“That can’t be the reason,” I said as I shook my head. “He knows I won’t associate myself with anything that he’s done. Besides, he hates me.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Adam said. “Those kind of guys are delusional as fuck. They only like to see things the way it makes sense to them in their head. Trust me on this one; I’ve watched a ton of that shit.”
“If that’s what Jack did to her just for happening to be standing next to him at that press conference, then what will he do to her if he finds out that she came here to talk to us?” Julian asked.
Michael looked over at him, and I could see that he was torn between wanting to help his mother, but also knowing better.
“She knew what she was doing when she signed up with him,” he said as he fell back into character of not caring. “My mother chose her own path. I offered her my protection, and she refused. She’s an adult.”
But I could see as Michael got up to go pour himself another drink, that there was still a part of him that was worried. It was his mother, after all.
After we had all gone to bed, I couldn’t sleep again. But this time, it wasn’t my own mind that was keeping me awake; it was Michael’s. I was worried about him, so I went to his bedroom. When I got there and pushed open the door, I could see him lying on his back with his eyes wide open, and his arms folded behind his head in a way that made his bicep muscles bulge out.
“Can I come in?” I asked.
He chuckled. “You can always come in.”
29
When I woke up in the morning and opened my eyes, the side of the bed where Michael had been lying was empty. I got up to go out into the rest of the apartment, but as soon as I saw everyone gathered in the living room and the look of unbridled fury on Michael’s face, I knew that something was wrong.
I walked toward the guys slowly. Julian was sitting down on the couch, and Adam was standing near Michael, who had his arm leaning against the wall above him. His head was tilted slightly down, and his other fist was clenched down by his side.
I was getting ready to ask what had happened, but before I even opened my mouth, Michael’s arm drew back, and his fist punched straight through the wall in front of him. My eyes widened in shock as Adam tried to calm Michael down by putting his hand on his shoulder. I didn’t say anything as I looked over at Julian, who was still sitting on the couch and saw me standing there.
“Marta was killed last night,” Julian said to me. “She’s dead.”
Oh my god. My father found out that she came here to talk to Michael, and when she went back to Lineage, he must have killed her.
I started to run to Michael, to wrap my arms around him and hold him. I knew what it felt like to lose your mother, and even if Marta was a bad one; I knew that it still hurt. But as soon as I got close to Michael, Adam put his arm up to keep me from getting any closer.
“Lisette, stay back,” Adam said.
He bridged his body between mine and Michael’s.
“What are you talking about?” I shouted at him. “It’s, Michael, he’s not going to hurt me.”
Adam didn’t budge. He seriously thought that Michael was so enraged and out of control that he might hurt me if I got too close to him. But, I didn’t care. I knew Michael wouldn’t hurt me.
“Move!” I said
And when Adam didn’t move, I shoved him out of my way.
I went up and stood beside Michael as I watched the blood gush down his arm from his bleeding fist that was sill half-stuck inside the wall.
“Adam is right,” Michael said quietly through his clenched teeth. “You should go.” His jaw shook as he spoke. “I’m not in control right now, Lisette. Stay with Adam and let me be.”
“No,” I said as I tried to gently pull his forearm out of the wall. “I’m not leaving you.”
Julian and Adam watched at a close distance in case Michael lost his temper again, and they needed to step in.
Once Michael’s hand was free from the wall, I slid my body between his and the wall and stood beneath his raised arm with my face close to his. I put my palm on his face and watched as the tears started to flow from his eyes. His shoulders tensed, and every muscle in his body looked like it was shaking.
“I am so angry,” he said as his jaw trembled, and he tried to bite down on his teeth together to keep from losing control.
“I know,” I said sadly as my own tears started to well up in my eyes for him. “And you are also so sad.”
Michael’s eyes darted between mine, and as he started to cry, I leaned forward to kiss him. I could taste the salt of his tears against my lips.
Michael, a man who had withstood everything, even the cruel mother that he now mourned, was breaking.
And I would hold him together.
Michael sat on the edge of the bed as I bandaged his hand. It was the same hand I had bandaged and stitched up for him before; he was going to have some next-level scars. He had only cried for a moment, and then he had calmed himself down enough for the other guys to let me take him into his room to get cleaned up.
“I don’t even know why I’m so upset,” he said to me quietly. “She was a horrible mother. Hell, I didn’t even like her as a person.”
“I know,” I said as I continued to clean out his cuts and wrap the gauze between his fingers. “But she was your mother.”
“Jack is your father,” he said. “Do you think you’ll mourn him when he dies?”
I didn’t hesitate. “No.”
I would never mourn him. I wish a painful death onto him with my every waking breath.
“Isn’t it the same thing?” Michael asked. “He’s a horrible parent too. He’s a horrific excuse for a human being, but he’s still your father.”
“It’s not the same at all,” I answered.
“Why?”
I hadn’t ever put it into words before, the way that I hated my father so much that it literally made me hurt.
