Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80303 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80303 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
“Is she still alive?” I found myself asking about her for the first time in years.
Maisie nodded stiffly. “She is. Now that you’re here hopefully we can change that.”
“Me? What can I do? Shouldn’t someone have taken care of her by now?”
She gave me tight smile. “You’ll have to ask Judas about this.”
Of course, that was her answer. “Can you at least tell me why everyone is so okay with me marrying your brother despite all the bad that’s happened? Some of it was my fault?”
“That couldn’t be any further from the truth. You’re still associating who you are with something that wasn’t real.” Maisie gave me a clinical look. “I know the definition of family is hard for you to understand but I can’t sugarcoat anything for you, babe. That’s not what you need from anyone especially me.”
She reached into her bra and pulled out a blunt and a lighter. “Daddy hates when I smoke,” she explained.
“I wasn’t judging.”
“I know.” She smiled softly and lit up, taking a hit, and offering me the same opportunity before continuing. “Listen, the men in this world may have their stories to tell, but the women do too. You. Me. Nova. My mother. Look at her now. At us.” She twirled a dainty manicured finger in the air to indicate our poolside trio.
“Your delivery could use some work, Mai,” Nova chastised with slight exasperation.
I didn’t have an issue with that. I actually appreciated her being so blunt and straightforward. I wasn’t entirely sure what she was trying to tell me, though. I agreed we all had a story to tell, and they would greatly vary, but what did that have to do with the here and now?
Did they really want me to sit back and accept this because it was best for me? For Judas? Or was it because they were Barrons, and I was now a Saldaña? If Evie was alive, it might have something to do with her. There were so many variables.
I couldn’t forget everything that had happened in the past to accommodate the present. I had hardly begun to fully understand what all of this meant for my future.
Hearing we were a family from someone the woman I once called mom was responsible for kidnapping was pretty damn surreal. I had no idea what she’d been through. I suppose that proved her point about us all having different journies.
The scorpion and rose tattooed on the left side of her chest told me where she came from but not what she’d been through. I didn’t know how she was taken or what she did to get away. I could only look at the scar marring her arm from elbow to shoulder and speculate.
None of us knew our stories better than ourselves, the ones who had lived and breathed through the betrayals, heartache, and scorn. She survived, though.
They all had and now living in a world that had the ability to trigger their nightmares, the happiness they radiated was natural.
Is that what waited at the end of the dark tunnel, more darkness that was shrouded in wealth and opulence with a new family offering some degree of comfort?
“Rhiannon,” Maisie said my name in a firm tone. “Don’t you dream of power and all the things you can do with it?”
I did. I thought of it frequently, I wanted to be at the top for the simple fact I knew what it meant to be one of the ones who got crushed at the bottom. But I wasn’t going to tell her that. My silence was all the confirmation she needed.
“Isn’t that wrong?”
“Everything about people like us can be considered wrong,” Nova replied with a bitter chuckle.
“The women in our families have always held their own alongside their partners. It hasn’t always been for love. Not everyone needs that to get what they want. Do you?”
Did I need love? No. But I craved it.
“Maybe I do,” I replied with a slight shrug.
“Stick with my brother and you can have both. Who knows, you might even let yourself fall in love with him too.”
Fall for Judas?
Didn’t she know that’s what got me here in the first place?
Love and hate were a lot like the sun and the moon, contrasting opposites always co-existing. That’s what it was like loving Judas.
I’d tried to hate him for a long time and almost convinced myself that I did, but it was impossible not to harbor a love for him too. I often wondered if he hadn’t come into my life if I would still be oblivious to the lie I was living.
Maybe that’s why I couldn’t bring myself to despise him entirely.
He accepted the dark side of me without question and tore the blindfold from my eyes. I was able to catch a glimpse of the world I’d been submerged in my entire life without knowing before my corner of it was set aflame.