CHAPTER EIGHTEEN #3
Just like Soloman did to me, Jagger smacked my brother-in-law hard across the face to get him to shut up.
“All right,” Jagger growled out. “That’s quite the fuck enough.
” He flung Soloman to the ground. “If I ever see you here again, if you even think about going after Raina, Marco, or any of these women or children, you will live to regret it. Now get up, and fuck off, you miserable piece of shit.” He waited until Soloman got up from his belly, shot a glare Jagger’s way, muttered something, and stalked off.
Only when he was certain Soloman was far enough away that he wouldn’t return did Jagger finally jog back to me. He cupped my face and ushered me inside at the same time Gabrielle, Danica, and Naomi all came barrelling into the living room.
Jagger sat me down on the couch, and without saying a word, he went to my kitchen freezer, returning a moment later with a bag of frozen peas and a tea towel wrapped around them.
“Here,” he said, cradling it to my cheek.
He crouched down in front of me, his palm on my knee—that’s when I noticed he still wore the pink sparkly Barbie nail polish—and his other hand holding the peas to my face.
My cousins gathered around behind him. “Who was that?”
I glanced up at Gabrielle. Her face was blank, but her eyes resembled a deer in the headlights. Danica and Naomi were similar. Marco wasn’t with them. He was probably told to stay upstairs with his cousins.
Jagger spun around, focusing on my cousins. “Who was that?”
“My brother-in-law,” I said softly, causing him to face me again. “Josiah’s brother, Soloman.”
“ Former brother-in-law,” Naomi said with snark.
“What did he say?” Gabrielle asked.
I swallowed, locking eyes with her. “Elias is dead. Soloman has no heir. He wants Marco.”
Naomi gasped and Danica’s hand flew to her mouth.
“Fuck,” Gabrielle murmured, her head lightly shaking.
“Look, I know it’s some deep, dark secret how the four of you are all single mothers. Believe me, the island gossip mill has its theories, and you don’t need to tell me if you don’t want to. But is that prick going to be a problem?” Jagger asked. “Should we be calling the cops?”
“We can try,” Gabrielle said. “Not sure what good it will do.”
“They can keep that motherfucker off the island,” Jagger argued. He stood up with a soft groan and a something in his knee clicked. He scratched at his beard. “How’d he get here anyway? The ferry still isn’t running.”
“Water taxi and walked?” Naomi suggested. “He’s always been resourceful, from what I remember.”
“All the men are when they want something,” Gabrielle said, her tone not lacking any venom.
Jagger sat down on the couch beside me and carefully encouraged me to pull the bag of peas away. “I just want to take a look.”
I winced a little when the towel was removed and, judging by his face, there was definitely going to be a bruise.
Hot tears burned the backs of my eyes and my throat grew tight as I shifted my gaze to my cousins.
Jagger put the bag of peas back on my cheek.
“He threatened to go to the police,” I whispered, fresh fear rushing icy through my veins.
“He can threaten to blow up the fucking moon. Doesn’t mean it’s going to work,” Naomi said, turning to Gabrielle. “He doesn’t have a leg to stand on, does he? Raina is Marco’s mother. Soloman is his uncle. And a sociopath at that.”
“Nothing can stop him from trying,” Gabrielle said, matter-of-factly. “He can try to paint her out as an unfit mother, petition for custody. We’ll make sure he doesn’t win, but he could make it very ugly.”
“That’s not what he meant,” I whispered, my eyes falling to my cousins again. “He meant about Josiah.”
“He knows nothing ,” Gabrielle bit out. “He might think he does, but he doesn’t.”
“We’ll never let him take Marco,” Danica reassured.
“What if he keeps trying?” I blurted out, removing the bag of peas from my face for a moment as my cheek was starting to get numb.
“Should Marco and I just run away? Flee the island? The state? Leave our family and start over—again—this time with new names and identities? That whole lineage of men needs to die before I’ll ever feel safe. ”
My three cousins exchanged looks for a hot minute, but Jagger caught it.
He didn’t belong in the dark. Not after what he just witnessed. Not after the way he stepped in to help me. He deserved the truth. I believed I could trust him with it.
“Marco’s safe with you?” I asked Gabrielle.
“Of course.” She nodded.
“What did he mean by he knew how Josiah really died?” Jagger asked, bouncing his gaze between me and my cousins, his brows bunched, eyes forming thin slits.
“Can you guys …” I swallowed. “Can you guys give Jagger and me a few minutes?”
All of their eyes went wide again, but after I made sure they understood that I needed this, they all nodded.
“We’ll be upstairs,” Gabrielle said, before leaning down and whispering in my ear. “You trust him?”
I nodded. “I think I do, yeah.”
She kissed my cheek, ran her hand over my head in a motherly way, then followed Naomi and Danica upstairs. That left me and Jagger.
“I think we might need to take a raincheck on that dinner date,” I said, trying to be lighthearted but failing. “I need to tell you something.”
He took a seat right beside me on the couch, close enough that our knees touched. He didn’t say anything, just waited patiently for me to gather my thoughts, rally my nerves, and pull up my big girl panties. “Our family—and by ‘our ,’ I mean Gabrielle, Naomi, Danica, and mine—was basically a cult.”
His eyes widened, but other than that, he didn’t react.
“They called it a church, but it wasn’t.
It was a fucking cult. All our fathers were brothers.
They had one sister—Aunt Dolores—who ran away from the organization when she was twenty-four.
She was forced to marry a man over twice her age, and he beat her mercilessly.
Caused her to miscarry their baby, and she ran away from the hospital after her D my body still bleeding, still stitched up from the traumatic birth, and Josiah climbed on top of me.
I cried the entire time, pleaded with him to stop as Marco’s screams just grew louder and louder.
The haunted, horrified look in Jagger’s eyes did nothing to soothe me. It was one of the reasons why I’d never told a soul about any of this before. Only my cousins knew, because they’d all experienced similar things in their marriages.
“Josiah was an angry, miserable man. I hated our life, I hated him, and I did everything I could to keep Marco safe. I taught piano lessons, but otherwise, I wasn’t allowed an education beyond high school, or a job.
My soul purpose was to give Josiah as many sons as possible.
When I got pregnant again—when Marco was only three months old, I feared for my life.
I feared for my son and what kind of monster this organization would turn him into if I died trying to deliver the next baby. So, I …”
I swallowed as fresh, hot tears sprinted down my cheeks.