Chapter 23

Amelia

"Well, I have to say it's nice to see you smiling again after so many weeks," Mom says as she rounds the corner from the kitchen into the living room.

I drop my phone to my lap and place a hand on my bump, love for my daughter surges inside me when I feel her respond to my touch by kicking.

"I just spoke to Cronos," I tell her.

She smiles and nods, then claims her seat on the sofa next to me. "You really care about him, don't you?"

I have no idea why her question makes me feel shy but it's hard to explain what he means to me, love doesn't seem like an adequate word. "He's not just my man, he's my rest, my home, my heart and my safe place."

Mom's eyes soften, she reaches out and places her hand on top of mine, giving it a gentle pat. "All your father and I have ever wanted for you, was for you to be happy. Are you happy, baby girl?"

I mull over her words for a moment and debate how to answer. I decide to go with what I feel in my heart. "I wasn't for a long time. I thought diving into my career and burying myself in work would fill the void of loneliness but it didn't, it just masked it. I really thought Colson cared about me, Mom," I say bitterly.

"Honey, the thing about manipulators is when they blame you for your reaction to their toxic behavior, but never discuss their disrespect that triggered you. He used your good nature and big heart and wove a web of lies to try and turn you against your family…" She inhales sharply as if garnering the strength to continue. "For a long while he succeeded in doing that to you, but something tells me that we have Cronos Argyros to thank for showing you that we aren't monsters."

I balk at her. "Mom, I never thought you were a monster!"

She smiles sadly. "I wasn't talking about me, darling." Shame slams into me and I drop my gaze. "Your father never meant to hurt you, he thought he was doing the right thing."

"Why didn't he just tell me the truth about Colson?"

"How? He tried to talk to you after he fired Colson and banished him from the city but you wouldn't listen, Meelz. He tried for years to explain why he did what he did but you wouldn't hear him out, your anger consumed you and drove you away from us. He thought if you kept hating him then you would stay away and be safe from this life. Max Kingsley was created to give you freedom and a chance at a life without all of this bullshit."

"Max did give me all of those things but I was a fool for thinking I could ever escape who I truly am. If I had known who Colson really was, I would never have?—"

"Yes, you would have." I narrow my eyes at her, not liking how she thinks she knows what I would have done. "I knew who your father was, knew what his family did and swore I would keep you as far away from all of them as I could, but in the end I wasn't just lying to myself, I was lying to you as well."

"What?"

"Your father is my first love, Meelz, he is it for me. No man will ever hold a candle next to him. Colson was your first love." I cringe. "If anyone had told me that loving King Murdoch would get me kidnapped and raped, I would have told them all to fuck off because I was blinded by love."

Anguish surges inside me. "Mom, I am so sorry–"

She waves me off. "I moved on from that. For a long time I blamed your father as well, Amelia. I channeled all my anger and self-loathing onto him but it wasn't fair to him or me. I didn't hate him, I was angry with myself for falling in love with him when I knew exactly who he and his family were. My point is, no one could have told you the truth about Colson because you were in love with him and would never have seen his faults, even if your father showed the proof of him stalking you and trying to use you against him."

"I don't understand why he hates Dad so much," I admit.

"We were still at war with all the families, so many men risked their lives and some innocents were lost in the crossfire. During a shootout in downtown, a family was run off the road. The woman died on impact and so did the little girl in the backseat." I gasp and widen my eyes in horror. "The man was pinned behind the wheel and had a metal beam through his chest. Your father knew he wasn't going to survive so he promised to save the man's son, then put him out of his misery. What he didn't expect was when he dropped that child off at an orphanage, that he would grow up and come back to exact his revenge."

"Dad killed his family?" I breathe out.

She shakes her head. "No. The other family we were at war with did, your father was just the one to find them."

"Oh my God. Colson's anger is misplaced, he's blaming Dad for something he didn't even do."

She nods. "Colson thinks your father was the one who killed his family. We didn't know any of this until after your father banished him. Colson was to be killed, Meelz, for breaking the rules and getting involved with you." My eyes widen to the size of dinner plates.

"Why wasn't he?"

"When he admitted to who he was, your father felt guilty, so as penance he allowed him to go free. he never expected that Colson would ever return." I cover my mouth with my hand and recline back into the sofa as I absorb everything she has just said.

"I'm the worst daughter," I mutter.

Mom chuckles and shakes her head. "Every child hates their parents at least once in their lives." I pin her with a dry stare.

"Most kids don't run away and hide for years, Mom."

She rolls her lips over her teeth to keep from smiling. "Most kids also don't return pregnant with their niece's best friend, looking at them like they are his reason for breathing." Hearing her description of Nos has butterflies taking flight inside me.

"He's… God, Mom. I'm so fucked where he is concerned."

"You are not!" she abolishes.

"Mom, he is way younger than me… he's twenty-five for God's sake and shacking up with a thirty-seven-year-old pregnant woman whose life is a mess."

"Cut that shit out right now," she scolds. I suddenly feel like a child again and sit up straight. "Cronos is smart enough to know how fucking lucky he is to have someone as amazing as you in his life, not a lot of guys his age would step up the way he has. Jesus, from what I have heard, you kicked his ass out and then a year later turned up on his doorstep?—"

"Okay, Okay, I get the point, Mom. He's great, good to know." She laughs and I glare at her for a second before I join in. It feels good to laugh like this again. Her laughter dies off instantly and the look on her face has me sobering instantly. "What's wrong?"

"Go to the room and lock the door, now!" she snaps, pushes to her feet and rushes toward the front door, where she peers through the window and curses beneath her breath.

"Mom?" I call as I struggle to my feet and wince when the pain in my lower back makes itself known again.

"Go, now and don't fucking open that door!"

Fear takes hold of me. "Mom, what the hell is going on?"

She turns away from the window and races to her purse on the counter to retrieve two guns. My eyes widen when her fear filled gaze lands on me. "Call your father, lock the bedroom and stay there. You don't come out no matter what, Amelia." A memory of when I was child and how she hid me beneath her bed while she faced off against the men who kidnapped her slams into me.

"No, I am not leaving you again!" I yell. She rushes over to me and cups my face between her hands, her eyes hard and unyielding.

"Go to your room, call your father and wait for him and the other's to get here?—"

"Who is out there, Mom?"

"He found you, baby," she says quietly. I try to pull back but she doesn't allow it. "Let me protect you and my granddaughter the only way I know how."

Tears fill my eyes. "Mom, no I won't lose you?—"

"You protect that baby with everything you have, do whatever you have to in order to survive, do you understand me?" Gooseflesh dots my skin as tears fall down my cheeks.

"Mom, please?—"

"Hush. Go now, there isn't time to debate this, baby girl. Your father won't get here in time, so you need to be prepared for that. If you can escape out the back, you do that. Now go, Amelia!" She releases me with a gentle shove. I feel like a coward, the scum of the fucking earth as I turn my back on my mother. I peer back over my shoulder to see her standing there with a forced smile on her face and nodding at me encouragingly.

"I love you, Mom."

Her shoulders deflate. "And I love you, Amelia, more than you ever know. When you hold that little girl for the first time, you will understand then just how much I love you." A pit is forming in my gut, this is so fucking wrong. My family is the most powerful in the fucking world and my stupid decision to leave the safety and protection of my family's compound to return here so I can prepare for the arrival of my daughter, has put us all in danger. "Go!" she snaps.

"Mom—" I sob.

"Amelia, that little girl inside you is the priority, you protect her and fucking run. Don't you dare look back or try to come out. You find an exit and you take it."