Chapter Thirty-Seven
Kytten
“It’s too fucking late.” Thorne jumped up from his chair, and it slid back, hitting the wall, causing me to jump. He stormed past me toward the doors, almost knocking me over, when Bane caught his arm.
“She is your mother.”
“Fuck you.”
“August, let him go.” Thorne turned to look at her. Our mother. He was so angry. Cash wrapped his arms around my shoulders and whispered in my ear, “You’ll get through this. I’m right here.”
I leaned into him as my brother stormed out, Indie hot on his heels. I had to trust that she would take care of him.
“Johnny, follow him,” King called out, before moving to his chair.
Bane went to my mother. “He doesn’t get to talk to you like that.”
“He’s hurting, August.”
“That doesn’t mean he gets to hurt you.” He cradled her face and kissed her gently. Then she leaned into him and he held her as she cried silently against his shoulder.
This was the man Val said she was in love with. The man she had two children with when she was sixteen years old. The man she was obsessed with. But the way he spoke to my mother, the way he held her, comforting her the way Cash comforted me... all at once Val’s words came rushing back.
“She seduced August away from me. She trapped him by getting pregnant with you.”
“You’re my father,” I whispered.
Bane turned to look at me. His eyes filled with sadness and he nodded. “I never knew about you. I never knew she had twins.”
“You knew she was pregnant?” I asked, my voice harsher than it had been a moment ago.
“Rosie, please sit down and let me explain everything,” my mother pleaded.
“We should wait for Thorne to come back.” I reached down without thinking and scratched at my leg. Cash covered my hand with his.
Bane’s eyes followed Cash’s hand, and I saw the moment he remembered. His face contorted with pain. He was in this very room the day I told everyone what happened to me.
My bottom lip trembled as I looked at my mother, and then Bane. “Did you tell her?”
“No, that’s your story.”
“Tell me what?” my mother asked.
“I can’t. I can’t do it again.”
“You don’t have to, baby,” Cash promised.
“If you want me to tell her, I will,” Bane offered.
“She knew. She knew it was happening. She told me in the warehouse. I believed her when she said she didn’t know.”
“That fucking bitch,” Bane cursed. He stood up and walked over, standing in front of me. He looked at Cash before looking down at me. Holding my face in his hands, he kissed my forehead.
“She didn’t know who you were. When she found you, she didn’t know. I don’t know whether that makes anything better or worse, but she didn’t know you were my daughter.”
“Well, considering she wanted to kill me and Thorne, I guess it’s better that she didn’t know.”
“I’m so sorry, Kytten.” I winced at the name. I didn’t know how to feel about my name anymore. Val gave me that name. On the one hand, I didn’t want anything from her. But on the other, it was who I was now. It was a part of my identity as a Nyght Nymph.
“We should wait for Thorne.” Bane dropped his hands and stepped back. I was struggling to understand what I was feeling. I closed my eyes and tried to visualize the feeling wheel Dr. Dunaway taught me to use.
“Kytten, we don’t know when he’ll be back,” King pointed out.
I shook my head. “No, I can’t hear it without him. We were together when she was taken away. We need to be together when we hear everything.” I looked at my mother. “She told me your real name.”
My mother’s eyes dropped to her hands.
I looked at Cash. “Aspen should be here.”
Cash’s brow scrunched, and he asked, “Why?”
“Please just get her.” He studied me for a moment before looking at Jack. “Go tell Banshee to bring Aspen in here.”
Jack left the room, and everything was quiet until he returned with Banshee, and Aspen stepped in behind him.
My mother gasped and stood from her chair. “Irene? What are you doing here?”
“Diana?” Aspen’s eyes grew large before tears slipped down her cheeks as she stared at my mother. Her sister. She pulled her lips between her teeth and looked at Banshee before turning back to my mother.
My mother moved slowly around the table until she stood in front of her sister. I could see the similarities between them now, and I wondered how I had missed it.
My mother reached out to Aspen, and she stepped back, bumping into Banshee, who caught her before she stumbled.
I rushed over and placed a hand on Aspen’s arm. “It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re safe.” I looked at my mom over my shoulder and smiled. “You’re my aunt,” I told Aspen.
“What?” She looked at me, then back to my mother.
“Congratulations, it’s a girl.” I laughed through my tears. “And a boy,” I added. “But he’s throwing a tantrum at the moment. He’s good at those.”
I heard King scoff, and my mother reprimanded me, “Rosie. Be nice to your brother.”
Jack threw his head back and laughed, cutting the tension. “She’s the only one besides Indie, and my old lady, who knows how to handle the kid’s tantrums.”
“Shut up, Jack,” Blade hissed.
“I don’t understand,” Aspen said, looking at my mother.
“It’s a long story, Irene—”
“Aspen.”
“What?” my mother asked.
“I’m not Irene anymore. She died two years ago. It’s Aspen now.”
“I guess we both have stories to share.”
Aspen nodded. She looked around the room. “Is Haizley here?”
King groaned. “She’s gonna rip my fucking balls off. Gunner, call your old lady.”