“Because my father destroyed and took away the most precious thing in the world to me. He took my mother from me. He took away the one thing that brought me happiness and peace, and that showed me who I wanted to be.”
“I’m the one who did that,” Michael said with pain in his voice.
“No, you’re not,” I said as I looked his straight in the eye.
“We have all been strong; my mother, me, you…all of us. My father is a coward. He has made other people carry out his cruel intentions, and he has laughed at the suffering of those around him. All that he does is destroy. It isn’t even my hatred for him that will keep me from mourning his death when that glorious time comes. It is my purpose. I can’t bring my mother back, and no amount of hatred for him can. But when the time comes for his death, I will not feel anything at all except for the glorious fulfillment that he is forever extinguished. That is why I cannot mourn him.”
Michael stared at me in awe. I even surprised myself at how strong I sounded just then.
“Your mother was not like my father. She may not have been good to you, but she didn’t take away someone who was. There is no other pain like that.”
Michael bent down over the side of the bed and pushed all of the gauze and bandages that I had resting on my knee to the ground. He kissed me and winced slightly as he lifted me up onto his lap with both hands.
They say there is a fine line between strong emotions; that fear and anger, hatred and passion, sorrow and bliss, are all shades of the same brilliant color. That makes sense when you think about how easy it is for them to bleed into each other.
I sat with my hips spread open against his lap, and as he kissed me, I rocked myself against him until he was too swollen and hard to stand it. Michael flipped me over and in a frenzy of strewn clothes and aching bodies; he thrust himself into me until I was filled completely by his throbbing heat. All the colors of our emotions encircled around us then, as frenetically as our tongues encircled within each other’s mouths. And if I were to imagine what it would be like for the st
ars to collide in love-making, it would have been this.
The exhaustion that comes when both your body and mind have exerted beyond the limit is swift and complete. Michael and I lay together when our bodies had finally begged for rest, my shoulder laid against his chest as he held his hands wrapped over my breasts, and we both looked up at the ceiling above us.
“I need to ask you something,” he said.
“What is it?” I tilted my head to the side to lean my cheek against his chest, and he kissed my forehead softly.
“Have you told any of us that you are in love with one of us?”
The question caught me by surprise. “No.”
“Is it because you don’t love any of us?”
“No.” I felt his chest exhale beneath me.
Then, he asked the million-dollar question. “Lisette, do you think you will ever choose just one of us?”
It was a question that needed to be asked, but not one that I knew the answer too, at least not yet. I hadn’t told any of the men that I loved them, even though the words had been said to me more than once. But it wasn’t because I didn’t feel the same way; it was because I loved them all.
When I didn’t answer for a long moment, he spoke again.
“If you do choose one of us to be with,” he said. “I want it to be me. I’m pretty sure that I can’t be without you.”
“And what if I can’t choose?” I asked.
“Then I still want it to be me.”
And the power of his words etched themselves right onto my heart next to Julian’s.
Making me more confused—and more frightened—than I ever thought possible.
30
My dreams that night were laden with confusion.
Everyone seemed to be in them; my mother, all three of the guys, Marta, and my father, even some people I didn’t recognize, but that felt strangely familiar. Everyone seemed as if they were running around like rats in a maze trying to find something. But the strangest part was that no one really knew what it was that they were looking for.
Only my mother seemed to know. She kept calling for me softly to follow her, except every time I got close to her, it ended up being Marta in front of me instead. Then the dream started to change. It turned into some kind of game, like tag. The guys and I were laughing, and everyone seemed to be having fun.
My mother tagged someone who was running past her, a boy who looked a little bit like Michael but with a slightly smaller frame and more angular features. He was handsome, and his platinum blonde hair shone beneath the light. He laughed when my mother tagged him, and then he turned and looked at me.
“Tag,” he said before running off in another direction.
I tried to run after him and tag him back, but I couldn’t ever seem to catch him. He was always slipping just out of my reach anytime I got close. Then suddenly, everyone was trying to tag this one, single boy. And no one could catch him.
When I woke up, I still remembered the boy’s face. And it troubled me because it seemed more like a memory than a dream. I had the nagging feeling that I had seen the boy somewhere, but that I couldn’t remember where and somehow my subconscious had just decided to bring him out to play in my dreams.
Even after I had gotten up and washed my face in the bathroom sink, Michael still asked me if I was okay because I looked pale. I told him about my dream, and he asked what I thought it meant, but I didn’t have an answer.
When we sat all together over coffee, I told Julian and Adam about it too. I figured, at the very least, they would be entertained by the thought of all of them playing tag in my dreams with me. But Julian made a strange face when I described the boy.
“What is it?” I asked when I saw his face.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “But that description sounds a lot like someone I think I’ve seen before.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Weird.
Julian and I both seemed to remember the appearance of someone that we couldn’t remember ever having met. But later in the day, a letter was delivered. It was from my father and was addressed to all of us. And all I wanted to do was burn it.
