“Trust me when I say that there is no preparing for Naomi,” Mark replied with a shake of his head. “I did my best to keep her locked away for years, but she is as smart as she is insane. I avoided contact with you altogether, hoping that Naomi would stay targeted on me when she got out of the institution since there would be no reason to even go after you if you didn’t have, or even know about, your inheritance.”
“Yeah, well that plan failed,” I said flatly.
“What is the inheritance tied to?” Adam asked. “Does Lisette need to be headmistress in order to claim access to it?”
“No,” Mark said.
I was surprised by his answer. I thought that the whole point of why Naomi was trying to make me headmistress was to get at the inheritance money.
“The inheritance is tied to fulfilling Paula’s dying wish,” he said.
I blinked. “I thought that was my mother’s dying wish.”
Mark got up from the table and walked down the hall and then into another room. When he came back, he was holding something in his hands. He leaned over the table and handed it to me.
“What is this?” I asked as I took the worn, leather-bound book from him.
“This was your mother’s,” he said. “I think you might want to take a look at it.”
I turned the brown book over in my hand and opened it to somewhere in the middle where my fingers happened to fall, and the binding spread open. It was a journal, and as I flipped through the pages, I saw each and every sheet of paper filled with my mother’s sprawling handwriting.
“My mother’s journal?” I asked as I looked up at my uncle with more questions than I had time to ask.
This book might have all the answers to the questions that I’ve carried around with me since my mother had died.
“Paula’s journal contains her dying wish,” Mark said as he reached over and pressed his finger against the front of the worn journal. “She entrusted me with it a few months before she died. She knew that things were getting bad, and I think that she knew her days were numbered. She wanted this journal to find its way to you, Lisette. Her journal tells what your inheritance is meant for.”
“You read it?” I asked, feeling invaded although I wasn’t sure why.
It wasn’t my journal, but I felt like I should have been the only one to see it.
“Yes,” he said. “I needed to see what I was risking my life to protect.”
Michael set his hand on my thigh and I looked over at him.
“I think you should take some time alone to read it then,” he said as he squeezed my knee.
I felt Adam and Rob stiffen around me as his hand mindlessly attempted to comfort me.
“You’re welcome to use the guest room,” Mark said as he pointed down the hall.
I took the book and got up from the table. I had come all this way to find answers, and now that I possibly held those answers in my hand, I was nervous.
Nevertheless, I got up and walked away, finding the guest room and perching on the edge of the bed with the book in my lap. I ran my fingers across the cover, which was so worn that it was soft. My mother had opened and closed this book countless times. I could tell because the spine was so broken that it flopped open like a rag doll. The pages all remained intact though, as if the defiance of each one to tear from the binding was a shouting battle cry. I started at the beginning and traced the letters of the date which was written in my mother’s familiar handwriting. She had started the journal in the month of August, and the “A” was scripted in a beautiful manuscript print that curled at the ends.
I missed my mother—so much.
Before I started to read the journal, I curled up onto the bed and wrapped one of the blankets around me. It wasn’t actually that cold inside of the house, but I felt cold. I felt as if there was a chill running through my bones. I looked out the window as day turned to dusk and I wondered for a second if maybe I shouldn’t have just listened to Michael. I could walk right back down that hallway now without reading this journal and I could toss it onto the table in front of my uncle and demand the inheritance money that was rightly mine. If there was some sort of condition to be met, I would argue that everything is so broken now anyway that it didn’t matter. I could just take the money, and the guys and I could get as far away from here as possible.
I was almost disgusted with myself for thinking about it, though. For thinking about taking the money and running. For abandoning my mother’s dying wish in exchange for peace and freedom for the four of us.
But then I remembered Julian, and I remembered how much I had wished that I had run with him when he asked me to run. He would still be alive right now if I had just listened to him and gotten the hell out of Charlotte when we should have.
That’s it, I’m not reading this, and I’m not staying here.
I stood straight up from the bed as if I had suddenly been electrocuted and I went confidently to the door with the intention of dropping this journal on the table and collecting my money. We would leave, all four of us, right now.
“Hey, where are you going?” Michael asked as soon as I had taken a step into the hallway and met him directly while he strode in to check on me.
How did he always know when I needed him? How did he always know when I was about to do something foolish or reckless and needed to be talked down off a ledge?
“I’m going to give this book back to my uncle,” I said.
“Your mother’s journal? Why?” he asked in confusion.
He was standing so close to me that I could smell the scent of his skin and it made me want to run away with him and forget about all of this even more than I already did.
“Don’t you want to know what her dying wish was?” he asked. “And what to do with the inheritance money?”
“No,” I said so pointedly that Michael could immediately tell that I didn’t mean it.
I sounded like a toddler getting ready to have a tantrum and I could tell that he knew it.
“Lisette,” Michael said as he took my hand and gently turned me back around to walk back into the guest room. “What are you doing?”
