“Fine.” She whispered, slowly stepping back a step. Watching as he other walked into the house. Not once taking her eyes off of her. She didn’t trust her. She didn’t trust her one bit.
The door slammed closed.
Elena jumped, turning on her heel, and following her mother into the kitchen.
“Elena, you’re doing what?” Kiana’s question came out a squeak. She stopped, staring at Elena than at Kieran. “Elena, please tell me you’re not planning to take on your father and the whole blasted organization. Please tell me that’s not what you’re planning.”
“Okay. I won’t tell you then.”
“Dammitt, Elena!” Kiana screamed. “Dammitt, Elena, what are you thinking! Seriously! Do you have any idea how powerful your father is? How much rage he has deep inside of him? Do you have any idea how many people are working for him? Do you even have any idea how bit the organization really is? Elena, you’re going to get yourself killed! It’s suicide going up against him!”
“I doesn’t matter.” Elena whispered. Staring at her mother from across the table. “Too many people have died, Mom. Innocent people. Bombs are going off all over the country. Armies are taking down cities. Houses are being burned down. People are being shot in the middle of the streets. He’s lost all control, Mom and someone has to stop him. Someone has to stop him before he puts this entire country into the ground.
“Elena—“
“Do you really think I care what you think, Mom?” Elena asked, chucking a little. “I don’t care what you think, Mom. You know why? You’re supposed to be dead, Dammitt!” she slammed her fist on the table. “You’re supposed to be dead, remember? I saw you, Mom! I saw you that night, get dragged out of the house by some guy in a mask. Dad, showed me your freaking body parts! And now, I find out that everything I have known about you is a lie. You’ve been alive all these years, and you didn’t come back for us. You didn’t come back for us, Mom!”
“Elena, you don’t understand. Everything I did. Everything I’ve done. It’s been in the best interest of you and your sisters.”
“My best interest?” Elena laughed. “Really? Is that what you tell yourself? That staying away has been your way of protecting us? That leaving us in our father’s capable hands was for our own good? Good God, what is wrong with you! He turned us into monsters, Mom! He forced us to fight each other. He trained us in the arts of combat. He let those men hit us. He punched us. Kicked us. Hit us with belts. He hurt us, Mom, and it’s your fault. You could have saved us. But instead you let him damage us. You let him destroy us. Destroy our lives. Gee, Mom, if that’s in our best interests I’m so glad you were thinking about us. I really appreciated you putting our needs above your own. I really appreciate you putting our lives. Our childhood above anything else. I really appreciate you looking out for us.”
“Elena, you don’t—“
“Good God, would you both just shut up!” Kieran snapped from where he was standing next to Elena. Rolling his eyes. “You’re like a couple of freaking teenagers. What’s done is done. You can’t go back and change the past, and one thing is for sure, you are not going to change anything if you keep yelling at each other.” He rubbed a hand against his head. “Plus you’re giving me a headache. Now, will you both please just sit down?”
The women stared at him.
“Sit down!” he shouted.
He watched as they finally took a seat at the table. Then he pulled out the chair. Sitting next to Elena. “Now, you two can hate each other as much as you like, I really don’t care. But we have bigger problems. There’s an organization out there that’s destroying the world. That’s killing innocent people. It needs to be stopped and whether you guys like it or not we are in this mess together. So let’s put our problems aside and see if we can’t help one another out.” He linked his hands together, staring at them each. “Now, Kiana, why don’t you start from the beginning?”
“It’s a long story.” Kiana whispered.
“We’ve got time.” Elena muttered underneath her breath.
Kieran turned, glaring at her.
Elena glared back at him, suddenly very angry at him. Why wasn’t he taking her side in this? He was supposed to be supporting her. Her! But instead, he was acting like she didn’t even matter to him.
Good God, what was wrong with her! She thought to herself. She didn’t need some man taking her side all the time. She didn’t need some man to hold her hand all the time. She was stronger than that. She definitely did not need to pout over her feelings being hurt because Kieran wasn’t supporting her. She was better than that!
“You want me to start from the beginning?” Kiana asked, raising a brow. “In order to do that I have to go way back. To twenty-five years ago. To when I first met Abel.” She smiled. Staring across the table at Elena. “Your father wasn’t always a bad man.” She whispered. “There was a time when he was one of the sweetest, most gentlemen I had ever met. And trust me, I had met my share of assholes throughout the years. But that day, twenty-five years ago, when he came up to my table at the University will stay with me until the day I die. He was so kind. So sweet. And so shy. And he held a rose out to me, telling me he thought I was one of the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.” A smile crossed her face. “He was like that. Doing just random stuff like that. Sending me flowers. Passing me notes. Even bringing a picnic basket on campus to swoop me off my feet.”
“Such the romantic.” Elena muttered.
“He went out of his way to make sure I knew that he liked me. That he wanted me, and soon we started dating, and a year later we were married with our first child on the way. You.” She unfolded her arms, linking her fingers together and resting them on the table. “The moment you were born, he was the happiest man alive. He couldn’t stop staring at you. He couldn’t stop holding you. You were his greatest gift, and then the rest of your sisters were born. You were about ten years old, when everything changed.”
