Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 45194 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 226(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45194 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 226(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
Outside Club Scarlet, I stand for a moment, drawing in a few deep breaths of the night air. The moon begins its cycle, like a scythe slicing the sky, signaling a new beginning.
What will that cycle mean for me?
What will it take to show Kylian, Nate, and Lyle that they don’t have to stay trapped in the past? The future is yet to be written, and our story doesn’t have to have reached its conclusion.
As I make the short walk to my car, I start to formulate a plan.
Words aren’t going to cut it with Kylian. His walls are too thick, like the fortifications of a city, erected to protect his vulnerable center. I think I could get through to Nate and Lyle, but they’re such a tight unit with their brother that it wouldn’t matter.
I need evidence. I need papers that disprove all the allegations he made against my Mom and all the aspersions those accusations have cast on me. I need to show Kylian that what he believes happened all those years ago isn’t reality.
The walls he’s built stand on shaky foundations. All I need is to make them wobble just a little, and maybe his shield will shatter, and he’ll let me in.
* * *
At home, I take five minutes to shower and dress in a fresh pair of jeans and a pretty white blouse. I brush out my hair and slide gold sandals onto my feet, hoping that keeping my look pretty and soft will make Kylian less resistant to me.
I leaf through Mom’s files until I find the documents I need, gathering them as quickly as I can into a plastic folder. They’re precious to me because I know they’re my only hope, but if they serve this purpose, I’m going to destroy them. Holding onto the evidence of unhappy times is like allowing a cloud to hover over your house in perpetuity.
I’m done with clouds, and I’m done with letting the past control me.
Now Kylian, Nate, and Lyle need to get there too.
Driving to Montgomery House, I feel as though I’m floating underwater. All around me, there are people living their lives, but I’m numb to everything apart from my almost stepbrothers.
Should I even be thinking of them that way after everything we’ve done?
Probably not.
But how else can I describe them? We’re not friends. We’re not lovers. All we are to each other can be wrapped up as memories and sated urges. They used my body and worked out their frustrations, and I absorbed it all, hoping they’d see that it meant more to me.
* * *
As I steer onto the sweeping driveway leading to Montgomery House, my heart accelerates in my chest. Will they be here? Will they be awake? Will I have to face Dick looming over me before I can get close to his sons?
Even though I’m a grown woman, the thought of him and the fear he used to elicit in us all is enough to make me shiver. What he did to Mom is as clear in my memory as ever.
The door looms large, and my finger hovers over the doorbell as I take a deep, steadying breath. I have to do this. There isn’t another option. They’ll listen to me, I tell myself. They’ll hear what I have to say, and everything will be okay. I won’t have to lose them again.
I’m strong enough to fight for them this time.
I’m big enough to stand up to Dick and for the truth.
When the bell rings inside the house, I take a step back, needing to put a little distance between myself and whoever opens the door. A flash of my mom’s panicked face as she looked down at me in this very spot on the night we left, spears me in the gut.
I hear someone on the other side of the door before it’s yanked open. Kylian stands framed by the huge doorway, dressed in the pants he was wearing when he left Club Scarlet, and an open shirt.
“Honor.”
His name on my lips doesn’t sound anything like it did when he whispered it earlier. It doesn’t sound the way it did when he was spitting his anger and falling back into the web of lies from the past.
It sounds dead, and it makes my throat burn.
“I need to talk to you.”
“There’s nothing left to say.” His hand rests on the edge of the door and he brings it forward by a few inches as though he’s going to close it in my face.
“Who is it?” Dick’s voice says from inside.
“You need to go now,” Kylian warns, his eyes widening just enough to reveal he’s worried about me being in the same vicinity as his father. He thinks he’s going to have to step between us again. I know he would do anything to protect me, and that everything he said was in part an attempt to avoid me being sucked into this horrible situation again.