“What do you mean?” I asked in as plain of a voice as I could muster. “I’m giving the journal back and we’re getting my money and leaving.”
Michael shook his head at me as he led me back toward the bed and spun me around to sit back down on the edge of it. I sat there with the book in my lap looking up at him and it was hard not to divert my eyes from the truth that was staring back at me.
“You’re running away,” he said.
He was right; I was running away.
I shrugged. “So what if I am? It’s not like we all haven’t put in enough time and suffered enough loss. Maybe it’s time to run away now. Maybe running away is the smart thing to do.”
“I don’t believe that,” he said as he shook his head. “And neither do you.”
“You’re the one who said we should take the money and run,” I reminded him.
“Yep,” he said. “You’re right. You’re always right. Which is what I came in here to tell you. You should read the journal first, then make a decision. Don’t get me wrong, I still want to take the money and run. But I know you, and I know that you would never forgive yourself if you didn’t sit here and read what your mother wrote.”
I hated the fact that he was right. Just once, I wanted to take the easy way out. But he was right. Running would only seem easy for the first hour or the first day. After that, it would be a lifetime of torturing myself with regret. The look in my eyes must have changed, too, because Michael leaned forward, gave me a kiss on the cheek and a reassuring smile, and then left the bedroom, closing the door behind him. Then, I curled up once more with the journal in my hands.
And this time, I started to read.
4
Reading my mom’s journal was a very hard and emotional thing for me to do.
It was difficult to look at her handwriting without remembering how she
held a pencil between her fingers. When I read her words, it was as if I could hear her voice, speaking them inside of my head, and it reminded me of how terribly I missed her.
The journal was dated with entries from scattered dates in chronological order, but mostly they were one continuous story with bits and pieces of random musings inserted throughout. She had started this journal several months before she had died and she must have known that something bad was coming, even then. Because from the very first page, she starts laying out what she wants her inheritance money to be used for.
Specifically, what she wants me to use it for.
She also had the foresight to know that her lunatic sister would try to come after it.
My mother didn’t believe in giving up on damaged or broken people. She wanted to fix everyone. But possibly the most impressive part of her ambitions is that she believed everyone could be fixed, even the most hopeless of humans that most people had already given up on and turned away from. That explained why she took in David. And in her defense, she was right. David proved her right. In the end, he had a redeeming quality or two that emerged, which made it even more sad when his life was cut too short.
My mother had spent years of her life trying to help not only David, but the runaways at the halfway house, and even her sister. But the words in her journal depicted a sadness for Naomi and a guilt for not being able to better help her, even though she clearly wrote that she knew Naomi would try to steal the money and that she may even try to come after me with less than docile intentions.
That’s why my mother went to Mark and asked him to help.
She left him specific directions and then here, in this journal, she left the rest of the directions for me. She wanted me to use all of the money to build a sanctuary for troubled people; not just runaways or teens, but anyone who needed help, no matter how mild or severe their needs were. She also wanted Naomi to be put inside the sanctuary and cared for. I knew now that I couldn’t let Naomi get the money. The money needed to be used to help people like Naomi and my mother knew that’s what her sister needed, as well as so many others. She specifically stated in her journal that she wanted the sanctuary to be made in Charlotte, her hometown.
That was going to be a difficult thing to convince the guys of, though.
I didn’t want to go back there, and I know that the guys wouldn’t agree to it either, not with Naomi still there. But, if that was my mother’s final wish, then so be it.
I mean, this was who my mother was and the answer that I had been searching for. It wasn’t just a way to honor and avenge her, it was also a way to set things right. All the loss that we had suffered, that I had suffered, it could be turned into something worthwhile if I could fulfill my mother’s dying wish.
I had to do it, or at least I had to try.
Caring for these people that society overlooked had caused my mother to cross lines that she shouldn’t have, and it cost her life. But even then, even when she knew the end was coming, she still didn’t turn her back on any of them. She took the time to write this out not for herself, or for me, but for them.
I knew what I had to do.
“Well?” Rob asked as I walked back out to the table where they were all still sitting and waiting and engaging in awkward small talk. “Did you get any answers?”
“Yes,” I said as I sat down with them again. “I got the only answer that matters. I know what to do with the inheritance, and I know that the money needs to be kept away from my aunt. My mother wants me to use the money to build a sanctuary for troubled people.”
“Troubled?” Rob asked. “What exactly does that mean?”
I looked at him pointedly. “It means anyone that needs help. People like David, like the teens at the halfway house that won’t have anywhere to go when they’re adults if they still don’t have things figured out; even people like my aunt Naomi.”
“Naomi?” Adam asked with a snicker. “You can’t be serious.”
“Yes,” I said with a completely serious look on my face. “I am. My mother specifically wrote that Naomi needs to be taken care of at the sanctuary.”
“Lisette,” Michael interjected. “While I really admire your desire to fulfill your mother’s wishes and to help people, none of us are qualified or capable of taking care of mentally ill people.”