“Why did it change?”
“Your father was in a good place. We were all in a good place. He had his teaching job. I had my secretary job. We were bringing money into the house. We had food on the table. We had a roof over our heads, and then, I lost my job. It was at that moment, your father changed. He was stressed. And I can’t say I blame him. He was the only one bringing any money into the house. He had ten young girls to feed. Anyone in that situation would have been stressed. And then the news of his father broke out. I never knew much about his father. It was something we’d never really talked about. All I knew was that he was alone. He had no one, and that was enough for me. All I ever wanted was for him to know that I was there for him. That I would never leave him. But that day, I learned so much about your father in such a short time. I learned that he’d been abandoned by his father when he’d been just sixteen years old. I learned that his mother had died in a car accident just after his graduation. And now, years later, the FBI had found and arrested his father. He’d been one of the most wanted men in the country. Words like terrorism. Murder. Kidnapping, were thrown around and soon everything changed. The man I knew. The man I fell in love with. He was gone. He would lock himself in his office for hours on end. He didn’t eat. He didn’t drink. He didn’t sleep. He just stayed locked up in that office doing lord knows what. I tried to let him be. I tried to talk to him. I tried to get him to come out of that office, but he didn’t want to do any of that. He just wanted to be left alone and silence descended between us. He no longer looked at me the way he used to. He was just gone.”
Elena pushed away from the table, rising to her feet. Feeling restless.
“Six months later, your father left for a teacher’s conference in New York and that’s when I knew I had my chance. I walked into his office, and what I saw almost floored me. Collages were plastered all over the room. Of his father’s offenses. Of the people he had killed. I honestly hadn’t known anything about it, until I was standing there, staring at the operation his father, Dominic had created
. An operation designed to turn men and women into deadly assassins. There were pictures plastered all over the room of people Dominic had deemed unworthy to live in this world, and in the center of it all, had been a letter. Dominic had written to his son. And I freaked.” Kiana rose to her own feet, crossing to the window. “I got on the phone as quick as I could and I called a friend. Simon O’Rourke. I’d gone to school with the man. We’d dated, and I knew if I ever needed anything I could rely on him. So I asked Simon to follow Abel and tell me what happened. When Simon got back, he told me the worst news I could have ever gotten. Your father had gone to see Dominic.”
Elena turned, her fingers gripping around the back of the chair.
“I was furious with Abel. I couldn’t believe that he would do something like that. Dominic had abandoned him. He hadn’t been a father to him. Why would he want to go see his father of all people? The man was hurting innocent people! I didn’t understand it! I couldn’t understand it! I was so emotionally distraught, that I wasn’t even thinking, and I kissed Simon. When your father came home, he found us in bed together.”
Elena felt her blood run cold.
“He was livid, storming into the house, grabbing Simon and dragging him down the stairs. I ran after him, screaming, watching as he threw Sam out of the house yelling at him to never come near his house or his family ever again. Then he turned to me. I had never seen his eyes so cold. He slapped me hard across the face, and told me that I would never be free of him. That I was his and only his. And that’s when I realized I had to do something fast. I loved you girls. It pained me to think that I had to leave you with him, but I had to get away, or he was going to kill me. I knew that he was going to start taking over the operation his father had started, and if I told anyone I was dead. So I met Simon one day when Abel wasn’t home, and devised a plan to stage my kidnapping.”
“You had him fake your abduction?”
Kiana nodded. “Yes. I told him he had to make it real. So he brought a couple of friends with him. The one thing I hadn’t planned on was you coming down to try to rescue me. God, Elena, I was so scared you were going to get hurt. I know Simon wouldn’t hurt you. He knew how important you were to me. I just wasn’t sure about your father. I tell you, watching your father get shot that day, it was the highlight of my day. Sam cared about me. He still love me, and I know he would have killed him if I had let him. But I couldn’t. So instead, Sam took me by the arm and dragged me out of the house. Two of his friends outside had been pouring gasoline around the house and just before we left we lit a match and drove off as it was going up in flames.”
“And the body parts?”
“I knew Abel wouldn’t stop looking for me, unless if he knew I was dead. So I had to think fast. When we were a couple hundred miles away from home, we stopped at a nearby cemetery. A young girl had just been buried. She looked a lot like me. Blonde hair. Green eyes and together Simon and I dug her up and chopped the body into pieces. Sending them to your father.
“Oh God.” Elena held a hand to her mouth. She felt like she was going to be sick.
“I was finally free of him, and Sam and I went our separate ways. I’ve been hiding in the shadows ever since until I heard of a young woman in the city of Chicago who had sacrificed her own life to save a family.” Kiana smiled. “I knew it had to be you, Elena.”
“How?”
“You’re strong. You’re brave. There is so much of me inside of you it makes me proud. It makes me so proud. Your father has been through so much, Elena, he’s seen the dark side of the world. The bad people in it. Dominic brainwashed him. He was lead to believe the world is a terrible place and no good can come from it. That the people of this world needed to be eliminated. I’m so glad you never developed that thought process, Elena. You’re my daughter through and through.”
