Chapter 38 Raven
THIRTY-EIGHT
RAVEN
Amuffled voice swam around me, cutting through the haze in my brain.
My eyelids felt heavy, refusing to open. I didn’t know if I was dreaming or floating. My thoughts were a jumbled mess.
Pregnant. Aiden. Mom.
The words echoed in my skull, tearing me wide open.
It felt like the world came crashing down with memories of the smoke, explosion, and blood. I recalled the way she’d pushed me out of the way right before the second explosion happened. I remembered the smell of smoke and ash, the taste of iron in my mouth.
It was hard to live with that guilt and even more heart-wrenching to move on after all that, and now Aiden was saying she was alive.
No, that couldn’t be.
My eyes stung, tears burning in my eyes. Aiden was being cruel. This had to be his sick revenge, a way to get back at me.
“Raven, come on. Open your eyes.”
I forced my eyelids apart and the room warped in and out of focus.
Aiden was kneeling on the floor, one arm around my back, the other gripping my face. His pupils were blown wide, his chest heaving.
“Thank God,” he rasped. I tried to shift my body upright, but he stopped me. “No, don’t move. Give it a minute.”
“What… what happened?” My voice came out like sandpaper.
He swallowed hard. “You passed out. I… I shouldn’t have upset you.”
I didn’t dream it. He did tell me Mom was alive.
“How could you be so cruel?” My lips trembled and tears streamed down my face.
His grip around me tightened. “I’m so sorry, mo cuishle. I should have eased you into it.”
I shoved at his chest. “No, you shouldn’t have told me such a cruel lie.”
He froze but didn’t let go. “Raven, I didn’t lie.”
“You’re lying,” I whispered, more to myself than to him. “You have to be. I watched her…”
My voice cracked, unable to say those words out loud. It felt like being transported back to the day of the explosion. It felt like I was losing my mom all over again.
I tore myself free from him and crawled forward. I needed space, but soon the world tilted, black spots creeping into my vision.
Aiden watched me with a wrecked expression. “I swear on my life, Raven. She survived. She’s alive, living in Scotland with Duncan.”
A hysterical laugh bubbled in my throat. “In Scotland with that asshole? She would rather die than go back there with him.”
He didn’t answer right away, the silence stretching, his somber expression and sincerity making me feel even worse. If Mom were alive, and she was with my father, she had to be suffering.
“I’m not sure why she went back with him,” he said firmly. “But I swear to you, she survived the explosion and left for Scotland with him. Maybe she went, thinking you were dead.”
I shook my head. “No, she pushed me out of the way. She knew…” All this was making my head spin. “She made me promise to get away from you and the mafia. To stay hidden from Duncan Lyons.”
“Raven, I watched her leave the hospital. She went with him willingly. If she hadn’t, I would have intervened.”
“You think your good intentions make everything alright?” I spat. “You have no idea what she endured. None of us do. Why do you think we moved so often? Why she drank herself into oblivion most days? That man drove her to it.”
My breath came faster, uneven. It felt like the walls were closing in.
“Tell me how to help, Raven.” His voice was rough, his plea sincere. “For fuck’s sake, I’m trying to do what’s right here. I want to help.”
“I don’t even know what’s real anymore,” I whispered. “You, her, this…” I pressed a trembling hand against my stomach.
He swallowed, his voice raw when he finally spoke. “I’m real. Trust me. You can hate me all you want, Raven, but all I ever wanted was to do right by you.”
I flopped on my ass and pressed a shaking hand to my mouth. “I’m so confused. I don’t know where to go from here.”
All I could see was my mother’s face, her anguish, the way she tried to drown in alcohol, then… fire. But she survived. Was she suffering? God, how could I have not known? I should have saved her the way she saved me.
I was unraveling fast and hard, unable to come to terms with everything I just learned.
“I just don’t know what to do,” I repeated in a whisper, wrapping my arms around myself while rocking back and forth.
Aiden came to me and set me on his lap, wrapping his hands around me. “Then let me help you. Let me hold you while you fall apart, and then I’ll put you back together.”
I looked up at him through tears, my chest aching so badly I could barely breathe.
“I didn’t know,” I said, my voice shaking. “I left her with that monster when I should have saved her.”
Aiden might have forced me back into his arms and this criminal world, but as the day went on, I wasn’t quite sure why I had wanted to resist it.
He bathed me gently, then fed and sat with me, his arms holding me tight, keeping me from spiraling.
