Chapter Thirteen
Raven.
This is not what I was expecting for my last surprise.
Albeit it is a nice one. I won’t lie and say I haven't thought about what I would say or do to my mother if I ever saw her again. I just know that there’s a slow starting symphony beginning to form in the back of my mind.
Slow and low… but not enough to warrant murder.
Not enough for me to switch off my emotions.
I need them right now. Because I need the truth. I need the final answers.
I watch Sofia through the two-way mirror.
Even though she looks exhausted and understandably furious, she is still flawless.
I even feel a little insecure that the only makeup I’m wearing is my smudged eyeliner from getting fucked to death on the jet and I’m still wearing my sweatpants and Jonas’ hoodie.
If only they’d told me, I’d have… I don’t know, gotten some kind of power suit on. One that said, ‘I’m going to totally and completely destroy you.’ Not my leggings and Jonas’ sweatshirt with a… what kind of stain is that? God, please don’t let it be cum.
I go through the documents in the manilla folder in my hands, then set it to the side.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Once Aleksi is done setting everything up, I had the guards move Sofia to one of the old interrogation rooms where a camera is set up, handcuffed to the table, legs cuffed to the chair.
I haven’t shown my face to her yet and with the way the hidden camera is set up, you won’t be able to see my face, either.
Aleksi also said he can modify the wavelengths in my voice so when I speak, it won’t sound like me.
He also knows to block out anything that could incriminate me or my guys.
Some would call it extortion.
I call it… security.
A truth for a truth.
Each of my men watch me as I grab a plate full of the food I ordered.
The guards told me she hasn’t eaten in days.
She flings everything back at them. It’s all foods she prohibited me to eat as a young girl entering adolescence.
Pizza, desserts, a burger, fries, a burrito, and chocolate churros.
All the foods I had to hide and end up gorging myself on, spiraling into a weird vicious cycle of fasting, binging and purging because of her.
One of the guards opens the door for me and as soon as her emerald eyes recognize me, she rolls them and slumps in the rickety chair. I set the plate down in front of her and smile while taking my seat. “Hungry?” I rasp in Spanish.
She doesn’t look surprised that I’m talking but she eyes the food, swallows what I’m sure is a pool of saliva, and blinks back at me. “I haven’t had carbohydrates in twenty-four years. Do you know how hard it is to stay like this in a vain world full of cameras?”
I shake my head.
“Every fucking day I have to make sure I look cover-worthy so people will buy my clothes. Every day. I starve myself and workout rigorously so fat bitches all over the world believe if they purchase from my line they too, could look like me.” She scoffs bitterly.
“And now we have to use more fabric to cover their disgusting, flabby bodies, and they get outraged when it doesn't cost the same as a size two. And don’t talk to me about the fucking BBLs and the fake tits and the tummy tucks. They’re all plastic.
All of them. If only they would stop shoveling this…
chingadera-” she swings her arm and the plate of fucking shit crashes into a wall “-into their fat faces and go to a fucking gym, they wouldn’t be going into debt trying to look like their favorite celebrities. ”
I suck in my cheeks, hollowing them but I don’t talk. Not yet.
Those eyes of her blaze a green I’ve never seen before.
“Like you. I always had to make sure you weren’t shoveling food into your mouth and yet- there you were- fat.
All the time you were fat. I put you in ballet, you cried because your poor little toes hurt.
” She mocks me. “I put you in gymnastics and you didn’t like how the leotard felt.
I put you in dance, and you complained you didn’t like the music. ”
I blink at her.
“I don’t know what Jonas sees in you. Fat.
Pathetic. Not even your mouth works. But I suppose it’s good for other things, isn’t it?
I bet he loves that he doesn’t have to hear you talk and you let him fuck you whenever because all you have to offer is the fat twat between your fat thighs.
But he’ll grow tired of that soon. He’ll leave you behind as soon as he realizes you’re nothing more than a blob of a body.
Or he’ll use you to have his children, raise powerful little Syndicate princes and keep a mistress on the side.
“She will be the woman he truly wants. I bet he has one already. Tell me, does he lie pretty while his cock is inside of you?” She grunts like she’s getting fucked then mocks Jonas.
“I love you, baby. Have my children, baby.” She cackles wickedly.
“Vapid girl. At least with the Prescott’s I would have gotten paid for each heir you produced. ”
I tilt my head to the side, letting the words in our native tongue settle over them before I open my mouth. “That’s why we’re here now, isn’t it? My womb.”
She scoffs. “I never knew what they saw in you. Why they wanted to sign away so many millions of dollars for you. I told them you would make the worst wife. I told them you wouldn’t be a good mother.”
I can feel the bitterness of my words on the tip of my tongue. “And you were?”
She slams her fists down on the table, the handcuffs rattling.
“I gave up acting for you! I pushed you out and you ruined my body! My entire career down in flames because your father wanted me to keep you! Now look where he is! Rotting in the ground!” She lets out a harsh cry, real tears escape her and she tries to get to me but she can’t.
“And now my Johnny… my Axel… I know you have something to do with it!” She spits at me and it lands on the table between us. “Rotten inside like your father!”
