by Piper Rayne
It was that anger I had at the thought of her hurting more people I love that gave me the fight I needed to keep going. I moved past the living room and into the hallway with a new fire burning in me. She wasn’t going to win anymore.
I didn’t see a soul in the house on the lower level, so I made my way to the stairs that led to the second floor. Putting my foot on the first step, it groaned under the little weight I placed on it. I remembered sneaking down so many times as a child, that I quickly moved to the far-right side. Hugging the wall, I snaked my way up the long flight of stairs without them making another sound.
Standing at the top of the steps, I looked down the hallway and saw her door was closed. It had to have been time for her afternoon nap. At least that part was predictable. It also meant she wouldn’t hear a thing until I wanted her to. She took some kind of pill when she wanted to sleep, and it knocked her out cold.
I didn’t go to her room first but stopped at my old room. Opening the door, I was met with dust and cobwebs hanging in every corner. Nothing had been touched and it looked like a memory of mine frozen in time, waiting for my return to bring it back to life. I picked up the only picture I had of me with my parents and dusted off the front. My mom was sitting there, with our garden in the background. She had a smile on her face and me, only a toddler at the time, on her lap. My dad was standing behind us and, while I never noticed it before, there was a look of pride on his face. He loved us in his own way even if he was horrible at saying it. I traced my finger over my mother’s face before putting it back down. There would be a time for memories, but not then.
I moved closer to the window to get the plan moving into motion. From my window, I would be able to see the guys. I moved past my bed and nightstand to the large window that overlooked the back garden. The once vibrant colors and wonderful fragrance was nothing more than a graveyard for dead plants. Withered and overtaken by weeds, it wasn’t close to the garden I once knew.
Nothing about the house felt the same. The life had been sucked clean from it and what remained in its place was nothing more than an empty shell. It broke my heart to think of the house my father had built with his own hands, was nothing more than a pile of stone and mortar.
I caught Akio’s eye and waved to him from my window. He saw me, nodded, nudged the guys and then I watched them disappear. The second they were gone, I moved to the room across from mine. It was the room my dad used after my mother died. I opened the door and was hit with a ton of bricks when I saw another man’s things in there. It hadn’t even been a year and she had someone else living in my father’s room. All of his things were gone. Nothing in there was anything I recognized, and I was turning to leave when I saw it.
I almost missed it, but the little light coming in from the hallway caught it and it sparkled in my eye. There, on the dresser that no longer held anything of my father’s, was a gold band. I picked it up, moved it closer to the light and looked at the back of the ring. There it was - the engraving they had done to their wedding rings; One and Only Love. I almost dropped it. She had given another man the ring my parents had used as wedding bands.
I stuck the ring in my pocket and moved down the hall. There wasn’t any reason to stay in that room any longer. It wasn’t his anymore, but the man she was shacking up with wasn’t going to get the ring back either.
Hearing the creak of the bottom step, I knew the guys had found their way to me and were almost there. I waited until they reached the landing before I went any closer to her room. It wasn’t that I needed them for strength any longer. She had put a fire in me I didn’t know I had when I saw his ring on that man’s dresser. She had ripped everything away from me then sat there and pretended life was normal.
As soon as I saw the first head of the seven men come up the steps, I marched to her door. Not knocking, I flung it open so hard, the handle stuck in the wall. A frantic scramble under the sheets met my eyes and as one person came out, I almost dropped.
There, standing naked in front of me, was Daan. The man she tried to sell me to. He stood there in all his glory and smiled at me. With a twisted grin and a gleam in his eyes, he did nothing to cover himself.
“See what you missed out on? I can go again if you’re interested. Are you still a virgin or did you throw that part of you away to survive out there on your own? Stupid girl. I could have given you a life like you never could have imagined,” he said.
“Not one I would have loved. You’re a monster like her,” I said and pointed to the head that peaked out from under the covers. “If you were that desperate for money, you deserve each other. Better hope she doesn’t kill you like she did her last husband.”
“What?” he asked and looked from her to me and back. “What is she talking about?”
“She is a stupid child with stupid ideas. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” Hearing her voice again made my skin crawl. Hearing another lie come from it, had my blood boiling. “To say I’m shocked to see you and alive, isn’t an understatement.” She glared at Daan when the words left her mouth.
His face grew redder and I pieced it together. He was in her hunting party the night I ran away. He must have come back and told her I was dead, or he had killed me. Seeing me standing there must have ruined his entire year. The longer I was gone, the more faith he had I wouldn’t return. They deserved each other with their lies and desperation to make something of themselves at the expense of others.
“What did she mean though?” he asked again.
“She doesn’t know a thing,” she said again, but with less conviction than a moment ago.
“I do know, and I can prove it.”
25
“How?” she asked. She moved to the edge of the bed and hung her bare feet inches from the floor. Wrapped in nothing but the sheet from her bed, I could see how old she had gotten since I left. The stress of it all and not knowing if I was a live or not, had taken its toll.
