, when I ran everything, I would never live here.
In fact, a part of me couldn’t wait for the day when I got to watch as someone bulldozed this place to the ground, when they knocked it down to rubble. Maybe I’d turn it into a parking lot just to add insult to injury.
At the top of the stairs, I paused in front of my mother’s office. She hadn’t taken the one where her husband had worked from, leaving that like some shrine to him. Hell, I’d bet she expected me to move into there.
At least, I would have thought so.
After what my contact had told me, however, I wasn’t so sure anymore.
I knocked on the door, and my mother called for me to enter. Her office appeared as it always did, the same as it had for all the years since she’d used it. My mother sat at the desk, but she didn’t rise and leave it. She didn’t come around to the couch as she normally did, to sit beside me to talk.
Which did not bode well.
Instead, she gestured at the chair across the desk from her. One bodyguard remained in the room, near the corner beside her, standing there like a guardian statue.Another bad sign.
“You wanted to see me?” I asked.
“Yes. I’m sure by now you have heard some rumors today.”
I nodded as I sat where she’d indicated. “Yeah. I heard you sent word out about how I was removed from the power structure of the family. I told the person they must have made a mistake. I don’t know what this is about, but I’d suggest you come down hard on whoever caused this mess, because it doesn’t look good for stability.”
“They weren’t wrong,” my mother said as she folded her hands on the desk. “I sent out word today that you no longer speak for our family and hold no official position. I removed you from all bank accounts, all properties and any holding connected with our family or business. I have ensured that anyone in a position of power will no longer take orders from you. In short? I have removed you from any authority or official position within the Hatchett family.”
Her words had me pulling in a sharp breath, unable to quite come to terms with what she’d said.
She’d basically disowned me? Cut me out of the family?
I inhaled slowly, then released it in a steady stream, trying to relax. I used the same method to calm myself as just before pulling the trigger during a dangerous job.
Afterward, I kept my voice steady to reply. “I thought you wanted me to take over. You’ve told me over and over again that is what you want. How is that possible if you do this?”
“I’ve changed my vision for the future of this family. You’ve had many chances to come into the fold, to fall in line, but you have continued to do things as you wish without concern or thought about the family as a whole. I had hoped that this would change, that you would see reason, but you have failed to do so.”
“So you just throw me away? Like you did when I was born?” The same old pain that had sat with me at night, when as a child I’d known I’d been unwanted, dug its sharp claws into me and made it difficult to draw breath. “You got rid of me back then, too, found me too inconvenient to deal with.”
Her eyes softened for a split second, as though I’d landed a critical blow. However, as quickly as it happened, she pulled her shoulders back. “I never threw you away. I protected you in the only way I could, by ensuring you had the space and time to grow up. Believe it or not, I am doing the same now.”
“The hell you are. You’re taking away the only power and protection I have. How is that helping me?”
“Because I fear some of your behavior has happened because you know you have my power to fall back on. You take that for granted, never thinking things through, never dealing with the consequences of your actions. You’re an adult, Lorien, and it’s time for you to stand on your own feet.”
I fisted my hands and cranked my molars together for a moment. “What do you want from me? People don’t do anything unless they expect to manipulate someone into doing what they want. So, Mother, what is it you want me to do to put things right?”
She sighed softly and shook her head. “You don’t get it. Even now, you don’t understand. You see the world as nothing but something you can control, and people as things you can use or manipulate. I didn’t do this to make you change, to force you into anything. I simply took a good look at my options, at the reality of the situation, and realized that by ignoring your behavior, I wasn’t helping anyone. I wasn’t helping you to grow and become better, and I wasn’t helping my other children, either.”
“So what? You’ll put one of them in charge?” I laughed at the stupidity of that idea.
However, she didn’t laugh or deny it.
“Are you serious?” I asked. “They’re spoiled brats. They’ve never been taught to lead, and they’re far too weak for such a position. By handing the family to them, you’re all but ensuring that it fails.”
