His Love (The Billionaire Dom Diaries, #4) (4 page)

I paused, painfully remembering how terrified I was. I relived the carnage in Dublin, the horrors in Paris. I'd expected the room to be painted in my mother's blood because that seemed to be my new reality. And when she was okay...I foolishly believed it was some sign that maybe there was a silver lining in all of this.

"She was just sitting there?" Leila's face was twisted in confusion. "There's no one there and your mom is just what—having a quiet morning in?"

"Something like that," I sighed. The floor creaked behind my wife and my brother stepped into view. He was still wearing the same grungy white t-shirt and jeans that he'd worn in Paris. He even scowled the same 'I'll kill you all' scowl that had become as much a part of his face as his cloudy eyes. He didn't speak and I didn't pretend this was some sort of social call. I knew why he was here. He wanted to know what happened so he could proceed as he saw fit.

Leila glanced over her shoulder at him and they exchanged some silent look that Cole ended with a nod. She went to the cabinet and pulled out glasses. Her voice was warm and non confrontational, but there was an authority that ran beneath her words and called everyone to take witness. "We're just talking and listening. No one's doing anything rash."

Cole's nod was his response and when she glanced in my direction, I gave her one as well.

She filled the glasses with water, giving one to Cole and taking a sip of mine before she handed it to me.

"Thank you," I said softly.

She flashed me a sad smile, then gently steered us back to the story. "So she was alone."

"Yes," I answered. I quickly took a swig of my water, working it around in my mouth before I swallowed. "It was all part of her plan. She wanted me to focus on the staff's absence and her weird behavior so we wouldn't have to talk about the real reason I was there. When I called her on it, she admitted that she did it. She sold Brittany to Lars."

Leila's horror quickly turned to disgust, shaking her head like she couldn't believe that my mother was that evil. I warily met my brother's eye and I saw the familiar tremble. The shudder of the storm inside him threatened to be unleashed. To destroy everything in his path.

"I just don't get it," Leila whispered. "It doesn't make sense. Why would she do something like that?
How
could she do something like that?"

My hand wouldn't stop shaking, remembering how cold she'd been. How she talked about entitlement and justice and family in the same breath as admitting that she had essentially trafficked someone. "You can't treat my mother like she's one of us. Like she's human." I put down the glass before I dropped it and it shattered. Like any and all hope that I could have a relationship with my mother. That she could be a grandmother to our children someday.

"Well, I have my answer." Cole's voice was cold as ice.

Leila whipped to face him, imploring. "Please don't do something you'll regret, Cole. She's your mother!"

"Just because someone spreads their legs and pops a baby out nine months later doesn't make them a mother," he snarled at her. "She gave me away without batting an eye. When her decision came back to haunt her and I went to her for help she laughed in my face. Now, Jacob tells me that she sold my sister to that fucking prick." His voice shook but I knew his resolve was solid. "I don't owe that woman anything."

Leila didn't give up, taking a small step toward him. "But revenge isn't the answer-"

The sound of glass hitting the far wall cut her off. I knew he wasn't aiming at my wife and his anger was for our mother, but I started toward him regardless. He would
not
disrespect my wife.

Leila gripped my hand, squeezing it tight. "No, Jacob. There’s been too much violence." I tugged against her, but she must have dug deep because her grip was iron. She forced me to look back at her. I looked into the deep brown eyes that knew me. That loved me. I snuffed out the anger and breathed before I turned back to Cole.

"I know you're upset-"

"Upset?" he spat. "I am so far beyond upset, Jacob. She needs to be put down."

"Put down?" Leila repeated incredulously.

She darted around me and my heart lurched to my throat as she powered toward my brother without an ounce of fear. I still hadn't shared the extent of what happened in Paris. She didn't know what he was capable of, but I did.

I rushed to move between them, but she was faster, practically toe to toe with Cole. Every bullet he fired went off in my head. If he hurt my wife...

Like Leila could read my mind, her voice rang out as clear as a bell and as fearsome as a gun.

"He's not going to hurt me."