“I found the plant you used to kill them, and I know what it is,” I said.
“Impossible,” was her answer.
“Not impossible. It was wolfsbane that you used to kill my family. Did you use it on all the help too? Is that why they aren’t here anymore?”
“What is she talking about?” Daan demanded again.
“You don’t get to talk,” I fired off. “You aren’t any better than she is and if she makes you sick, you deserve it. At least then there wouldn’t be any other little girls for you to hurt.”
“But I need to know. I haven’t felt good in days,” he whined.
“How did you handle it without making yourself sick? Did you put it in his favorite tea, or did you toss it in small doses on his food? Why only my parents? Why didn’t you kill me too?”
I was shouting by then, but I didn’t care. All the pain I felt over the years turned to anger and the one person I wanted to take it out on was standing in front of me. I had my new family behind me and knowing that gave me a jolt of extra courage.
“If you wear gloves, it doesn’t hurt you,” she finally said. Her face twisted in a smile and her eyes became slits. She knew she was caught, but that the game wasn’t over. It would be her word against mine since it was clear she had been poisoning Daan too. He probably only had days to live if even that.
“Why?” I asked again.
“Your mother? Because without her out of the picture, your dad wouldn’t have even looked at me. I’ve heard a man will fall for whoever is there for him during his tough times even if he didn’t love her at first. When she died, I stepped in and helped him through it. A few suggestions here and there and before I knew it, he was asking me to marry him. I knew it wasn’t love, but he needed to fill a void and he needed a female around for you. Each year with him seemed longer than the one before it and when I couldn’t take it any longer, and I knew his stipulation for me getting anything was up, I did what I had to. You had to ruin it all though. He placed you under the will as the sole beneficiary. As long as you were a
live, I got nothing.
Daan was nice enough to help me with that when he said he would marry you for that small price. You wouldn’t be a minor or unwed any longer, so half the money would belong to me. That was more than I ever could have dreamed of having when I was a child. Growing up in the poor part of town, having to dig in the trash some days to even find food, I swore one day I would live up here on the top of the hill with the rest of you spoiled rich people. I didn’t realize how easy it would be to get in though.
Show a little flesh and make promises you never intended to keep, and they pawed all over you. My words dripped with honey to their ears and they couldn’t wait to say, ‘I do’ and hand me half their fortune.
I was tired of sharing though. Your parents were the first I killed for all the money. Of course I had to try it first to make sure it would work like I needed it to, so Raymond was the first.”
Ray had been one of the workers who took care of the garden. He was the sweetest old man I had ever met. Always taking the time to show me what plant he was working with or how to care for it, I spent most of my summer days outside with him when I was growing up.
“You killed him?”
“I had to. Him and that Jasmine girl were smarter than the rest of you. They thought something was wrong with me from the beginning.”
“What did you do to Jasmine?” I choked out.
“Nothing. That bitch was smart enough to leave and not look back.”
“I looked back,” a voice said from behind me. “I kept an eye on her and you.”
I turned to come face to face with Jasmine. She winked at me, but her stone face never changed.
“What are you doing here?” my stepmom asked, again looking at Daan.
“Backing her up,” Jasmine said. “Along with them.”
One by one, the seven men I had grown to love came around the corner and entered the room. With each one that appeared, she seemed to shrink more and more into the false protection of the blanket she was wrapped in.
“The way I see it,” I began. “You have two choices. Stay and face what we will do to you. Or run as hard and as fast as you can away from here and never come back. You will leave it all behind. My parent’s money, their things and me. If I ever see you around here again, I will do more than ask you to leave.”
“Or what?” she asked in a snide tone.
“I’ve learned a lot from you. Not anything good, but I learned. I know a few ways to take out the trash too. And all I see in front of me is a heap of garbage.”
“You can’t kick me out of my house,” she screeched.
“It isn’t your house,” Akio said coming farther into the room. “It rightfully belongs to Sno.”
“You don’t know anything. You’re just a dumb boy who is trying to play hero. Did you do it? Did you sleep with the slut? I bet you’ve all had your turn with her. Haven’t you?”
“She isn’t a slut and that’s why you’re really mad, isn’t it? You couldn’t get her to go along with your plan to sell her off and because of that, you had to sleep with him. I haven’t known her for long, but I can tell she has more class and respect for herself than you will ever have.” Zane’s face was so red, he looked sunburnt. Watching him stick up for me though made me feel for him even more than I already had. He wasn’t with me to see what he could get from me. None of them were. They were there because they cared.
“There are so many reasons I was mad and so many more why I hate her. You wait. One of these days you’ll see what I mean. If you think she would share any of this with you,” my stepmom said and waved her arms around the room, “you’re even dumber than she is.”