“I can’t believe he would have the nerve to invite us there!” Michael shouted as he threw the invitation down onto the floor.
Adam bent down and picked it up to read. “Yeah, I have to agree. That takes some serious balls.”
“Why would he be inviting us to dinner?” Julian asked. “That seems like a really lame way to invite people to their deaths.”
“What if it’s not that,” I said. “What if he wants to meet for a different reason?”
“Like what?” Julian asked.
“I don’t know, a truce, maybe?”
“I will never make a truce with that man,” Michael said.
“I know that of course not. But maybe we should consider going to see what it is that he wants?”
“I don’t know, Lisette,” Adam said. “I feel like walking onto Lineage grounds for any reason would be a super bad idea.”
“I agree,” Michael said.
I looked at Julian. “What do you think?”
“I’m not sure, but I think my curiosity alone would make me want to go.”
“Okay then,” I said, “it’s a tie. Two against two let’s flip a coin.”
Michael rolled his eyes at me. “You’re kidding.”
“Dead serious,” I said. “It’s a fair way to decide.”
Julian dug a coin out of his pocket and gave it to me.
“Heads or tails, you guys?” I asked.
Michael wasn’t going to humor me, so I looked to Adam. “Tails.”
I threw the coin up into the air and took a step back. When it landed on the ground, everyone leaned forward to see.
“Heads,” I said. “We go.”
We were all pretty anxious as we walked up to the Lineage campus line. Michael had told a ton of people where we were going and left strict instructions on how to extract us in case we ended up getting trapped here tonight. He held my hand as we walked toward the Main Hall and Adam and Julian walked right beside us.
“Please,” My father bellowed once he saw us approach the doorway. “Come in.” He looked down at our hands and then at Michael first, then me. “You seem to favor this one, don’t you?” he asked.
I ignored him, realizing that he was just trying to provoke the guys and start trouble. We sat down around a table together, and there was a spread of meats and cheeses and filled wine glasses at each spot. I hated sitting at a table with my father. I’m not sure why, but it was one of the things I hated most. No one said anything as we waited to hear why he had invited us there. He stared around at all of us as he guzzled his wine and looked amused by our presence.
“So, tell me,” he said. I could already tell by the tone in his voice that whatever he was about to say would surely be repugnant. “Do you all sleep with my daughter at once, or do you take turns?”
Adam growled. “Why you son of a—”
I was surprised to see that it was Adam getting ready to lose his cool instead of Michael. Julian grabbed his wrist before Adam had stood up from the table and tried to take a shot at my father.
“It’s not worth it,” he said to him as Adam sat back down in his chair with his fists still clenched.
“Why did you invite us here?” Michael asked. “I’m guessing it wasn’t to gloat over your murder of my mother because then I would have to be the one to jam a knife into your throat tonight.”
My father did a pathetically poor job of acting sorrowful over Marta’s death. “Horrible thing,” he said. “She was a lovely woman.”
I reached my hand under the table and placed it on Michael’s thigh to keep him calm. I could feel the nervous energy surging in him, and the last thing I needed was for one of my guys to further provoke this nonsense.
“But no, that’s not the reason I invited you here. I wanted you to meet someone.” He motioned to the doorway, where s
omeone had apparently been waiting.
My jaw dropped when the platinum-haired boy from my dream walked into the room. Except he wasn’t a boy anymore, he was a full-grown man. It wasn’t because of how handsome he was that my mouth hung open; it was because of the uncanny resemblance to the guy I had literally just dreamt about. I had the haunting feeling that I knew him from somewhere. I looked over at Julian, and I could see that he had the same reaction.
We both remembered him from somewhere, but I still didn’t know where.
The man walked closer, and Julian kicked me under the table.
“I know where I’ve seen him before,” he whispered. “He used to hang out with your mom.
“What?” I never remembered seeing any other kids around my mom besides Julian and me.
“Yeah, I’m sure of it now. He used to hang out in that shed behind your house.”
I was bewildered. But the surer Julian looked about it, the more the memories from my childhood started to crawl back into my mind as well. He was right; I remembered that boy too. I remembered that sometimes my mom and I would have him over for dinner and that sometimes we would put puzzles together on a blanket that my mom would spread out in the back yard. He didn’t come over too often, but sporadically throughout my whole childhood, I would see him every now and then.
How could I have forgotten about him?
I still didn’t remember his name, though.
“Everyone,” my father announced as he stood up and put his arm over the man’s shoulder. “I’d like you to meet David, my son.”
Everyone at the table stared at me as if I had some sort of prior knowledge of this, which of course, I didn’t.
“Your son?” Julian asked.
My father motioned David to sit down next to him.
“David,” my father said as he motioned to us. “This is your sister, Lisette, and her three lovers.”
“Careful,” Michael said in a low growl. “You invited us here, Jack, and we came. Let’s not make this messier than it already is.”
Ruined: A Dark Bully Reverse Harem Romance (Beautiful Tyrants Book 1) Page 20