The anger didn't disappear, but Cole's chest stopped pumping up and down like he wanted to tear someone's head off with his teeth.

"Put her down." Leila repeated the words again, slowly rounding out the syllables. "Do you hear yourself? Your mom is not an animal. Can't you see the cycle of violence? You and your sister hurt me, Jacob hurt you, your mom hurt your sister—now, you're going to hurt your mom? When is it going to end? When we're all dead?"

I heard her words. On some level they made rational sense. But she hadn't seen Brittany in that room at The Estate. She wasn't in the car after we got her out, watching a brother break down because his sister was violated. She didn't see the nothingness in my mother's eyes when she admitted that she was the one that set Brittany's nightmare into motion.

There was a quiet resignation in my mind that whispered that the rules of right and wrong were fluid,
had
to be fluid in this case. When she peered at me over her shoulder, I knew she was hoping I'd back her up. I'd defend my mother, or at least say something to give Cole pause.

I didn't have anything to say.

The emotion that filled my wife's eyes in that moment broke my heart. I knew she wasn't just crying for my mother; she was crying for us too. It was a beautiful gift...Leila's kindness and forgiveness, against all odds. It should have been a raw, beautiful moment. Instead, I just felt sad.

My mother didn't deserve a single tear.

By the time we turned our attention back to Cole, the elevator dinged, letting us know that he was headed down to the garage.

He was going to our mother.

"H
ave you lost your mind, Jacob?"

I knew her question had nothing to do with the way I darted in and out of traffic, headed back to my mother's home.

Her question was a rhetorical one, but I was still trying to work my way through an answer. There was a part of me that felt that my mother was finally getting her comeuppance. That whatever dark plans that simmered in Cole's head, whatever needs itched in his fingertips, were exactly what she deserved.

But there was another part of me that made me drive like a madman. This wasn't like before, when the threat of my brother was just that—a threat. I knew what he intended to.

He was going to kill her.

Considering I was breaking all kinds of traffic laws and narrowly avoiding catastrophic collisions, you'd think my wife's ire would be aimed toward how reckless I was being with our lives, but she was content to focus on what happened at home.

"When Cole marched out of the elevator this morning, I could see right past the GI Joe bullcrap he was trying to feed me. It must be something in your DNA where you guys think you have to be hard all the time or someone might see that you have emotions and can be hurt."

I clenched my jaw and tightened my grip on the steering wheel. It did the trick and I kept my retort to myself.

"From the way you're strangling the wheel, I take it you know there's truth in what I'm saying." She didn't wait for me to acknowledge it, which was a good thing because I had no intention of doing so. "Back to what I was saying—Cole stormed in all, 'where's Jacob?'" She deepened her voice and even though my eyes were on the road I sensed her puffing out her chest. "He talked about how your time was almost up and if he had to ask Alicia questions he wouldn't ask very nicely."

I went rigid, realizing that in my efforts to minimize the importance of my brother's text threat I'd forgotten to share that he'd texted me at all with Leila.

"Imagine my surprise when he tells me that he sent you some text with an allotted amount of time in which...what? What were you supposed to accomplish?"

I laid on the horn, probably holding it for s moment longer than necessary. I glared at the other driver and put my eyes back on the road. "He wanted to know the truth."

"So you get the truth," Leila pressed. "She did it. You tell him. And then what?"

"And then he knows," I said acidly, deflecting the daggers she flung my way.

"You're aware that just sets her up for failure, right? That he just wanted a reason to charge forward and make someone pay for what happened to Brittany?"

The light flickered from yellow to red but I gunned it through. "What do you want me to say?"

"I want you to admit that there's a part of you that wants him to hurt your mother."

It was more than easy to admit that to myself. Saying those words out loud, to my wife, meant taking the ugliness and putting it on display.

"What does admitting that accomplish?" I fired back. "I'm here now, flying to her rescue."

"Because whether you can admit it to yourself or not, there must be guilt that comes with that. A guilt that's misplaced. And the only way those kind of negative emotions lose power is if you talk about it. Work through it."