His warmth seeped into my skin, but it couldn’t erase the chill from the recent ghosts that’d returned to the world of the living.
Guilt gnawed at me: for my mother, for the damage I’d done to Aiden, and selfishly, even for myself.
Aiden didn’t speak, but I could feel his steady heartbeat against my back, grounding me and reminding me to breathe.
Was it selfish to depend on his strength and absorb it? Probably. But I wasn’t strong enough to handle it on my own. And now, I was pregnant, and dammit, I wanted—needed—his protection. I couldn’t do this alone, and I shouldn’t have to.
I didn’t think my husband was as cruel as my father. Scratch that, I knew he wasn’t. Since our first encounter five years ago, he had been a force to be reckoned with but never cruel. In fact, he was always considerate and tried to make things easier for me.
Lowering my head, I saw his strong fingers were splayed on my lower belly, almost as if he were protecting the baby already.
God, I was so confused.
Yes, there was attraction there, there always had been. But before I left, leaving the Callahans and the Lyons believing I was dead, I’d been in the midst of falling for him. I’d be a fool not to admit that.
My trembling, cold fingers found his warm ones, and I gently entwined them with his. He squeezed gently, his silent reminder that he was here for me.
God, did I waste five years of our lives while he was trying to be there for me all along? A heavy weight settled in my chest at that notion, because I knew it to be true. I failed both my mother and my husband.
“I made so many mistakes,” I whispered, guilt eating at me.
“We all make mistakes.” Aiden was too understanding and kind. I didn’t deserve it.
I let out a frustrated breath. “Not ones like this.”
“You’d be surprised.” His voice was low and thick with emotion.
“Remember I told you I have a sister?” I nodded and he continued.
“She married a man, gave birth, and then disappeared for years with the child. She’s my sister and I’ll always take her side, but her husband didn’t deserve to be robbed of his daughter’s first years. ”
I twisted my head to study his expression, and found nothing but openness. “Did he forgive her?”
“Yes, he did.” I swallowed seeing the dark expression on Aiden’s face. “But I wouldn’t have, so I beg you, Raven, don’t do that to me. I’ll burn every inch of this earth to find you and my child, and then… I won’t kill you, but I won’t forgive you either.”
“I promise I won’t leave with your… our baby,” I vowed.
“It’s all happening too fast and I’m still trying to come to grips with it all, but I can promise you that.
I don’t want our baby to grow up lonely like I did, and while I understand my mom was forced to do it for both of us to survive, I recognize that I don’t have to take that route. ”
As I spoke the words out loud, I knew they were true. Aiden was nothing like my father and would always protect his child.
“Good,” Aiden said, a flicker of relief in his eyes. “Then we build from here. I can’t promise I’ll be the perfect husband or father, but I swear to God, I’ll give it everything I’ve got.”
That was the vow that mattered. The one we should’ve made back when we stood in the cramped living room of my mom’s run-down apartment. We didn’t have love then, but maybe we had something more durable.
A pang pierced my heart, the youthful dreams of love shattering, but there was no sense in wallowing in regret. We would have to settle for passion and respect.
Dammit, then why did I want it all?
“You know what I wonder?” Aiden said pensively. “If the body I had to identify wasn’t yours, then whose was it?”
“I always assumed it was my mother,” I admitted. “The paper said a gas leak caused the explosion, but that couldn’t be. Mom hated cooking on gas and refused to have a gas tank anywhere on the premises.”
Aiden nodded as if I were confirming his suspicions. “I suspect Duncan set it up, and I regret to say this, but Uncle Jack probably led him straight to your mother’s. There was one error your father made, though.”
“What’s that?” I questioned. “And please, don’t call him my father. Just Duncan, or asshole, will do.”
“The asshole Duncan,” he started, and I flashed him a grateful smile, “didn’t count on you visiting your mother that day.”
I let out a heavy sigh.
“I should have gone back to the wreck,” I murmured.
“No sense in regretting the past. It cannot be changed.”
His thumb brushed over the back of my hand in a soothing motion, and I felt the steadiness of his presence even while my insides twisted in agony at the thought of my mother being in Duncan’s clutches.
I shook my head, the weight of the situation sinking in. “I want to save her, Aiden. Five years probably changed her, but I won’t be able to live with myself if I don’t try.”
Aiden’s grip tightened ever so slightly, his chin resting against the top of my head.
For a long time he remained quiet, but then his next words made my heart soar. “Then let’s save her.”