“Who’s Haizley?” my mother asked.
“She’s a therapist. You’ll love her,” Bane said, reaching out for her hand. “I think between her and Torment, we should be able to work through all this shit.”
“Dr. Dunaway is here?” I asked.
“Out in the main room, with Payne.”
I turned around and glared at Cash. “And you didn’t think maybe I needed him here when I reunited with my mother?”
“Baby, you know how your brother is. Torment and I both thought it was a good idea that he wait.”
“You’re seeing Torment?” my mother asked. I swallowed the lump that suddenly appeared in my throat any time even the idea that I had to tell my mother what happened to me popped into my head.
I didn’t want to make her sad. I didn’t know how to tell her without her feeling guilty because she wasn’t there.
“I think maybe he should come in here,” I whispered.
“I’ll get him,” Bane said as he left the room.
“I-I need to go,” Aspen whispered. My mother looked at her sister, pain cutting across her face. There was so much she didn’t know. So much she would learn that would hurt her.
“Aspen, do you want me to tell Haizley to come find you?” Gunner asked.
“Please,” she replied, her eyes pleading with Gunner.
“Can we talk later?” my mother asked, reaching out again, but pulling her hand back when Aspen winced.
“Maybe, yeah.” Aspen nodded, and Banshee followed her out as Dr. Dunaway and Bane returned.
With the help of Dr. Dunaway, I told my mother everything.
I told her how Thorne and I survived after she was taken, how we got separated.
I left out the part where Dakota was the one who had taken him.
That was his story to tell. But first I had to get him into the same room as her.
I told her about how Val had found me, saved me, and taken me in.
I shared the good years we had before Syrena.
When I finally told her about Syrena, my mother cried with me. She blamed herself, as I knew she would.
“Kytten, Johnny called. They won’t be back until tomorrow. If you would rather wait for Mimic to get back, that’s fine. But I need to speak with your mother and Bane.”
I turned to Cash. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Rosie, please stay. I want you to know everything.” She held my hands in hers. Her eyes begged me to stay and listen.
“Okay,” I agreed.
Cash ushered me to his chair, where he sat down and pulled me into his lap. My mother began her story with the day her parents, my grandparents, moved her into her college dorm.
I sat quietly while Bane and my mother told King about George Stone and his DNA database. She told us about her life without my father. Why she’d used Shame’s name on our birth certificate, and what happened the final day when Dakota knocked on our door and took her from us.
Tears fell from my eyes as I listened to everything my mother had endured from that day on. The captivity, the torment from Dakota and his father. And Val. The woman I loved like a mother.
The woman who had betrayed me so brutally, with such evil intent. Not only because of what she had allowed Syrena to do to me, but what she had done to my mother.
She might not have known the woman she hated was my mother, but that did not excuse the fact that she could treat any woman that way.
Especially after what she had endured looking for her daughter, all the while knowing she had taken Diana Cooper away from her child, hiding her away, leaving a child lost and alone.
“Kytten, are you okay?” Dr. Dunaway asked.
“No, I’m not okay.” I shook my head. My hands trembled as I held onto Cash. Not even he could keep the monsters quiet after listening to the hell my family had lived through.
I balled up my fist and screamed. Cash held me around my middle as I screamed as loud as I could. My mother’s sobs made me scream louder. I couldn’t stop.
“It’s not fair!” I yelled. I slammed my hand on the table. “I wish Indie hadn’t killed her. We should have torn her apart. Death was too fucking good for her. She should have been locked away the way my mother was. The way Thorne was!”
“Val’s dead?” Bane asked. King nodded, and my mother moved beside me. I crawled into her lap and cried against her chest. “Does Reaper know?”
“Not yet. There’s a lot of shit going on right now.”
“Don’t tell him. Where’s her body?”
“We have it stored. We haven’t burned it yet—”
“Burn it. I’ll take responsibility for it. Reaper has his hands full in Oklahoma at the moment. When it comes time to tell him. I’ll tell him I did it.”
“That won’t be necessary,” King said.
“Who is Indie?” my mother asked.
“Mimic’s old lady,” I answered on a hiccup.
“The girl that was here?” I nodded with a smile.
“August, we can’t let her take the fall.”
“We won’t.” He reached for my mother’s hand. It was as though he couldn’t stop touching her. The only time he moved away enough that he couldn’t touch her was when he came to me. “I’ll tell Reaper I did it.”
“Indie won’t let you take credit for her kill.” Jack laughed.
“She’s a child, Jack.”
“She may be a child, Bane, but trust me, she’d go up against Reaper,” King said. He looked at me, and with barely a movement, he shook his head. He didn’t want me to tell my parents about Indie.
My parents.
I had parents. A mom and a dad.
“Oh my God!” I cried.
“What is it, honey?” The panic on my mother’s face broke my heart. But I’d just realized something.
“I have a sister.” I smiled at Bane. “Before she left, Amber called me her little sister.” I bit my lip, trying not to cry again. “I really am her little sister.”
“Yes.” Bane smiled back. “And you have another brother as well.”
I had a family. A real family.