Bound by Rapture (17 page)

It rattled something inside me, causing rage to bubble up. That rage demanded the answers I had wanted all my life—those little smiles squashed it. They didn’t make it go away. I suspected it never would, but it helped me accept it. 

What would happen if I did confront her here in the restaurant in front of her new family? Just thinking it made my heart ache. But I knew the answer. It would be appalling to the little girls standing in front of me, so innocently. It would rock their world. They would remember it forever. What would the new man in her life say? Would me showing up incite her to run again? Would she leave this family behind like she left mine? 

Even if she didn’t run away, even if for some miracle reason she welcomed me into her life, where would that leave all of us? What if the person who was after me found out about these two little girls? Would it be their blood smeared on a wall next?

I couldn’t handle that thought. The idea these two girls—my sisters—could be hurt, tore at me. They were as innocent as I once was. They were free of guilt. They were undamaged. And I refused to be a part of the reason their innocence and happiness disappeared. Because it seemed no matter how I entered their life, I would bring some sort of doom upon them.

“Thank you,” I said quietly as their mother—my mother—came up and patted their shoulders. Her nails were manicured, the ends perfectly round and white, as if she had just gotten them done today. 

“So sorry,” she said. But I didn’t look up at her. I kept my gaze on the girls. 

“It’s no problem,” Cole said across from me, reminding me he was still there. I looked over at him. His face was filled with worry, his chiseled jaw tense. “Ju—”

“I need to get out of here.” The words rushed out of my mouth. “Now.”

He glanced at the retreating back of my mother and then at me. “Okay.” He stood up and offered me his hand. I took it gratefully as my legs were wobbly. I let him lead me out of the restaurant and away from my mom, away from the sisters I would never know. 

I looked back in the window as we stepped outside. It was dark now and a chilled breezed rippled across my skin. 

“Who were those people?” he asked. 

My gaze focused on them. They were all flipping through their menus, smiling. They were living a life I never had, at least not for long. I couldn’t remember the last time I had gone out to dinner with my mom and dad. I couldn’t remember when we had all smiled happily, thankful to be together. I would never have those times. But she got to have them now with her new family. Bitterness swept through me before I reminded myself of the girls. They would have this. And that made it all okay. Even if they never knew it, I was able to give them something no one could ever give me. 

“No one.” I glanced up at Cole. He peered down at me, concern in his eyes. “Strangers.” And that was the truth. 

FIFTEEN

Julia.

“You’re lying to me,” Cole said as we rode in the limo, our destination unknown to myself, but of course I no longer cared. “And I’m not sure why.” I was sitting next to Cole, tucked into his side, the warmth of him seeping into me through his suit and my dress. Part of me wanted to push him away, to hate him for being such an asshole all the time, but I just didn’t have the strength right now.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter.” He leaned away from me and tilted my chin up so I was looking at him. His gaze implored me, demanding an answer. I chewed my lip. Tears still pressed at the backs of my eyes. The same ones I’d been fighting all day. “She’s my mother,” I blurted out, the words sounding scratchy against my throat. “The woman in the restaurant, with the little girls.”

“What?” 

I shrugged my shoulders. “I figured you knew where she was.” An idea popped into my head. “You stalked me, so I’m sure you had her looked into. Hell, you probably knew she was going to be there tonight, didn’t you?” I scooted away from him, letting those thoughts roll around in my head.

“No.” He shook his head, but didn’t elaborate.

I snorted. “Right. Of course.” A single tear spilled over my cheek and I swiped it away angrily. “Why me? Why am I the one who gets the shitty end of everything?”

“It’s not—”

“My own mother leaves me and starts a new family. My dad kicks me out. My boyfriend beats me.” I held up a finger for each one. “The guy I was falling for is my stalker. Someone cuts my throat.” I jab at my neck. “Mandi is killed.” I shook my head. “And then everything today, Kevin’s parents.” My voice trembled, the image of Elizabeth unwavering in my head as she fought Cole’s men to get to her husband, the man who beat her and cheated on her. It was sickening, a replay of my own past that terrified me. “And now this,” I added, referring to my mom. “What’s next, Cole? Are you a murderer, too?” A burst of laughter escaped my lips as the answer to that question popped into my head. “Of course, you
are
a murderer. The icing on the cake, right? My stalker is also a convicted murderer. Fucking fantastic!” I kissed my fingertips and threw my hand into the air. 

I expected Cole to deny the things I said about him, or to at least defend himself, but he didn’t. He just sat and stared at me, a myriad of emotions behind his eyes. “Things will get better.”

“Get better? Get
better
?” I shouted, the anger pouring from me as if it was being ripped from my skin. “It’s not going to get better. You know how I know, Cole? Because it only keeps getting worse! Just when I think everything will be okay, it just gets
worse
. Don’t you see that?” The tears came faster now, dripping down my face.

“Come here.” He reached for me, but I slid farther away so he couldn’t touch me. He flinched as if I had slapped him. But I didn’t care. I didn’t fucking care anymore. He was the one who’d dragged me to this city. He was the one who’d claimed he loved me and then turned around and called me a whore. He didn’t deserve to hold me. To have me. Not anymore. 

“Don’t touch me.” I squeezed my hands together over and over in my lap, desperately trying to grasp onto something, onto some form of hope, but there was none. I didn’t have anything to cling to. Not anymore. Everything had been taken from me.

“Let’s talk about this.”

“I’m done talking to you,” I hissed. “I tried yesterday, but you wouldn’t listen and now I’m done.”

“You can’t just be done.”

“Fuck you! I can do whatever I want. I don’t need your permission or your blessing.” I crossed my arms. “And I want out.” I glanced at the door. “I want to get out, now.” I scrambled forward and banged on the partition. “Pull over!”

