30. ~Skylar~

I should've known better.

"You don't need to worry about any of it, I'll handle it."

Bastian's promise to me.

One I'd believed in.

Far too easily at that.

Like a fucking fool.

I'd gotten sucked in so completely. To him. To Caleb. To Caspian.

The whole thing had pulled me into some sort of reverie. A bubble, really. It had seemed untouchable. And in all honesty, an escape from reality, something I'd been struggling with ever since Jett had forced his way into my life and tried to wreck me to pieces.

But there was no true escape from any of it.

I should never have allowed myself to go down that path.

I should never have allowed myself to become so immersed in them.

The all-consuming fucking, the thrill and the empowerment of working alongside The Jackals and getting back out there again delivering punishment and justice, the intensity and freedom of being around the three of them, the acceptance and understanding and the amazing sense of belonging that I'd never felt before… it had all had me succumbing and letting go of control, allowing them to take the wheel.

I'd made a mistake.

It had taken power out of my hands, power that I'd worked so long to create in myself, to build myself into since I was a teenager and I'd made a vow that I'd never be at anyone's mercy in any sense.

And now, here I was at the mercy of everyone.

Jett. Damien. The paparazzi. The whole fucking city.

Yet again, right when I'd been about to get back on the path all that bullshit before had torn me from, it was all coming crashing down again.

Days had gone past and still that fucking video was being talked about non-stop.

I'd even had my application to the best design school in the city rejected. They hadn't wanted to deal with the massive media circus that was now associated with me. I believed it was more than even that, though. It was a prestigious school and having a student now attached to what had basically amounted to a porno would reflect badly on them. It had been really dirty and rough fucking too. Shit.

My dad had flipped out when he'd found out about it and now, despite my protests, he and Jeremy were working to track down the person responsible alongside Damien. How they knew it wasn't just him was bad enough, because it meant they were actually, unbeknownst to them, searching out Jett. The very thing I hadn't wanted to ever happen. Damien was also in their sights, but hard to get to because of his position among the elite, not to mention, his mom protecting him with the full might of the Thorn estate. My mom had been away for a couple of days at her development project, but when she'd come home, she'd actually broken her freeze-out with me because she'd been so appalled by it. Appalled at me, it seemed, more than at the situation itself. Because all she'd said to me was pretty much an I-told-you-so with me not keeping away from the very toxic elements she'd warned me about.

So, I'd been lying low ever since and I hadn't seen the guys at all.

At first, they'd been bombarding me with texts, asking if I was okay, and then wanting to see me. I'd told them that I was fine, but that I needed space.

They'd accepted that.

Initially.

Then this morning I'd woken up to a text from Bastian.

Bastian: You can't do this. You were all in. You're part of this now, of us. You can't just walk away.

In the state he was obviously in because of all of this, I doubted he'd realized it, but the message had come off so much like Jett's texts when he'd first discovered I'd left Vista Ridge.

It had sent a hell of a shudder through me.

The threat in it.

The promise of shackling me to them forevermore.

The unhinged nature of it.

I hadn't responded.

I wasn't intending to walk away, but a mere returned text wouldn't do much to reassure him of that.

Especially when I was reconsidering how things had turned out so far, how to put power and control back in my hands after giving them way too much.

I cared about them so much at this point, I was definitely deeply immersed with them, but the sex tape thing had been a wakeup call that I'd been way too close to losing myself in them.

I couldn't let that be, so I needed to find a balance with it all somehow.

Things needed to change where that was concerned.

AndI was also working on something else.

Using the connections I'd made as an esteemed fighter in the fight club near Vista Ridge, along with a couple of others I'd ventured out to and made a name for myself in, I was using the owners of those places to track Jett down.

Simply responding to his texts and asking him to meet was too dangerous. I couldn't allow him to know that I was coming. The element of surprise was key when it came to him.

All this time, I'd wanted to just put all of that behind me.

I'd thought he wouldn't be able to start up trouble again or to get to me with being back in Rossun—the home of his brother's enemy. But he'd found a way to do that without even being here in person.

He wouldn't stop.

So I would stop him.

It was what I should've done in the first place.

What he'd done to me had undercut my confidence and rattled me to such a degree that I'd turned away from the confrontation route completely.

I shouldn't have.

And now I would remedy that mistake.

Get ready, asshole.

Time to face what you've created.

Commotion coming from downstairs drew my attention and pulled me from my dark thoughts.

I walked to my bedroom door and opened it, focusing on what sounded like an argument taking place by the front door.

My mom was blasting somebody.

I frowned, listening in.

"Get off my property, or things will become unpleasant very quickly, Vivian."

Vivian? Bastian's mom was here?

"I came here to pass the same message along to you, regarding your daughter's association with my son."

"Her association with your son has torn her life apart and made a mockery out of her. If you've come here for anything, it should be to apologize."

"You already took my husband, I won't let your daughter take my son."

