“Strength?” she questioned in utter shock, her voice shrill. “If he is Shiloh Oliver, he’s a weak and deranged man. And if I’m not mistaken, he did the same things to you that Noah did. The same things Gregory did. You mean to tell me you’re in love with a rapist? Over my dead body. He belongs under the jail.”
“You don’t understand.”
“You’re surely right, I don’t.” Her head weaved with her discontent. “If we’re going to share the same roof, you’re going to have to accept my rules. I want you to admit yourself to a behavioral center, where you will get around-the-clock care. I’ll help you every step of the way. We’ll get this man out of your system…”
As she continued to relay her plans for my life, I grew despondent. The walls of the home began to close in on me, forcing the urge to leave into my limbs.
As the house became a whirl of movement around me, I heard my mother call for me. She gripped my arm to stop me as I descended the stairs. I turned to view her tear-filled eyes.
“If you leave this house,” she forewarned, “Keaton, that’s it. Don’t expect to come back. If I have to give you tough love, so be it. I’ve tried everything else. You have to want help, Keaton. If you stay in this house, that is the stipulation.”
I slipped out of her grasp, keeping my back to her until I reached the front door. I glanced from her to my father, sweeping my cheeks dry of the moisture. “I love you both. So much. Thank you for giving me life. Thank you for my life.” Clutching my keys from the ring, I removed the house keys, leaving them on the table beside the door. With my shoulders held high, I left my childhood home and never turned back.
I’d almost given up hope, and thought my long drive was in vain. When the door swung open, revealing Brandy and Archie, sadness hidden behind their weary eyes, a small tinge of short-lived relief consumed me.
She spread her arms, hugging me and welcomed me inside. “This isn’t over, Keaton.”
I parted from her open arms to stare into her hopeful jade eyes.
“If you’re ready to get your hands dirty,” she said. “I have a way we can save Braedan.”
“Save him?” I questioned. “Even knowing who he is, you’re on his side?”
“Shitty people can sometimes be good people. He came to me like a man and warned me about who he was. He was more real than most people I know. I’m on both of your sides. I always was.” She set her eyes to the door of the antechamber, and asked, “Are you ready to set this shit right?”
Puzzled I glanced from her to the door, and gave her a nod of assurance.
THE SUN ASSAULTED my eyes. I blinked, taking in the view of a different world, changed internally from my vantage point in the years I spent away from it.
My past and lack of evidence saved me from a life in prison. My punishment was a couple of years in a state-run facility, namely, due to my crimes during my time at Rebirth. I relived my life repeatedly while a stranger listened to stories of my past and directed me, eventually deeming me fit to live in the world. It was as if all the crimes I committed as Braedan never occurred. The trail to prove they had happened were erased from existence.
I received messages from Keaton daily. I wrote her a dozen messages—I was able to access technology during my lawyer or Archie’s visits. I distinctly lacked the courage to press send. In my need to reprimand myself, I negated the idea of reconnecting with her. I desired more than ever for her to move on without me standing in front of her as a dark shadow, clouding her way to a better life.
Over the years, the postcards and photographs began to change, evolving from the blindingly dire letters to short postcards. She’d moved from underneath her parents overbearing nature and had begun to travel the world. Postcards from London, Dubai, Tokyo, Cambodia, and many more decorated my wall during my time at the facility. Where once I never received pictures from her, a year ago, she began to send them to me quarterly. The light I wanted to see in her had returned. Whether she had turned to charity work at an orphanage or a refuge for women, the illuminance of a woman who was happy radiated from the pictures. Some of the photographs featured her friend Brandy. I was glad she was able to reconnect with the individual who loved her more than she could fathom.
Time without her was an eternity I could barely endure. Her postcards and pictures were my immunity boosters, shielding me from my genetic preposition to take on the traits of a woman who constantly attempted her life and spread misery.
With my belongings stowed away in a clear plastic bag, I escaped the retracting gates of the facility to be greeted by Archie, recently tanned with a smile rivaling the brightness of the sun. He embraced me warmly, and took a moment to observe me. “That’s new.” He pointed to the cut above my brow, matching my brother’s.
“A man who belonged in restraints learned very quickly not to provoke me.”
“And is that what added to your time?”
I settled into the passenger seat of Archie’s vehicle. “I was expecting to spend an eternity in prison, as we agreed.” I referenced the long trial, to my surprise represented by a very good friend of Nathan’s—a criminal lawyer who never lost a case. Keaton was at every court date. I fought against my baser desires to connect with her. She wasn’t allowed visits, at my request. After my sentence in a mental health facility, she ceased her attempts to see me.
“You’ll never let me live that down,” Archie hummed as he proceeded to drive.
“I was never given an explanation as to why you went against my wishes.”
“Something to chat about on the way home? Or perhaps never?”
“Food would be preferable,” I remarked. “I haven’t had a decent meal that didn’t come from a plastic heat-and-eat bag in quite some time.”
“I’ve had food catered. You’ll find a smorgasbord of a bit of everything when we return home.” He tapped on the steering wheel, squirming in his seat about possible withheld thoughts.