“No, Julia. We aren’t there yet.” 

“I don’t care where we are. I want out!” My mom’s image floated in my head. Her skin was tanned, she was in better shape than when she’d left. She looked perfect, not like a woman who had left her daughter behind. “Please just stop the car!” I wailed as I banged harder. Strong arms wrapped around me gently, and I didn’t fight them. I let Cole pull me into his chest. I knew later I would look back and be angry at myself for this, for not pushing him away, but right now I didn’t care. The tears streamed down my face in scorching rivulets. I fisted my hands in the material of his jacket, the fabric giving me some semblance of stability. 

Uncontrollable sobs wracked my body as I gasped for air. I closed my eyes against his chest, but all I could see were her hands. Those perfect manicured hands. Hands that looked younger than mine. Hands that used to hold me. Hands that used to love me. Not anymore. 

Something was pressed to my ear and I jumped when I heard the familiar ring of a phone. I was about to push it off me when Gran answered on the other end. Her voice instantly calmed me and I sat up. She was just the person I needed to talk to, the one who would understand. My dad couldn’t. He was a lost cause when it came to my mom. He hadn’t spoken a single word about her since the day she had left. It was as if she’d never existed.

But Gran understood my hurt. After all, my mother, Amanda, was her daughter. 

Cole eyed me for a moment before opening the door to the limo and climbing out. Apparently we had come to a stop at some point during my crying. 

“Gran?” 

“Hey there, baby girl. I didn’t expect to hear from you so late. You okay?”

The fact she knew it was me right away lifted my spirits a little bit. I planned to ease into it, to tell her softly, but hearing her voice was too much. “I’m not okay. I’m so far from okay,” I wailed. “I saw my mom tonight. I saw her, Gran, in the flesh. She’s—” And the words just tumbled out. I told her everything about the way she looked, every detail about the girls, about her fingernails. I didn’t stop talking until it was in the air, in space, wherever the hell a phone signal took my words. I expected her to cry, too. To be disappointed, shocked, a little lost like me. But she wasn’t. 

“I know, baby girl. I know where she is.” 

Her words stunned me, making my heart plummet in my chest. “What do you mean, you
know
?”

“She sent me a few letters over the years. She—”

“What did they say?” I croaked, panic bubbling up inside me. What if she had asked about me? What if she had wanted to see me, but Gran had never told me? That possibility left me feeling cold.

“You don’t want to know.”

“I don’t want to know? How could you have kept this from me? I
need
to know, Gran!”

She sighed on the other end and I knew she was exhaling smoke from her cigarette. Instantly I could smell it, that scent that was purely hers. Flowers and smoke. The scent of my childhood. I could imagine what she looked like, laying in bed, her oxygen plugged into her nose, her hand trembling as she held her cigarette. “She wrote to tell me about her new life. About how it was so much better without me, and you, and Arthur. She wrote mean things, Julia. Things you didn’t need to know.”

“Did she ever say why she left?” It was the one question I wanted the answer to the most, but I had never asked.

“She’s a bitch, Julia. A selfish bitch. You know that.”

An ugly laugh emerged from between my lips. “I know that. But did she say…”

She was quiet for a moment before sighing again. “She never did. I only asked her one time, after she sent me her first letter. You were ten, or eleven maybe, when it came. I sent her one back right away, since there was a return address.” She paused. “I asked her that question. But when she wrote back three years later, she didn’t mention it.”

I scrubbed a hand down my face, feeling raw, like I had when I was a kid who wanted her mommy. It was eerie.

“I didn’t write her back again. I knew it was pointless. I’m sorry you had to see her. My guard, Robby, said you and Cole had gone to New York, but I didn’t even think about you running into her. I should have warned you.”

“It’s not your fault, Gran. Plus, how could you have warned me? I don’t have my phone.” Bitterness swept through me at the way I was dragged out of Rapture. 

“Don’t be so hard on him, Julia.”

“Hard on who? Cole? Are you serious?”

“He’s just a man, baby girl.”

“Yeah, he’s an asshole!” I huffed.

“You remember that first time you brought him to my house?”

I rubbed the side of my face. “Yeah…” I was surprised she remembered. 

“He already loved you then.”

“Oh, Gran.”

“Don’t
oh Gran
me. You know I’m right. You know damn well that man loves you.”

“But Gran, you don’t the things he’s done—”

“You mean how he murdered his brother?”

I sucked in a breath. “How did you know about that?”

She chuckled. “I recognized him, Julia. His face was on the TV for months some ten years ago. It’s not often a billionaire cuts his own brother’s heart out and buries him in the backyard.”

“You knew the whole time? You knew when you first met him, who he was? What he had done?” I asked in disbelief.

Gran’s words from months ago jumped into my head:
“You just want someone to love you without destroying themselves in the process. A real love that isn’t splattered with the memory of her blood.” 

“Her blood.” The words fell from my lips. 

“Yes.”

“But it was his brother he killed, not his sister. It was his brother’s blood that was all over him.”

“But she’s the one he loved, Julia. You don’t need a reporter to tell you that.”

I let her words roll around in my head. “Okay, but why didn’t you tell me?”

“Didn’t think it mattered.”

I waited for her to elaborate. “That’s all you’re going to say? Why didn’t you at least warn me?”

“Warn you of what, baby girl? That he loved you?”

I gritted my teeth. “No, about the murder, Gran.”

There was a pause and I heard her fumbling with something before the familiar sound of a lighter gear spinning came through the phone. “I thought you knew.”

I rubbed my forehead and shook my head, a smile springing to my lips. Of course Gran knew. Of course she did. 

“Plus, I wasn’t worried about you. I knew he loved you.”