CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
S TEFANIE
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"Y OU THINK YOU'RE BETTER than us, don't you?" Arnold sneered. "You always have, you stupid bitch. You’re nothing but one of the many mistakes my brother made due to his fucked up fetish with black women and his...”
He grabbed my wrist, and the rest of his words were drowned out due to the anger surging through me. I yanked back hard, breaking his grip, remaining rooted in place even though every instinct screamed at me to put some distance between us and throw him out of my house.
“Don’t touch me,” I snapped, one hand still in my pocket, sliding the blade open as far as I could, ready to slice this motherfucker up if I needed to.
Arnold’s face twisted in rage as he glared at me. His sister muttered something under her breath, and their mother let out a fake, wounded sob, like she was the victim here.
Arnold bobbed his head as he said, “It seems since my brother is no longer here to teach you a lesson, somebody else has to do it.”
He took a step toward me. I’d just pulled the blade out of my pocket when my front door slammed open with a crash that shook the walls. We all nearly jumped out of our skin at the abrupt bang. I hadn’t even heard Julian’s keys rattling when he opened the door.
But sure enough, there were dangling from the lock as Julian stood there, breathing hard, his chest rising and falling rapidly, fists clenched at his sides. His eyes, normally warm and teasing, were filled with pure anger now.
It was a look I’d never seen in his gaze before. And I won’t lie, it left me a bit shaken. He crossed the room in three strides, stepping between me and Arnold, shielding me from the man who I knew was about to put his hands on me. I slowly closed my blade and slid it back into my pocket.
“You got about two seconds to step away from her,” Julian sneered, his voice trembling with anger.
Though Arnold looked nervous as hell, he tried to keep up his fake bravado.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked, gaze moving from Julian to me, then back to Julian. “What right do you have to burst into my sister in law’s house like that?”
“I’m the man who’s going to bury you if you call her your sister-in-law again. You’re nothing to her.”
Arnold blinked, confusion flickering across his face, followed by fear.
“That’s my brother’s wife,” Arnold said, pointing his finger at me.
Julian gripped his finger and bent it back. Arnold howled in pain as Julian continued to bend. I winced as I watched. Susan and Abby rushed to their feet. I stepped from behind Julian to stand by his side, my glare fixed on both women.
“Sit down,” I hissed, sliding the blade from my pocket for them to see it.
I didn’t want to act a fool in front of Julian, but I would. Susan’s old evil ass pretended to faint, forcing Abby to catch her and slowly lower her to the floor as Arnold’s cries of pain filled my home.
“She’s mine now. And her daughter is also under my protection," Julian continued, still pushing Archie’s fingers back, forcing the man to his knees. "If you come near them, if you call them, if you ask Stefanie for anything again... you won’t be dealing with her anymore. You’ll be dealing with me.”
Arnold opened his mouth like he wanted to argue, but Julian cut him off.
“And let me make something real clear.” Julian took a step closer and leaned down until they were practically nose to nose. Arnold flinched. “I won’t do things the legal way. I have no need for cops and lawyers. I’ll handle things my own way. And my way ends with your entire family, your mom included, buried somewhere no one will ever find you.”
I stood frozen behind Julian, heart pounding, watching as Arnold’s face lost every ounce of color. Julian shoved him back. Arnold fell near Abby’s feet. Crying, she told her brother to help her with their mother.
“Get out while you can still walk out on your own,” Julian said, voice still calm, yet terrifying as hell. “If you don’t, I’ll break your legs and throw you out.”
Arnold pushed himself to his feet, not even bothering to assist his sister and mother up. The man raced from my house like hell was chasing him down, ready to call him home. My gaze moved to Susan and Abby.
“What the hell are you waiting for?” I asked them. “Get out of my house.”
“Get up, ma,” Abby whispered to her mother, who opened one eye to stare around the room. “Hurry up.”
Susan started crying as Abby helped her to her feet.
“Stop crying,” Abby ordered.
Susan sniffled, but the tears stopped. When they reached the door, I stopped them.
“Wait!” I said.
Abby and Susan froze. Outside, I heard Arnold calling for them to bring their asses on. Abby slowly faced me.
“What more do you have to say to us?” she whispered, tears shimmering in her gaze. “You want us out of your life. We got it. You don’t want us to contact my brother’s child. We got that too. You have another man in your life, so you want to break ties with us. Yeah, we get it. But one day, India will learn she’s not yours...”
“Shut up!” I hissed, taking a step forward.