“Your daughter?” Elena laughed, bowing her head for a moment, and raising it to stare at her mother. “Wow. You really think I’m like you? I am nothing like you!” she screamed. “Good God, did you even stop to listen to yourself? You cheated on Dad, Mom! Did you ever stop to think for just a moment that maybe he wasn’t going to follow in his father’s footsteps? That his family was more important, until he found you in bed with another man? He had every right to be upset. And then you faked your death, because you couldn’t be around him? You dug up a body pretending for it to be yours? Do you realize how twisted that sounds? Do you?”
“Elena—“
“No. No. No. I will not listen to another word that comes out of your mouth. You’re sick!”
“Elena—“
“My sisters and I, for years were forced to carry out his orders against our will. He thought you were dead. He was filled with revenge, because he thought he was avenging you!”
“Trust me, if I’d known he was going to do this to you girls, I never would have left.”
“Trust you?” Elena laughed. “How on earth can I trust you when I don’t even know who you are anymore? You’re not my mother anymore. You’re not the woman I once knew. You’re nothing to me. You left your own children behind to save yourself. You put Dad on this destructive path. You are responsible for the world being torn apart. You are responsible for us turning into monsters, and for that, I will never, ever forgive you!”
Elena shoved the chair back.
It toppled to the floor.
And she raced out of the house. Her legs and arms pumping fast.
Her feet raced down the sandy hill. Seeping into the sand.
And she stumbled. Falling forward on her knees and stared ahead of her at the ocean. Tears running down her face.
“Just when I thought this family couldn’t get any worse.” She whispered out loud.
Then she bowed her head, falling face first into the sand, sobs racking her body.
“Elena, wait!”
Kiana rose from her chair, starting towards the door.
“Sit back down, Kiana.”
Kiana swung her head back around, a gasp escaping her mouth, as she stared into the barrel of the gun Kieran had pointed directly at her.
“Put that away.” She whispered.
“I don’t think so.” Kieran whispered, rounding the table and staring at the woman. “You see, Kiana, I don’t trust many people in this world. But the people I really don’t trust are people who come back from the dead. In my experience, people only come back from the dead for two reasons. One they have unfinished business, or two they have secrets. And you, Kiana, I bet have a lot of secrets.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I came back to see my daughter. I’m her mother. She needs me.”
“You haven’t been her mother for a very long time.”
“How can you say that?”
“Are you blind? Did you not see the way she looks at you? She hates you! You ruined her. You lied to her. You hurt her, and for that she will never forgive you. Now sit down!”
Kiana turned, raising her hands in the air, and lowered herself back in her seat.
“Now tell me, why are you really here?”
“I told you. I’m here for my daughter.”
“You could have seen her years ago, but you didn’t.”
“I was scared.”
“We’re all scared.”
“I was young. I was stupid. I was—“
“Stop making excuses!” Kieran shouted. “And tell me the truth! Why are you here?”
“You really don’t want me to answer that, do you, Kieran?”
Kieran’s eyes widened. “How do you—“
“Oh I know all about you, Kieran.” Kiana whispered, rising to her feet. “I know all about that ten year old boy Dominic found living on the street with his father. The father who sold his own son for a better life. For a roof over his head. For food on his table. For getting rid of his gambling problem. I know all about the boy Dominic raised. The boy who was the first to learn how to fight. How to use different weapons. Who was the first soldier to carry out orders in t
he organization and who was the first to go against the organization.” She took a step around the table.
“Sit back down!”
“Or what? You’ll shoot me?” Kiana laughed, shaking her head. “Oh Kieran. Do you really think that’s wise to shoot the mother of the girl you’re fucking? Oh I’m sure she’d really want to fuck you when you’ve got her mother’s blood on your hands.”
“Don’t talk about her like that! She’s not like that. She’s more than that.”
“Except, she can never be more than that.” Kiana whispered, her hands bracing on the tables. “Because all she will ever be is a soldier, and I have very big plans for both of you.” And she shoved the table back hard.
Kieran gasped, the table slamming into him.
He stumbled back, his back slamming against the counter behind him.
He lifted his head.
His arms were stuck.
He couldn’t move.
And he lifted his head, watching as Kiana raised her hand, a gun laying there.
And a moment later, the sound of gunfire filled his ears.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Something was very, very wrong.
Elena raised her head, staring out into the ocean.
Overhead, an eagle flew high above.
She stared at it. Watching as the gorgeous creature flew through the air.
Everything seemed so messed up, she thought to herself. Her father was a monster, taking lives without a single thought. Her mother was alive. Sacrificing her own children. Sacrificing a young woman’s grave, just so she could live.
Could she ever be capable of something like that? She thought to herself. Could she turn her back on her own family just so save herself? Could she fake her death, using another young woman as a way of giving herself a new life? Could she ever be that insensitive to the people around her?
And she remembered her mother’s words the day she’d taken from the house.
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