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His smile looks a little forced before he bends his head and gives me a soft kiss. “Then let's go see your mom, cher. I’m sure you’re as much of a dream to her as she is to you.”
Chapter56
Everleigh
The private clinic Rune pulls up to is a big white building, tucked behind bright green willow trees and lush greenery. It looks expensive.
Though the bright pops of colorful plants were likely put there to make it feel warm and inviting, they emphasize just how cold the building is.
Mom has been here for over twenty years. Some people who commit murder don’t go to prison for nearly as long. “Do they know what Sloane did to her that she refuses to talk? Or can’t she?”
Because I refuse to call that man my father. Not after what he did to my mom.
And to me.
I didn’t mysteriously go from Olive Deane to Anna Jackson. Someone made it happen, and that someone was Sloane Eddiswood.
Rune cuts the engine. I feel his attention, but I can’t look away from the white building. “They claim they don’t. I hesitate to trust anything they say, given they weren’t eager to turn down the money he paid them.”
“Enough they even named a wing after him,” Cian says from the back seat, beside me.
“Did he ever come to see her?” I ask, still not moving.
I should get out of the car now that Rune has stopped. It’s not like I don’t want to see her. I do.Desperately. Mom is inside that building, yet I can’t bring myself to open the door.
My life changes again today. And this change has the potential to not only be the biggest of my life, but the most heartbreaking. I’m not eager to embrace it.
Sloane Eddiswood ruined both of our lives. I want to know why, but that would involve thinking about him, potentially even speaking to him, and I’d rather pretend he didn’t exist. “Or did he just stick Mom in there and forget all about her?”
I’m twisting my fingers together as my anxiety gets the better of me when Cian takes my hand and squeezes. “Leave the why to us, Everleigh. What’s important is you have your mom, and she has you.”
I don’t think I’ve blinked since Rune pulled into the parking lot, feet from the clinic. “Will you kill him?”
“Is that what you want?” Kylian asks. “For us to let him live?”
So hewillkill him.
If my nerves weren’t stretched so taut, I might have an opinion about whether I care if he lives or dies. But I can only think—and I can only process—one thing right now.
The woman who gave birth to me is in that building.
My mom. Myrealmom. A woman I hadn’t known existed until a trickle of doubt and suspicion about where I came from grew and solidified into truth. Anna Jackson was never my mother. The woman in thereis.
“I can’t make myself move,” I whisper. “I want to see her with every fiber of my body, but I’m so scared. Someone paid Anna Jackson to look after me, and I loved her like a mom. What if I don’t have any love left for Olive Deane? What if I see her and I just feel… nothing?”
Cian tucks me into his side, pressing his lips to my hair. “My dad was a gambler. He was not a good one, Everleigh. He gambled and lost everything, including my mom, who walked away and left us.”
The pain in his voice makes me turn from the white building and peer up into his serious face. “I’m sorry, Cian.”
He squeezes my shoulder and gives me a faint smile. “When he lost our home and the last five bucks in his pocket, he couldn’t stop until he’d gambled away his life. There is nothing in this world that terrifies me more than the fear I’ll one day bump into my mom. I have no idea what I’ll say to her for leaving me behind instead of taking me with her.
“If someone told me my mom was in that building, I would sit in this car forever. This is a big thing to process. Take your time. If you need us to come back tomorrow, we come back tomorrow. Or next week, or next month. Okay?”
I give him a watery smile. “Okay.”
“Okay,” he echoes and drops another kiss on my hair.
“Love isn’t a limited resource, baby,” Kylian says, turning in his seat to face me. “If anything, it grows.”