I could take this time to remind her she wasn’t there when I needed her.
That she was as absent as the mansion was vacant.
I could also remind her that her ‘acting career’ is how she met John Weston Monroe and left my father.
But I don’t have time for that. “You know, Stephen Prescott kidnapped and drugged me.”
She tries to cross her arms but she can’t, staying silent.
“He said you asked for me to be able to graduate with my degree in music before-”
“It was the only thing you were good at. It made me look good and after several meetings, raising your price tag, I made sure you at least had one thing that was yours if you were going to be trapped with Chase or Stephen.”
I nod, agreeing with her. Cello is the only thing I’m good at.
Which is why her words are making my insecurities rise again, that my husbands will tire of me when they realize that.
She’s hitting very close to home but I can’t let her words settle too deep within me.
Not now, I remind myself. “Why make the agreement? Why sign it? Why sell me?”
“It’s a tale as old as time, mija. It was money.” She holds the Y in contempt and rubs her thumb to the tips of her fingers in that universal money motion. “Business. You were an asset to my Johnny.”
“I was a child!”
She rolls her eyes.
“You had enough money. You had Abuelo’s money.”
She scoffs. “You grandfather cut me off the second I married your stupid father after having his fucking kid. If I wouldn’t have married him- I would still be getting my allowances. Your abuelo hated your father more than me.”
And there it is. But I know the other side to this story.
It’s one I’ve heard from my grandfather- where he and my grandmother (may she rest in peace) had begged her to let them raise me so she could continue to rise in her acting and modeling career.
They told her my father was macho- traditional in every sense of the word and he would require her to stay home and raise me.
Not leave it to a nanny. And she would come to resent not just him, but the child as well.
Was my father a drunk? Yes. But he was a functioning alcoholic, not that it made anything better.
‘A tale as old as time.’ So it was. They were doomed from the start.
And I know my father loved me. It was the resentment he had towards her that drove him to drink.
“He loved me.”
“Loved you?” Her impeccable brows scrunch up and her features morph into those of disgust. “He spoiled you. Took you to do poor people's things. Always at the park, taking you to food trucks, the cinema, he fed you that crap-” she points to the food slathered against the wall- “and made you the way you are. Soft. Inside and out. He didn’t care about you. He wanted you weak. I tried to make you strong. I made sure you were flawless even though you were so fat. So flawless in fact, that when Stephen began his negotiations I was the one that was able to garner more even though they knew you weren’t going to be much of a housewife.
Just a mare for them to breed. Lucky me that’s all they needed you for. ”
If only she knew how ‘soft’ I really am. “How much?”
“One hundred and twenty-five million. My half.”
My soul. My body. My life, my mind… for a quarter of a billion dollars.
“Do you know the Syndicate’s motto is ‘Pro Familia Sanguinem?’” I let my eyes roam over her as her features harden even further.
“For family, we bleed…” I translate even though I don’t need to.
“And I did bleed. For you. For Axel…” I take in a deep breath.
“Axel said you were the one who called the cops and had them search for me.”
Another scoff leaves her perfect lips. “Don’t take that as anything more than it is. I needed you alive… and then, once again… you disappointed me.” She taps on her temple with a perfectly manicured finger, signaling my broken mind. “Mi munequita… rota.”
My broken… little… doll.
With that, I realize I’m done here. I’m sure Damon has everything he needs from her to give me some type of diagnosis. Narcissism, for sure. I make a signal and one of the guards brings in the manilla folder and a pen.
She eyes it. “What’s that?”
Again, I let the words form over my tongue before I speak them aloud.
I’ll ask Ada Howell later why my tongue can form words in Spanish easier than English.
For now… “This is the deed to the Monroe Mansion. I was awarded twenty-seven percent of Monroe Tech Industries when your husband died but… I want fifty-one percent. So… you… are going to sign these and give them over to me.”
She laughs so hard and loud it rings throughout the interrogation room and makes my brain vibrate. “?Estás loca?!” She laughs again maliciously, head back, a maniacal laughter that comes heartily, like it’s the first time she’s laughed in ages.
I know that feeling.
She stops laughing as abruptly as she started, wiping at her eyes as her cold glare settles back on mine. “Why would I do that?”
I inhale sharply, glance down at the documents, then snap my gaze back to her. “Because…” I point to the corner of the room. “That… camera is functional and it has recorded everything you said. Everything, Mama. And if you don’t… I will push it out. On every social media platform.”
The horror that crawls across her face is pure euphoric bliss, causing my mind to hear such a gorgeous symphony slowly beginning again…
the staccato of cello… a violin coming in low but so, so sweet.
The beat of a drum… it doesn’t stop. It doesn’t stop even when she curses me and begins to cry and beg for forgiveness.
It doesn’t stop when she changes tactics and begins to tell me she’s my mother, how could I do that to her? Ruin her, ruin her, ruin her…
The melody doesn’t stop even when she signs begrudgingly and throws the papers at me.
It doesn’t stop when the guards come in, put a black sack over her head, drag her out to drive her off to drop her where they picked her up from.
And I know…
It’s not over yet.
Because nobody breaks me and gets away with it.