I shrugged. “It’s not going to be a medical facility,” I said. “We don’t need to be qualified for anything. It’s just a safe place to go for help. A place where their basic needs can be met, and there are people there to talk to for support. For some of them, that might be the difference between being on the street or committing a violent act. We could help to stop those things. We could try to fix pieces of the system that we’ve been fighting against for so long.”
Everyone stayed silent for a long time, and after a few moments I honestly thought the guys would fight me tooth and nail against the plan.
But then, Adam turned to face me.
“Alright,” Adam said out of the blue. “I’m game.”
“Really?” I asked in surprise.
That was way easier than I thought it would be to convince any of them.
And still, Adam stuck with it. “Yeah, why not? It doesn’t sound that different than running the halfway house, with the exception that they won’t all be teens, and that they might be a bit more screwed up. But it’s not like we haven’t been able to handle screwed up shit before. If we can help some people this time, and we have the money and resources to do it, then I say let’s give it a shot. Where should we build it? Here in Maine? Or should we go back to Asheville and build it in the mountains near the cabin?”
“Well,” I said as I hesitated to answer that question. “My mother asked for it to be built in her hometown.”
“Oh, hell no,” Michael said as he shook his head harshly.
Adam grimaced as if the announcement of the location had made him rethink his previous enthusiasm.
“What?” Rob asked, completely in the dark about why everyone was so put-off. “Where was your mother’s hometown?”
“Charlotte,” I answered.
He blinked. “Wait, wait, wait, wait. So, you want to go back toward your crazy, lunatic aunt who is trying to kill us?”
The pitch in his voice rose unnaturally high to match his surprise, and his following words didn’t shock me one bit. “I have to agree with Michael on this one. That sounds like a horrible idea. Actually, it sounds like the absolute worst idea ever. Naomi nearly killed Michael, tormented and tortured us, and she’s also the reason you took off like a bat out of hell and nearly ended up dead in a ditch on the side of the road somewhere.”
Then, Mark jumped into the argument. “I don’t even know everything that happened to the four of you. But I can tell you that Naomi is much more capable of violent danger than you could possibly imagine. It’s a terrible idea to get anywhere near her. I know your mother wanted to help our sister, and I know that she left you instructions to try and help Naomi too, but it’s a really bad idea, Lisette. Naomi won’t hesitate to kill everyone she comes into contact with at the drop of a hat.”
“I don’t care,” I said stubbornly. “I’ve been trying to figure out why my mother did the things that she did for this entire time. Now I know, and I won’t be talked out of taking this path. What else do I need to do to claim my inheritance?”
“Nothing,” Mark said as he conceded, although still shaking his head.
He got up and walked over to a drawer in the kitchen, pulled up a tray of silverware, and then yanked off the false bottom. Then he lifted his hand out of the drawer, and in it was a folder that looked as if it was bulging at the seams.
“This folder has everything you need,” he said as he walked back over and handed it to me. “The bank account information that the money is in with your name on it, the safe deposit box key, the instructions for you to take full control of the account. Hell, there’s even a debit card in there for you to use. It’s all yours with a quic
k stop at the bank.”
“Thank you,” I said with a grateful smile as I held onto the folder in one hand and my mother’s journal in the other. “Not just for the money and my mother’s journal, but for keeping everything safe and waiting for me.”
“It was my honor,” he said. “I loved your mother. I loved both of my sisters, even crazy Naomi. But I loved your mother the most. I’m just sorry that I wasn’t around more in your life as you were growing up. But I’m here now and I’ve done my part to make sure Paula’s inheritance ended up with you. I’m here for you now with whatever it is that you need, and that includes trying to get to know each other and make up for lost time. I’d love to share some of the memories that I have of your mother when we were kids. She was every bit as adamantly noble as a kid as she was as an adult.”
The thought of that made me smile. I imagined that my mother had probably always been a bit of a headstrong handful. After all, that’s where I got it from. Now if I could only get the other three guys on board. I turned to look at Michael, thinking that my best chance at garnering support from any of them would be from him.
But he didn’t look happy at all.
“Please,” I pleaded with him. “I can’t do this without you. I don’t want to do this without you.”
Michael drew in a deep breath and then simultaneously shook his head before rolling his eyes as he reached for my hand on top of the table.
“Of course, I’m not going to let you do this without me. If this is really what you’ve decided to do, then I’ll be right there alongside you. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I think it’s a really bad idea.”
“Duly noted,” I said as I squeezed his hand. “And thank you.”
“We’ll all be with you, Lisette,” Rob added, his voice holding a hint of resentment. “But we’re all in agreement that this could end up going horribly sideways.”
“I know,” I said.
I understood the risk that I was taking, and the risk that I was asking them to take with me as well. I loved and appreciated each of them.
Vicious: A Dark Bully Reverse Harem Romance (Beautiful Tyrants Book 3) Page 3