“Have you heard from Keaton?”
“She only lived with me through the duration of your trial. After you spurned her, she eventually moved on and travelled the world with her friend Brandy. She told me she often sent you correspondence. Letters you ignored.”
“I wanted her to move on.”
“Have you?”
Recalling the days I lay awake, and reliving every moment I shared with Keaton, my hands began to ache for her. I hadn’t moved on, and I didn’t believe I’d ever be able to. For that reason, I could never see her or correspond with her. I’d never cured the disease of obsession within me, thriving and breathing by every thought of her.
The home appeared more expansive than I once remembered. Many of the interiors had changed, giving way for a lighter and more comforting home.
“I was a bored, lonely old man,” Archie offered in explanation.
The smell of food permeated my senses. The undercurrent of more than one person tending to the kitchen set me at unease. I assumed Archie might’ve gone beyond what I desired as a welcome, and hired workers to prepare a meal fit for a party totaling dozens.
When a familiar black and white cat scattered across the floor, escaping a toddler chasing after it, my unease was exasperated. A shorter haired and tanner Brandy chased after him, playfully calling for him. She plucked him up halfway to the formal living area. His protests reverberated in the hall until she began to swing him in the air, exposing his belly to her noisy kisses. The toddler threw his head back and laughed.
I was riveted, having never seen a mother and son interact the way they did.
“Hey, sexy.” Brandy caught sight of me, bringing the wriggling toddler toward me.
My words were lost to me. I expected if Brandy was there, Keaton would follow soon after. “You had a son?” I had no other words to say that wouldn’t have been a jumble of incoherent sentences.
“Hell no.” She propped him on one hip and balled her fist to punch my shoulder. “He’s my godson.”
I scarcely wanted to wrap my mind around it.
I had succumbed to the idea of living a miserable existence and never resigned myself to obtaining anything more. The small boy with hazel eyes caught my attention and smiled at me. He extended his hands, stating a word I couldn’t allow myself to discern.
From the kitchen, a beaming Keaton appeared. Upon sight of her, the little boy’s words couldn’t have been mistaken.
“Back to Mama.” Brandy set the boy down who gladly ran to Keaton.
Her radiant energy entranced me and stunned me into silence. “Welcome home.” The scent of her perfume intoxicated me as she placed her soft lips against my cheek. She handed her son to Archie and slipped her hand into mine, taking my belongings from me with the other and extending them to Archie.
As I roamed a house with foreign belongings, I began to think I’d been fooled into believing my dreams during my time in a mental health prison had come to fruition.
In the backyard, the scenery was reminiscent of a different yard from what I once remembered. A garden and a playset were set in lush green grass. Keaton’s smile was more genuine than I’d ever seen when she turned to me, prepared to speak.
If he believed my confidence, it was a lie. I was undeniably nervous and had no idea where we stood. I tried not to think the worst of his complete lack of correspondence in the past. Archie often told me Braedan believed he needed to punish himself. I had no intention of keeping him away from the life I thought he deserved and should’ve had; he didn’t exactly give me a choice in the matter.
The second he walked through the door, every inch of me could feel him as though he stood next to me. Nothing had changed for me, and I hoped it hadn’t changed for him either.
“I did what you said,” I told him.
“I…remember the postcards.” His eyes wandered around as though he didn’t believe what he was seeing.
As the silence passed, we both spoke at the same time. Laughed about it and offered the other one to go first.
“I have no idea what to say,” I told him with a laugh.
A hand swept my hair beyond my shoulders. “I think you do and have no idea where to begin.”
His hand lingered and I took it as a sign, but as I moved near him, he moved away from me. “Keaton…” With a shake of his head he tried to deny what was there.
It didn’t matter what he did or didn’t say. I could feel it between us as if the space and the skin separating us didn’t exist. I could see through his need to push me away as well as he could probably see through my need to bring him closer. “I never let go,” I told him, sadness parting my happiness. “Have you?”
“I meant what I said to you years ago.”
“Well, I don’t agree.”
“Keaton—”
“No.” I threw my arms around him, locking my fingers behind his neck. I tipped up to allow my lips to linger in front of his mouth. “You’re mine and you’re not going to talk your way out of this. If I never want to forget and want to punish you for the rest of our lives, so be it. You put yourself in my hands, you can’t remove yourself from that path. I won’t let you again. You’re mine.” A smile stretched my lips. “Whether I want you to worship me, or to be my slave, you’re mine.”
He fought with a grin and almost lost. “Do you still love me, Keaton? Because if you do, I don’t deserve it.”
“I love you. Believe me, I fought it for years. Every time I looked at my son—our son—I remembered. Being with you right now it’s like the years you were gone never happened.”
“You deserve something pure. I can’t promise you that what I feel for you will be anything remotely pure.”
“I don’t want pure. I want you. I want…us.”
Whatever held him back snapped to the breaking point. His hands were behind my head, pulling me in for a kiss to make up for the years we spent apart.
