Understanding comes in slow waves, spiking my fury higher, hotter. It loosens my tongue and has me spitting words best kept internal. “I see. You fucked up and let precious Amazon children be hurt by people who were close to you. An unforgivable sin in your daughter’s eyes. If Monroe knew my parents were Amazons, that you knew—”
“I didn’t know,” she says it so sharply, I almost believe her.
If not for her own words. “You just said you didn’t know the extent of it, which means you did know something.”
Aisling’s expression goes even colder, a confirmation in and of itself. “It’s in the past.”
In the past, and yet it’s shaped my entire life, my future even. If not for what I experienced at my parents’ hands, I wouldn’t find coming to Sabine Valley so challenging. I wouldn’t have started pushing Broderick away when he needed me to pull him close and have his back. I wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.
“If that’s true, you wouldn’t be bringing it up now, trying to smooth away the sins the past.” I don’t move, don’t shift in any way that could be construed as a physical attack. Why bother when my words will do the trick? “Monroe cares about me, you know.”
“I’ve been made aware.” Her mouth twists. “Which is why we’re having this conversation. It’s in your best interest to keep your mouth shut about your childhood. I will not interfere with your relationship, but I will also not allow you to interfere with my relationship with my daughter.” She turns to the door. “No matter what the cost. It will hurt her to lose you, but only in the short term.” Then she’s gone, closing the door softly behind her.
It takes several beats for me to reconcile the fact that she just threatened me. I have absolutely no desire to tell Monroe that her precious Amazons are responsible for the abuse I suffered as a child. No matter what else is true of her, she’s got rose-tinted glasses when it comes to her faction. If I were another person, I wouldn’t hesitate to rip them off her face and force her to see the truth—that monsters lurk everywhere, and Amazons aren’t exempt—but it would hurt her to discover that.
I don’t want to hurt her.
I…care about her.
The door opens again, and Monroe stalks back into the room. She drops into her chair. “Well, this is a giant clusterfuck.”
I’ve never seen her look so off-center. I don’t make a conscious decision to move. One moment I’m standing there, still trying to process the enormity of what Aisling dropped on me, and the next I’m moving, crossing the office in giant strides to pull Monroe into my arms. I half expect her to push me away. She’s not the type to lean on someone, let alone someone like me. Someone who’s technically an enemy.
But…she does lean on me.
Monroe hugs me tightly to her for one long moment…two…three.
It turns out I need this hug just as much as she apparently does. I close my eyes and inhale the sunny scent of her, letting her presence wash away the shadows clinging from the past. I knew my parents had a connection with the Amazon throne, that they were protected by it, but I had convinced myself that Aisling didn’t really see me that day, that she had no clue what they’d done to me.
At some point, I’m going to have to process that information, but not right now. Nothing that happened to me as a child was Monroe’s fault, and right now, Broderick is in more danger than I am.
When she finally loosens her hold and shifts back, she almost looks like herself. Or she would if I didn’t know her well enough by now to see the fine tremor in her hands as she fixes her hair. She clears her throat. “Well, that’s one way to start the day.”
“She’s going to kill Broderick.” She didn’t have to speak the threat explicitly for it to be clear. Just like she didn’t have to voice the direct threat against me. If Aisling kills Broderick… No force in Sabine Valley will stop Abel from razing the Amazon faction to the ground. I can’t even blame him for that; I’m feeling particularly murderous right now, too. Coming back to this city, embroiling ourselves in the power games and political bullshit… How am I supposed to see it as anything other than a mistake if this is the cost?
Home isn’t a place, it’s the people you surround yourself with. The ones you choose. Maybe the Paine brothers don’t realize that, maybe they never would have chosen to return to Sabine Valley if they had. I’ve never asked.
It doesn’t matter.
We’ve come too far now. After Lammas, if Abel and the others buckle, they’ll bring the entire Raider faction down with them. They were hunted after they were driven out of Sabine Valley the first time, but it’s nothing compared to what will happen if they run again. Now both Amazon and Mystic leaders know exactly what kind of threat Abel Paine and his brothers can bring to the fore. They’ll do whatever it takes to ensure they never get another chance.
No, we have no choice.
We have to see this through.
Chapter 20 Broderick
I spend the day training with Donovan, Ezekiel, and Cohen. Or, to be more accurate, checking in on those three. I like to check in with my brothers at least once every couple of days normally, but things have gone sideways since returning to Sabine Valley. I know Abel’s doing fine. Cohen, too. But the others? Impossible to say.
Tomorrow, I’ll search out Gabriel and Finnegan and make sure they’re holding up fine, too.
I’m quickly coming to realize that nothing is the same it was. No one is perfectly okay, and my brothers are fighting their own battles, even if they’re not overt about it. I wipe the sweat from
