“You got back together, after everything?”

“Sort of,” she admits. “When Ravina left, he was a shell of himself. Donley came to me and asked me to go to his room and take his mind off the loss. I did. For several weeks, after nightfall, I’d go to him.”

“And you ended up pregnant.”

She nods. “Donley moved me in shortly after that, to the maid’s quarters, of course.” She scoffs, a tear falling, but she doesn’t wipe it away. “We didn’t stop sleeping together. Almost every night since the night I was moved in, I slept in his bed, until one day, he came home from a week-long business trip. I was excited to see him, Collins was excited. I remember the night well. The chef had made prime rib. We served it with a glass of aged Merlot. Felix was so happy,” she whispers. “He smiled wider than I’d seen in so long, played basketball with Collins that evening without the trouble in his eyes he normally had when he looked at his son. I was over the moon. I’d thought, he’s back,” she cries. “Finally, after ten years of being a ghost of the man I knew, he was back.”

I swallow, looking across the yard when a small flame appears out of nowhere.

“After dinner was cleaned up and Collins was in bed, so was he. I assumed he was waiting for me, but when I went to his room, I found his door locked, and I knew. It all clicked in a single second.”

“Knew what?”

“He’d found her, the love of his life.”

My head jolts back. “Found her? My mom?”

She nods. “Suddenly, every weekend, sometimes weeks at a time, he had business meetings and events that kept him away.” She looks up. “I’d never seen him so alive as he was during those months. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one to notice.”

“Donley.”

“Yes. One weekend, several months later, Donley told me to get in the car. His driver knew right where to go. I’ll never forget the feeling of seeing them together, with you. He was weightless. Free and smiling.” She swallows. “When Felix got home that Sunday night, Donley was waiting with a nasty ultimatum. I thank heavens every day that he at least loved his son enough to give her up.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was either Collins died, or Felix made Ravina believe he was as sick as the man who ruined her. It took a couple weeks of watching him deteriorate before our eyes, but it was done.” Her tears fall freely now. “My son was allowed to live, Ravina’s hate was back, and Felix’s soul ... it was gone.”

She’s quiet a moment before she says, “Donley knew what he was doing. What Felix would do next. Felix didn’t make it twenty-four hours after that. I found him myself. Buried him here.” She takes a deep breath. “His memory was erased the night that followed, his son forbidden to so much as whisper his own father’s name.”

Smoke fills the air, seeping into my lungs, but my feet won’t move.

“He was prepared to leave us, to leave this place and be with her, be with you.”

“I don’t understand.” I shake my head.

She eyes me. My confusion must be plastered across my face as she tilts her head.

“Do you not know?”

“Know what?”

“The man who came to your mother, the one who allowed you to see a different side of her, a side that maybe you could have loved. That was him.”

My brows pull in in thought, my eyes falling to the grass beneath my feet.

I think back to the story I told Maddoc.

“I hate my mother.”

He doesn’t say anything, so I look his way again. “But that’s no surprise, right?”

His brows lower.

“She’s always been a piece of shit, my whole life, as far as I can remember anyway. But there was one time where everything sucked the teeniest bit less. Wanna know why?” A wry grin slips. “A client stuck.”

“Since he knew about her job of choice, she didn’t have to lie about who she was and what she did. Used and abused and all, he accepted her. Me too. He even claimed to have kids, but I never met them.” I focus on the sky.

“She got better with him, wasn’t clean, but functioned like a human instead of a toy with dying batteries – still turned tricks, but he never seemed to mind.

“For the first time ever, I had a dinnertime. Every night, when the sensor lights on the trailers started popping on – there were no streetlamps in my neighborhood – I’d run back. Excited for a stupid dinner that was never anything more than macaroni and cheese with hotdogs or rice and sauce. Dumb shit, but it was the first time she’d ever seemed to care if I ate since I was big enough to make my own cereal, so I thought it was cool. Lasted about a year.”

“What happened?”

“I ruined it.”

“How?”

With a deep inhale, I look to Maddoc. “Puberty.”

His features morph in an instant, flashing with incomprehensible anger. “Raven.”

“He started paying more attention to me, ‘neglecting her,’ she’d say. She beat my ass, told me I wasn’t allowed around him if I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.” I remember how angry she’d get. “Kinda hard when my room was the two feet between the table and the couch, that was also my bed.”

Holy shit.

“He made her think he was attracted to me, a child, on purpose, to ruin things between them?”

She nods. “He couldn’t simply leave, she’d know something was wrong and possibly come back. Donley couldn’t risk it.”

Both our heads jerk to the side when a loud crack sounds. Flames climb up the edges of the pool house, engulfing it in seconds.

I look back to Estella. “What do you mean by make her think he’s as sick as the person who ruined her? And you said he saw me, if that’s true why would he not bring me here then? He could have prevented all of this.”

“A female is of no use to me.” Her eyes slide over the landscape. “That’s what Donley told a young maid as he fired her, the day her sonogram came back.”

“I...” My hands fly to my hair, trying to make sense of it when the fire shoots across the yard in a perfect line, hitting the right end of the house.

“Raven!” My eyes fly to the slider door. “We gotta go, now!”

I nod, then reach for Estella but she shrugs away from me.

“Come on, we have to get out of here.”

“Go.”

“I’m blowing this fucking place to the ground.”

She smiles sadly at the tulips, reaching out to run her fingers across the soft petals. She drops to her knees in front of them.

“I died in this home long ago,” she whispers. “It’s only right my body goes with it.”

“Estella—”

“Raven, now!” Gio shouts again and suddenly Bass is behind him.

I glare at Estella, dropping beside her. “You’ll leave him with no one,” I growl.

She reaches out, placing her calloused hands on my face. “The fact that you care enough to say those words, after all he’s done to you, tells me he’ll be just fine,” she breathes, her heart breaking for what must be the dozenth time right in front of me. “He’s a good boy, you’d have liked him.”