“Keaton, the ice cream cake is on the brink of melting,” my mother interrupted us from the doorway. “And your father is perusing Archie’s wine collection and making me nervous.”
With a groan, I tore my lips from his, unable to let go of his hand. “Tonight, when everyone is gone,” I promised him.
“Tonight,” he said, giving me a smile devoid of the guilt he once held.
I turned to my mother, adjusting my lipstick with a swipe of my thumb and annoying her for not doing it as demurely as she would have wished. She would never change, nor would I.
After my son was born, we were able to find a way to meet on the same road while standing on opposite sides. While she said she would never welcome Braedan without apprehension, she wanted to be a part of her grandchild’s life. When Brandy and I took a break from making sure he was the best traveled little boy around, he would spend time with his grandparents. It brought us closer, despite us never speaking about what tore us apart. There was no need. It was the thing about family. We would fight and disagree only to come together over something bigger than ourselves.
“Braedan.” My mother gave him a tight-lipped grin.
“It's good to see you as well, Mrs. Mara,” he replied, casting an uneasy grin her way.
“Half-melted cake is waiting.” With a turn on her stilettos, she headed inside.
Braedan gave me a sideways glance. “It became remarkably colder.”
“There are some things I can’t fix. She has her views, and I have mine.”
“I’ve had worse treatment.” He knotted his hand in mine and kissed the back of it. “Keaton…it’s going to take me time to think I deserve any of this.”
“I know. I’ve been patient for this long. I can wait until you believe you do.”
With the day at an end, after putting my son to sleep and leaving Braedan to connect with him and read him a bedtime story, I turned down the stairs for what would be my very last visit to the basement.
My friends Archie and Brandy were enamored with a movie in the family room, and my mother and father were long gone after their discomfort was palpable to everyone.
With no one around to notice me, I punched a code into the panel beside the antechamber of Braedan’s home and descended the stairs.
The cages had long gone empty, but behind the glass, a bearded and grungy Noah was there to greet me with a strained smile, hiding what many years in a prison of his own making had done to his mind.
“Did you see your brother?” I glanced at the television screens beyond his reach, mounted to the walls, showing a live feed of the activity in almost every room in the house. “He’s here because of your help.”
“Help you tortured out of me. I couldn’t care less about him, princess.” He brushed his hands over his dark beard and stepped toward the glass, nearly pressing his body against it. A quick glance at the television outside his prison indicated he’d watched at least a minute of the live feed of the welcome home party. “So he’s back, and what are you going to tell your son about how you met his father? That he raped you, demeaned you—”
“Braedan has, and will, atone for his sins every day,” I interrupted him. “He recognizes what he did wrong, and I know he’s sorry. You’ve done nothing but try to justify everything you’ve done to me.”
“I believe this is the start of you and my brother tag-teaming me. Believe me, princess, if you and your whore of a friend couldn’t break me, neither will Shiloh.” He glanced behind him at the gun on the bed. Bending forward, he rested his elbows on his thighs and glared at me. “Try harder.”
“I think you do care, Noah. I think you’ve been glued to the screen of the bits of his life I’ve let you see, watching his every moment. While there are no words to describe you, you’re not heartless. I believe you loved me in your own way, and I believe you wish the life you see on the screens had belonged to you and me.”
“I don’t…fucking care,” he muttered. His hands began to shake and he had difficulty looking at me. He stared at the screen, currently revealing Braedan in our son’s room as he tucked him in and placed the book he had read him on the table. He turned out the light, leaving
the door open a crack, and I couldn’t contain my smile.
“How long are you going to keep me here?” Noah asked, his voice sounding like something other than his own.
“You have the answer to that question, Noah. You did from the second you were brought here after you healed under Dr. Moore’s special and private care.”
He rocked on the bed for a while. Making a decision, he dramatically ejected from the bed and placed his palms flat against either side of a desk in the corner of the room. “I’ll never kill myself and make it easier for you, princess. You want me dead, do it yourself. If…you have the courage.”
His eyes shot up to me, barely visible between his drawn eyelids. “You won’t break me. I’m made of something you never could be.”
“And I’m thankful you were never able to make me become you.” I touched the glass, making him step forward.
“Don’t be so sure, princess.” Tongue-in-cheek, his eyes pointed around his clear prison, resembling my room in the House of Rebirth.
“This is the last time you will see me this way. You have enough food on the storage shelves behind you to last a few more years. The television will continue to play out my life while you stay here alone.”
“So you know, your friend Brandy can’t get enough of me. I think in a few more days, she might turn on you and let me go.”
“You’re delusional.” I stepped away, turning out the light as I ascended the stairs.
As I closed the door to the antechamber by beginning to type a few secure numbers into the panel, a hand went over mine, startling me. “Braedan?”
“You’re not this person,” he whispered across my lips. “This was my original—and later abandoned—plan to be carried out by me, not you.”
“I know…”
“Then you won’t see him again.” It was a demand soaked in a sweetly stated request.
Seducing Virtue (Wicked Trinity Book 3) Page 27