“The difference between you and us is we don’t want anything from her but her. She is part of our family now and that was all any of us wanted,” Thijs added.
“I don’t need this. I don’t need her, and I don’t need this place. I have Daan now and he was even richer than your father was. Come on,” she said and jumped out of bed. She moved to the closet to get clothes and when she came back out, Daan had already left.
“Feeling alone?” Akio asked her when she came out and looked around to only find us standing there.
“Where did he go?” she demanded.
“He got smart and left. He wasn’t going to stick around to be poisoned like the last guy who trusted you,” Jett said.
“You’re game is over. Playing house is done and it’s time for you to go,” I said. No longer afraid, I looked her in the eyes and didn’t back down. She wasn’t going to win again with my family. It might not have been blood, but it was solid, and it was mine. She wouldn’t ever be able to take that away and she would never understand how someone could bond with another person. She wasn’t like anyone I had ever met before or since. Evil to the core, watching her crumble almost took away some of the hurt she had caused me.
As I watched her pack a small bag of clothes, the guys stood next to me. I watched someone I had been afraid of for years suddenly look like a frail old woman. She shuffled her feet as she gathered her things but kept her head up. With what little pride she tried to hold on to, she left my parents’ house.
We followed her out the front door and down the long, windy driveway. Once she was on the road that lead out of our property and as she disappeared out of view, I turned to the people standing by my side.
“Thank you,” was all I could say.
“Anytime kiddo,” Akio answered. They waited for me to move before following me back into the house I grew up in. A house that was now mine.
“Sno, wait,” Zane said as he took my hand. Pulling me to the side the second we got into the house, I followed him. “There’s something I wanted to say to you, but I wasn’t sure how. Now’s the time though.”
“What?” he was making me nervous and I needed him to say what he was going to say and fast.
“I…I…love you.”
I stood there looking at him for a moment trying to read him, but I couldn’t. Feelings overcame me and all I could focus on was him.
“I love you too.”
He took my face in his hands and brought my lips to his in a gentle, but passionate kiss. I stood there after, breathless and safe in his arms. I had a family, Jasmine and my home back, but more than that I found love in a stranger that took me in when nobody else had.
Epilogue
One year later
* * *
We still kept the small cottage in the woods to go to when we wanted away from everything, but the guys had all moved into my house. It wasn’t that it was better, but there were enough rooms for them all to have their own space. They stayed working where they had been, and I even started to sell blankets I made and produce we grew in the garden.
My stepmom had blown through most of the family money, but none of that mattered with us. We pulled together and made it work. Long hours never bothered any of us and we got a sense of pride knowing we were making it on our own.
Seven strangers, now family, who grew up with nothing now lived in one of the largest houses in the town. They were known by locals and respected because of it. Nothing with them changed though and I still watched them get up at seven every morning and come dragging their filthy selves home late every night. On the weekends we enjoyed spending the days together outside in the garden or swimming in the lake.
Jasmine stayed with us but not as hired help. She was as much family to me as my folks had been and I wanted her there as that from then on. She still watched out for me and was my protector though that role wasn’t as big as it used to be. Zane made sure he was the number one when it came to that.
We had gotten closer too over the past year and our love only grew with each day that went by. We talked about marriage a little, but it wasn’t something we planned on rushing into until a few months ago.
A wedding was scheduled for in the fall right before our first child was expected to arrive. The day we found out was the day he asked me to be his wife. We hadn’t found out the sex of
the baby yet, but I knew it was a boy. I could feel it with everything in me. We had the name Anders picked out. I wanted to name the baby after my father and Zane was fine with that.
Akio, Bran, Jett and Thijs all took separate rooms on the third floor of the house. Lars and Ramus decided to still share a room at the end of the hall on the first floor. Jasmine took my dad’s old room and Zane and I took the one my parents shared when my mom was still alive. The baby would go in my old room and Jasmine already volunteered to help care for him. She said that was why she wanted the room across the hall from him. After the amazing job she did raising me, I was honored to have her stay with us to help me raise my first child.
We never heard from my stepmom or Daan again. Someone said they saw them fleeing on the outside of town the day we threw them from the house. Others said she retreated to the woods and that Daan hadn’t made it through the poison she gave him. I was never allowed to go in the woods or stay at the cottage alone because of that rumor. I didn’t mind though. I loved my family and I loved having them with me. They made me feel safe and wanted. There wasn’t anything else I could have asked for.
It took me losing everything and being tossed away to find myself and the family I had longed for for so long. The small group of seven men who found me in the woods, hungry, alone and terrified, took me in. They loved me, built me back up, fed and sheltered me then showed me how to stand on my own. They were never far away and the second I needed one of them, they knew and would show up.
Having Jasmine back with me made it all that much sweeter. She was the one who could always make a hard time feel a little easier. With her there next to me, I knew I could raise my son to be the kind of man I needed him to be. One just like his daddy, Zane.
