“Jesus! What the hell is going on, Dad?” I say, equally irate.

He exhales. “Look, I’m sorry I snapped. Just … do you have a picture of Mia or not?”

“No, I don’t. But wait a minute, I can get one.”

I pull my cell from my pocket and set the camera on. I hold it up to the window, and zoom in on Mia’s face.

She’s smiling. She’s happy. And she has no clue that I’m about to take a picture of her to send to my dad for a reason I can only guess isn’t good.

The hand around my throat tightens.

I snap the picture.

“I’m sending the photo to your cell now.” I watch the little bar sending, then telling me it’s been sent.

I hear Dad’s message tone beep in the background, then I wait, holding my breath.

“Jesus Christ,” I hear him mutter. “It’s her.”

And this is the moment when I know it’s bad, real bad, and that this is going to somehow change everything irrevocably.

“Dad, you really need to tell me what the hell is going on.”

He lets out a resigned sigh. “I know. I just don’t know where to start.”

“Beginning works good for me.” I’m getting slightly pissed off, and my heart is beating like a bastard.

“Look, this isn’t technically my story to tell, so go easy on me, son.”

I sigh with impatience.

I hear the phone rustle, like he’s moving, then he starts talking, “You know that Belle lived away from Durango.”

“Yeah, she went to college. It was why you guys broke up after high school. Then she moved back home, and you got back together.”

“Right. Well the story in the middle is a little different than the one you know. And Jordan, listen, I only found out the extent of your mom’s time in Boston days before she died…”

Boston.

Oh no.

Motherfucking, no.

Annabelle – that’s my mom’s full name. I’ve always known her as Belle, but her name is Annabelle.

Anna.

Why didn’t it click before now? I’m so fucking stupid!

Belle is Anna.

She’s Mia’s mother. I know it in my gut.

“Belle is Mia’s mother.” I nearly choke on the words.

Dad sighs a weary sound. And it’s confirmed.

My heart feels like it’s just been ripped from my chest.

“Yeah, I’m afraid she is.”

My mom. The woman who raised me … is Mia’s mother.

The mother who abandoned her when she was a baby. Left her alone with that shithole of a father, is the woman who took me on as her own and raised me.

This is a wrecking ball. And it’s going to destroy everything in its path.

Mia … us.

My head drops in my hands. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!”

“I’m sorry, son. She told me days before she died about Mia. I didn’t know. I promise you. All I knew was that while she was in her last year of college, she met this doctor. He swept her off her feet, they got married soon after, but he wasn’t the guy she thought he was. The instant they were married, he turned violent. He hurt her bad. She ended up in hospital a few times because of him. Eventually, she left. Came back here. Divorced him. She never told me that she’d had a baby with him.”

I feel ill.

I slide off the counter. My feet hit the tiles and feel unsteady, so I sit on the floor.

Knees bent up, I put my head between them and take deep breaths.

“When Belle knew she was dying,” Dad continues. “She told me everything – all about Mia. She said that looking back, she thinks she was suffering with post-partum depression. And she was afraid, Jordan. Her ex-husband was a bastard of a man. The scars he left her with…”

I wince at his words, an image of Mia’s scars flashing through my mind.

“When I saw them the first time … I wanted to go there and kill him, but Belle wouldn’t let me. Obviously, she didn’t want me to go because she didn’t want me to know about Mia.” He sighs.

“Why did she leave her there, Dad? I don’t understand?” My voice cracks on the words knowing the life Mia had with her father.

Then I envision a different past for her.

One where Belle brought Mia back here with her. She would have been my sister. I would never have loved her in the way I do now, but rather that, then her have the life she had.

Her life with us would have been good. She’d have grown up happy. She would have had the life she deserved.

Not one filled with cruelty, and pain. Unimaginable pain.

I feel a sick, resentful anger toward the woman who raised me. The woman who patched up my busted knees when I fell off my bike time and time again. The woman who fed me. Bathed me. Loved me.

Jesus. Christ.

I get up from the floor and start pacing.

“Belle’s ex-husband was a rich, powerful man, Jordan. He was a doctor – a heart surgeon. People respected him. He wouldn’t let her take Mia. Told her if she tried that he’d have her arrested for kidnapping.”

Yanking out a chair at the table, I sit down. “But she could have called the cops – told them what was happening to her. She had the evidence – the scars, her being in hospital because of his beatings.”

“You’re right she could have. But you know how these things go. She’d have to prove it, and she was up against a man from a wealthy family who ran in high circles. His dad was a good friend of the chief of police. Power and money can make things go away, son. But for all he did to Belle, she knew he wouldn’t hurt his own child which was how she was able to leave Mia with him.”