“Oh!” Abby’s eyes widened, her smirk returning. “Your new thug of a boyfriend doesn’t know you can’t have kids, does he?”
I felt like I’d been submerged in a bucket of ice water. It was like everything in me, my heart, my soul, my mind, all went numb with the chill her words brought over me. I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.
All I could think was that he knew now. Another person knew that India wasn’t my biological daughter. Another person who knew India now knew her truth when even she didn’t know it.
That sent cold dread cruising down my spine. But then I felt Julian’s fingers intertwined with mine, and warmth started to return. The cold was partially chased away by the words he uttered next.
“You’re more family to your daughter than any of them are,” Julian told me. “Blood doesn’t always mean family. Love, loyalty, respect, trust, and protection are more important than blood if you ask me.”
To Archie’s sister and mother, Julian said, “India is blessed to have Stefanie as a mother. If she’d been placed in a home like yours, she wouldn’t shine as bright as she does today. And she shines today because her mother raised her right, because her mother shines too. They say light needs darkness to balance things out. I’m that darkness. And you don’t want me to show you just how dark I can get. Leave, before you make me show the woman I love another side of me,” he told them, voice calm but tinged with that darkness he spoke of.
Abby swallowed, then turned away, leading her mother away from my home and hopefully out of my and India’s lives forever. Julian walked to the door, removed his keys from the lock, and closed it.
When he turned back to me, his face softened instantly. He opened his arms, and without thinking, I flew into them, pressing my cheek to his chest. He wrapped me up tight, one hand cradling the back of my head, the other stroking my spine.
“You okay, baby?” he murmured into my hair.
I nodded against him, swallowing the lump in my throat.
“I should’ve been here sooner,” he said roughly. “I’m sorry I wasn’t. Fucking lunch traffic!”
"You were right on time."
He pulled back just enough to look down at me, cupping my face in his big, warm hands.
“Why would you invite them over while you were alone, Stefanie?”
I pulled the dagger out of my pocket to show it to him. “I had backup.”
He took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Don’t do anything like that again.”
“I had to do it. They were like parasites that had been feeding on me for far too long. I needed them out of me and India’s lives.”
“They’re gone now. And if they don’t heed my warning, I really will make them disappear.”
I chuckled. “Violent, much?” I asked.
“In love,” he corrected me. “I’m in love. And I protect the people I love. If they come near you again, if they even think about bothering you, I’ll take care of it. And you’ll never have to lay eyes on them again. I promise you that.”
The way he said it, the threat, the promise, the love in his eyes, it made something inside me break wide open. I stared up at him, my vision blurring with tears I didn’t even try to hide. Because nobody, other than my parents and Ronnie, had ever had my back like this.
Nobody but Julian. He wasn’t just my lover. He wasn’t just my friend. He was my safe place . I was head over heels in love with Julian Cattaneo. My protector. My partner. My future. I never wanted to let him go. Wait! My eyes widened.
“You...” I started. “You heard what she said about India?”
He didn’t reply right away, and it was pointless for me to have asked the question in the first place. Of course, he heard.
“My mother isn’t my biological mother,” he told me.
That floored the hell out of me. And for a second, all I could do was stand there staring at him with my mouth wide open. He smiled and traced his thumb over my lip.
“Blood is thicker than water. But it’s water that nourishes the earth and makes flowers grow,” he told me. “My birth mom’s blood flows through my veins. But the mother who raised me is the one who watered me. One gave me life. The other made sure I lived. I’m thankful for them both. But the mother who raised me is the one I consider my family.”
“I didn’t... I didn’t know.”
I thought Aubrey was the child his mother had talked to me about all those years ago. I thought when she told me she had two kids, a son and a one-year-old daughter, I thought it was the daughter who she was saying wasn’t hers.
She’d comforted me at the hospital on the day India was born, telling me not to blame myself for the things my husband and his mistress did. And that if I decided to raise India as my own, then I had to let the hatred I had for her birth parents go.
She told me she had to do the same thing for one of her kids. In order for her to truly be a mother to the child, she had to let her hatred for the birth parents go. If she didn’t, she would’ve taken that hatred out on the child, and that was never the right thing to do. But she hadn’t been talking about her daughter. She’d been speaking of her son.
“My mother doesn’t know that I know she’s not my birth mom. And I don’t want her to know,” he told me. “I don’t want her to wonder whether my love for her has changed.”
I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Has your love for her changed at all?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Not at all. I love her more because I know how hard it must’ve been on her.”