I sucked in an unsteady breath. What the hell did that mean?

"That was years ago and apologies were made. There's nothing else I can do. I can't change what happened, Vivian."

"You're right, you can't. The least you can do after fucking MY husband is to keep your slut of a daughter away from my son."

"How dare you? My daughter has more grace and more character and principles than your entire family put together. She doesn't deserve any of this, to be dragged through the mud, to be tarred as some sort of harlot just for following her passions and her truth."

I started. Had those words really come from my mom? I couldn't actually believe it. I'd thought she'd been disgusted by me. And before that, she'd been so disappointed in my decision to pull out of Luxe.

"Now, keep that sociopathic son of yours away from my daughter. I'm talking about Damien. We know he was responsible for this."

"He was not. What are you talking about?"

"Take the rose-colored glasses off when it comes to him. It will do us all a favor, especially your youngest. He's suffered enough for your favoritism when it comes to Damien. This is just the latest in a long line of attacks you've allowed to be made against Sebastian. You're losing him and if you don't reel in your eldest, that will become permanent. Now get off my property."

The door slammed in the next moment, the force of it rattling the house.

I rushed to the top of the stairs as my mom was turning from the door and shaking her head to herself.

"Mom."

Her head jerked up to see me standing there.

"I… I didn't know you were there."

I walked down the stairs and into the entryway, stopping just a few feet from her.

We stared at each other for a moment, neither of us saying a word.

"You defended me, Mom."

"Of course. You're my daughter. Why would you think I'd do anything less?"

"You were disgusted by me."

Her eyes shot wide. "What? No."

"Mom, it was all over you."

"Sweetie," she said, reaching out and taking my hand. "I was disgusted by the despicable invasion of privacy, the extreme violation." She shook her head. "I would never be disgusted by you following your heart. And that's what it was. Something the media and that ridiculous woman failed to recognize. The way you were looking at Sebastian… you love him."

"I… I've grown close to him, yes." In love, though? Was that how I felt about him? About Caleb too? And Caspian?

Things had been so wild and rapid-fire, I hadn't had much time to take stock of any of it. And these last few days hadn't been conducive to that because I'd been focused on trying to find a way forward there that didn't take so much from me in the process, like it had been doing thus far.

"As much as it complicates things by it being Sebastian Thorn who's won your heart, I would never deny you that, Skylar. It's very rare to find a connection like that."

I couldn't tell her that it was more than just Sebastian, that I was with three men. Having her accept this was a big enough deal, I really didn't want to push it.

"Thank you, Mom."

She wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into her.

I held her back and breathed in the comfort.

When we finally pulled apart, she said, "About the rest that you heard… about Wayne…"

"You were with Sebastian's father?"

She held up her hand. "Before your dad. That was actually how I met him. Wayne had acquired a military contract to design one of their bases. I went with him… it was how we spent time together, because it was difficult to do that inside the city."

"Because he was married to Vivian at the time?"

She winced. "Yes. I was young and foolish. He was a very charming man. He and Vivian weren't doing so well. But it's no excuse. It shouldn't have happened. All my anger toward her from our time in high school when she'd been my bully… I guess it factored into me doing that."

"Does Dad know?"

"He knows all about it, yes."

"It's a lot, Mom."

"I know and I never wanted you to find out. I didn't want you to see that awful part of me."

"We all have bad parts of ourselves. We all make mistakes. It's okay."

"You see now why I would never judge you in this sort of situation?"

"Yeah, I do. I'm sorry she came here like that."

She waved her hand dismissively. "Any excuse will do for her. It's not about you, so don't take that on along with everything else you're already dealing with. Every now and then she shows up here with a bone to pick. This was just her latest."

I shoved a hand through my hair. "Are we… good now? You were freezing me out for a while because of Luxe."

"I'm sorry. What I said… I know you're just going back to where you were always supposed to be. But, I guess, I was just disappointed in the sense that I let myself believe that there was finally something you and I would have in common. Everything else is just with you and your father. I just wanted something to be about me. I wanted us to share something, for there to be a part of you that's actually like me. I should've supported you, but I let that get in the way."

Oh. "Mom, those things you defended me with to Vivian, those parts of me come from you."

She frowned. "What? No."

"Of course they do. My fortitude and my determination to follow my passions, that's you with your career path. It might not be the same as yours, but those traits come from you."

Her eyes lit up as I saw it actually sink in.

"Those are some of the most important parts of me, Mom."

Emotion welled in her eyes, and she threw her arms around me again, holding me even tighter to her than before.

"I'm so sorry, sweetie."

"I'm sorry too."

I couldn't believe it.

Something positive had actually come out of this nightmare.

And I needed to soak up every moment of it.

Not just connecting with my mom for the first time in so long, which was a big enough deal in itself, but the comfort of it.

Because with the mission ahead of me, I had no doubt that things were about to get a lot worse before they got better.

I'd have to lose myself to the dark.