"I didn't know this was a therapy session or I would have brought my journal."

Fuck. I knew that was low. Leila was only trying to help and me getting defensive and taking my anger out on her was not only unhelpful, but unfair.

I reached for her hand and squeezed it. "I'm sorry."

I didn't deserve it at all, but she squeezed it back.

We finally broke through the city, the ride from here a straight shot to the suburbs.

The urgency in my gut still ran wild. I knew my brother had a short fuse. He wouldn't play my mother's little game. He wouldn't even bother with questions since he already had the answer he needed.

I pressed the gas anxiously.

Leila's hand found my knee, but she didn't give me some nonverbal admonishment about slowing down. When I glanced over at her I didn't see a wary look that said we wouldn't be much good to my mother if we were dead. I saw support and patience.

If she could stand by me through the storm we'd already weathered together and find a place in her heart for forgiveness and empathy, I could share the vulnerability that made me go see my mother.

"I didn't go to her because of Cole's text. I didn't even go to her to learn the truth." The part of me that I kept under lock and key; the optimistic and hopeful piece that embarrassed me, that held me back—I laid it out for her to see.

"This is going to sound completely ridiculous, but I wanted to believe the lie. I wanted to look into her eyes and see some flicker that she didn't, couldn't have done what she did." I let out a bitter chuckle as I relaxed back in my seat, the weight of carrying the fool's hope finally lifted. "I wanted to believe that my mom was someone that she's not. A good person. A redeemable person. I’m man enough to recognize my moments of stupidity."

"You're a lot of things, Jacob Whitmore," she said softly. "Stupid is not one of them."

"You're sweet," I answered flatly.

"No, I'm right. Most of the time." She gave my knee a playful set of squeezes before she sighed. "It is completely rational that you hoped your mom didn't do this. You love her. We want to see the best in the people we love."

"She has no 'best'," I said darkly. "With Alicia Whitmore there's only her interests and her motivations. Anyone else is irrelevant. There's nothing redeemable-"

"Okay, I let that fly right on past the first time around but I can't let it go again. No one is irredeemable, Jacob. No one is hopeless."

"Maybe you haven't been properly introduced to my mother." Why did she feel this urge to defend the indefensible? To defend a woman that would gladly send her to the slaughter.? A possible explanation came to mind, one that I knew came from a place of anger but it was out before I shut it down. "Are you looking at this through the lens of Cheryl? My mother is not your mother. Your mother's only crime is that she loves you fiercely and that love comes out in inconveniencing ways. My mother's crime is that she paid money to make someone's life a living hell."

"Wow."

It was only one word, but it made my world stand still. The air changed, turning into something suffocating. Something toxic that filled my lungs with every breath.

"You think this is about me comparing our mother's? Really, Jacob?” She shook her head in disgust. “You must think
I'm
stupid."

"No," I said firmly. We were a few minutes from the house and I didn't want to spend those minutes arguing or projecting my frustration on her when she was just trying to help. "I'm sorry. I hear what you're saying, I do. But you don't know my mother. You've got a big heart-"

"And I'm just some peace and love, big hearted fool, right?" she sliced in bitterly. "You think so, Cole thinks so. Somehow in this scenario I've become the ridiculous one. Your brother plans to do God knows what to your mom and you're acting like she deserves that. It's like you've completely forgotten Dublin." Her voice broke in pieces. "Your brother did something horrible and you were ready to kill him. I thought we made progress. I thought-"

"We made progress," I assured her. “I just had a moment of-" I stopped. I didn't want to spit out more excuses. There were none. Just because my mother had disappointed me didn't mean I got to check out. "I know who I am, Lay. I shouldn't have let Cole leave. My mother is who she is. Her death doesn't change anything." I wished I could believe what she believed; that there was something worth saving in my mother. Some piece that was human that we could reach. I'd let go of the hope of finding that piece, but she was still my mother. I didn't wish harm upon her and her death was what made me pull onto the property, tires squealing as I prepared to brake.