“Do you think India would feel the same way?” I asked, hating how my voice shook.
He placed his hands against my face and cupped my cheeks. “I’ll help you make sure she never finds out if that’s what you want. But, if she does find out, I’m sure she’ll love you even more because you loved her when you didn’t have to. That means something. I promise you it does.”
I swallowed back tears.
“I don’t want to lose her. Is that selfish of me?”
“No. I’m sure my mother feels the same way. What she doesn’t know is that I fear losing her, too.” He paused for a moment before saying, “Do you want to talk about it? About what happened back then?”
Did I? I didn’t know. There was no point in talking about it if I wasn’t going to tell him the truth. But if I told him the truth, would he think less of me? Would he think I did it out of spite and jealousy?
Honestly, that had something to do with it. But it was more out of anger and rage. Embarrassment too. I was mad at them for lying to me. And I was mad at myself for being so fucking foolish and na?ve. For being weak.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” he told me.
“It’s not that. I just...” I paused. “I don’t want you to think less of me.”
“Nothing can make me think less of you.”
“Even if I did something bad?”
“Today, I almost strangled a man to death for not wanting to pay our company full price because he claimed we set the job up wrong.”
“Did you?”
“My team are professionals. If they’d done it wrong, they would’ve fixed it. They didn’t do it wrong.”
“So, you strangled him to get him to pay you.”
“I did.”
“At least you didn’t kill him.”
“I killed his right-hand man for pulling a gun on me when I strangled his boss.”
My eyes widened. “You... you did?”
“I did,” he told me, tone casual, as if we weren’t discussing a murder.
“What did you do with the body?” I asked, curious.
“I have people who take care of bodies for me.”
I don’t know why I asked that. I’d already known the answer.
“Do you think less of me?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Why?” he questioned.
“Do you want me to think less of you?”
“No. I want to know what’s keeping you from thinking less of me.”
I stared down briefly before meeting his gaze again and answering his question.
“I don’t think less of you for strangling the man because he deserved it. He was trying to cheat you. And if you’d let him get away with it, he would’ve tried again. Or, he would’ve told others about what he’d done, and they would’ve tried the same thing. As for the man you killed...” I paused, wondering if I should share my true thoughts.
“What about the man I killed?” he asked, gaze peering into mine. “Did he deserve it?”
“I should say no. That’s the right answer. I’m sure you could’ve handled it another way, a less violent way.”
“But I didn’t,” he told me.
“I know. Which means you have no patience for fuck ups or for those who try to hurt you and your business. My past taught me that kindness can be seen as weakness. And if you let people treat you any kind of way, they’ll take it a step further and treat you even worse. So, no, I don’t think less of you. If that guy wanted to live, he should’ve handled things differently.”
“But I took a life,” he told me.
And I couldn’t help but wonder if he wanted me to condemn him for his actions. I should. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I couldn’t see his actions as wrong, even though I’m sure that thought made me toxic as fuck.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, bringing my hand to rest against his cheek. “But I can’t find anything wrong with what you did.”
“I murdered someone.”
“I know.”
“That’s illegal,” he added.
“I know.”
“You still want me?” he asked.
“I do.”
“If that’s the case, then what makes you think there’s anything you could do to make me not want you?”
I sniffled, not knowing what to say.
“Do you want to tell me what happened back then?” he asked.
I did. I wanted to tell someone. I wanted to get this burden off my chest. And with Julian, I knew I was in a judgment-free zone. I knew he wouldn’t see me as a monster. So, I nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “Go get changed into your pajamas. I’ll turn the home security back on and get these chairs out of here. Then we can sit on the couch, and you can tell me what happened back then. Okay?”
I nodded. He released me. On shaky legs, I headed to the bedroom to get changed into something more comfortable. I didn’t choose the sexy lingerie I usually wore around him. I put on a pair of cotton PJs.
I went into the bathroom and washed my face, using makeup remover to cleanse my face before applying skin cream and lip balm. I lotioned my hands and then slid on my slippers. By the time I returned to the living room, Julian was seated on the couch.
On the center table was my box of Kleenex, a bottle of water, and a bottle of pain pills. I smiled. He’d thought of everything. Opening up my closet and revealing my skeletons to him would definitely make me cry, needing Kleenex.
And it was a long story, so I’d need water to soothe my throat. And it would leave me feeling drained and with a headache, hence the pain pills. How did he always get it right? He patted the space beside him. I walked over and sat down.
It was time for me to share my secrets with Julian Cattaneo.