I bang my fist on the table, hard. “Are you fuckin’ kidding me! I can’t believe I’m hearing this shit! He wouldn’t hurt her – Dad, I’ve seen her scars.” I’ve felt her pain. “He beat her until the day he died. He made her life a fuckin’ misery! And because of him, violence was all she knew, so she ended up in a relationship with an asshole exactly like the one who raised her! Why do you think she left Boston, Dad? The bastard she was with – he beat her – tried to rape her.”

“No.” His voice is filled with shock and disbelief. He sounds exactly like I felt in the moment when she told me.

“No,” he repeats. “I found her – Mia. That was one of the reasons Belle told me about her. She wanted to know Mia, make her peace before she died, but by the time I found Mia, it was too late and Belle had passed.

“But I still went to Boston. You remember when I told you I had that police conference? I went then. I watched her for a few days, not in a creepy way, I just couldn’t decide whether to tell her about Belle or not. In the end, I decided against it – I didn’t think it was worth hurting Mia by telling her that the mother who had abandoned her as a baby had just died. But I wanted to know she was okay – happy. She seemed it. She was in school, had an application for Harvard. Lived in a great place and drove a nice car. And I saw her with him – her father, Oliver. They seemed to get along well.”

“Yeah, well Mia can wear a great mask, Dad. She’s a fuckin’ specialist at pretending to be something she isn’t.”

“Jordan, if I’d have known, I would have done something. You know that.”

I exhale, heavily. “Yeah, I know. I just … god, I don’t know what to do – how to tell her.”

How am I going to tell the girl I’m in love with that her mother – who left her to be raised by that monster of a man – raised me instead of her?

She’ll blame me. I’m going to lose her.

I feel physically sick at the thought.

“Just tell her the truth. Exactly as I’ve told you.”

I scrub my hand over my face. “She won’t be able to get past this. She’s going to blame me. I’m going to lose her.”

“No, you won’t,” he states vehemently.

“Belle left her with him and chose to raise me instead. I know if it were me, it would kill me.”

“Jordan, this isn’t your fault. I’ll come home. I’ll explain it to her—”

“No.” I pull in a deep breath. “She needs to hear this from me.”

“You’re sure?”

No. “Yes. I’ll tell her.”

“Okay. You know Mia best. Call me when you’ve talked to her. Let me know how she’s doing?”

“Yeah, I will.”

“Jordan?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s going to be fine, son. I promise.”

I swallow past the burning in my throat, wishing I could be as confident as he is.

“I’ll call you later.” I hang up the phone, dropping it to the table with a clatter, I let my head follow.

A minute later I hear the backdoor open.

“Hey, you okay?” Mia’s soft sweet voice carries through the room, hitting me with a pure agony.

I lift my head, turning to her. The warm smile on her face instantly disappears, turning to worry at my expression.

“Jordan – is everything okay?” She moves quickly toward me.

“I–” The words stick in my throat, and start to sink fast … fast like rocks in water.

“Jordan?”

Oh god. I can’t tell her.

I can’t.

I get to my feet and take her beautiful face in my hands, forcing a smile onto my deceitful mouth.

“Everything’s fine, babe.”

Then I press my lying lips to her soft, warm, honest mouth, hating my weak, cowardly-self more and more, with each passing second.

Chapter Twenty

Mia

There’s something eating at Jordan. He thinks I don’t know, but I can see it in his eyes, and in the way his expression drops every time he thinks I’m not looking.

He’s been acting strange after the telephone call he took from his dad the other day.

At first I thought maybe they’d had a disagreement, but now I know it’s something more. And the paranoid, sadistic part of me is starting to think it’s something to do with me – that maybe, he’s changed his mind about us.

A part of me wishes he would just tell me so I would know either way.

I could ask him, but then I’m afraid what his answer will be. So like the masochist I am, I’m taking whatever he throws my way. Granted, he’s throwing a lot my way, but there’s still something off. I just wish I had more strength than I do. I wish I could just up and leave, and stop being so damn pathetic over a man, who I’m pretty sure doesn’t want me anymore.

And the worst thing is, I’ve realized I’m in love with him.

I know, right?

You think I would have learned my lesson by now.

And it’s not as if I can tell him how I feel, or that there’s any point. Not while he’s working himself away from me.

I just wish he didn’t know so much about me. It makes me feel vulnerable to him.

I know what I need to do – pack my things and move out of here, stay somewhere else. It just feels a little easier said than done at the moment.

I also need to grow a backbone and pay a visit to the last Anna Monroe on my list. It just feels a million times harder now I don’t have Jordan there to hold my hand.