Page 120 of His to Ruin

“Lucas,” Ian snaps in warning.

“No, but that’s something I can arrange if you keep speaking to me like that,” I retort back to him angrily setting the bagel I was enjoying back onto the plate with a clank no longer feeling hungry.

“See. I told you she was a Maloti,” Ian announces proudly at my outburst.

Pushing his chair backward he stands fixing his grey tie back into place before steadying himself on his cane.

“Jordina. Would you accompany me for a walk? I would like to show you the gardens. Then I will give you a tour of the house.”

“Oh…k.” I reply with an uneasy feeling as I get up to stand following him out the door.

“Slut,” I hear Lucas mutter under his breath trying to disguise it as a cough when I walk past him, but I heard him loud and clear. He hates me, that much is clear but why? I had nothing to do with the fight between him and Saint. I don’t want to be alone with this stranger but I’m glad to get away from Lucas hateful gaze searing through me like he could cut me in half with his butter knife.

Ian walks on ahead when we step out of the house, his polished shoes crunching in the gravel.

“No need to follow Anthony,” he tells the man who I met at the bottom of the stairs.

“Yes sir,” Anthony replies obediently as if he’s answering an army sergeant.

The sun hits me full force in the eyes making me squint.

“Come along Jordina,” Ian orders walking through an orderly corridor of boxed hedges that lead on to a garden. It’s a fantasia of colourful plants from all over the world. It’s simply breath-taking. No wonder he wanted to show it off. It looks like it belongs in a magazine.

“Wow,” I gasp. It’s so pretty and it smells incredible.

“That was mostly your mothers doing. She adored gardening. She would spend hours upon hours out here with the gardeners planting her little shrubs all over the place. Now look at it. Her beauty is forever intwined in every petal. Every time I come out here I think of her,” he says sorrowfully, coming to a stop at a wooden seating area before plopping down on a seat. “Forgive me, I’m not able to walk as far as I once did with this knee. I need to rest for a minute or two.”

I’m scared of this man, scared because I don’t know what he’s truly capable off, especially after witnessing him shoot a man without so much as a care in the world like it was something normal he did every day. It’s enough to terrify me.

“Why did you bring me here?”

“This is your home and you belong here with me, with your true family.”

Finally I gather the courage to ask what I wanted to ask since I first laid eyes on him this morning.

“My father. I mean James, is he….did you?”

“Did I kill him for keeping you a secret from me for all these years?” he says heatedly cutting me off. “No Jordina I did not kill him. Luckily for him it was a clean shot straight through missing any vital organs. But he was warned to stop talking and I only warn once. The next time he won’t be so lucky.” He pauses looking around the garden before letting out long sigh. “I made mistakes with your mother. Big mistakes which cost me her mother. Mistakes I will never forgive myself for.”

“Her mother? How?”

“She died of a broken heart you see. Viola was our only daughter. Your grandmother loved her more than life itself and when we heard of Viola’s death, that day a part of Maria died with her.”

“Maria?” I ask.

“Yes. Your mother gave you your grandmothers name,” he tells me with eyes filled with sorrow.

“How did Viola die? Dad…James never told me.”

“Come lets walk a little more,” he says groaning a little in pain when he stands.

We walk for a brief time before coming to a large metal gate at the end of the garden. A creak sounds from the gate when Ian pushes it forward.

“This is where we lay our family to rest Jordina. Your mother is resting here next to your grandmother. My only comfort is that they were reunited once again in the afterlife.”

I take in the garden filled with head stones, reading some of the names in my head and the dates they passed away. Some date back to early 1900’s.

“You see your mother,” he pauses clearing his throat. “Viola felt that she couldn’t come home after she had you, so she fled. A mistake at a great cost. Without our protection it led her right into my enemies’ arms. They sent her back to me one piece at a time in a box with a single black rose. Losing Viola drove your grandmother insane. By the time I got your mother back, your grandmother was gone. She was lost in her own head, locking herself in there until she died of a broken heart. All that was left was me and my son.” His eyes crinkle looking off into the distance, “Until you came along.”

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