Chapter 44
Elliot
Ilook down at my watch and check the time for what feels like the millionth time in the last twenty minutes.
The very watch that was once my father’s. The very one he had one when he left Lane Manor when he was sixteen and the very one that landed back in Bennett’s possession as a gift from my mother.
He gave it to me on my twenty-fifth birthday with a note that stated my grandfather would have wanted me to have it. It went to Thomas Lane’s first-born son; it seemed fitting that it went to the first-born son of Robert Lane.
I don’t wear it often, mostly out of fear that something is going to happen to it, but I always travel with it in the rare case I want it to adorn my wrist. Today is the rare case.
I’m meeting my mother after all. Why not have a piece of her lost husband on display? I’m not anything if not fucking petty.
After a day, which felt like a fucking eternity, Drake was able to find where Marisela was staying.
Once I had the address, it took a whole lot of effort to not go over and corner her and force her to tell me everything about Harrison and how to destroy him.
It wasn’t rationale, but when it came to my mother, all rational went out the window.
Instead, Leo suggested we send something her way.
Something that will capture her attention and will want to meet.
So I wrote her a note, a simple on only stating an address and a time and the name Tomás signed at the bottom. One of Leo’s men delivered it.
From there, who knows if she received it but if she did as soon as she saw the name at the bottom, she will know who sent it.
It was the name she gave me after all.
My father picked my first name; she picked my second. It what she would call me. It’s the name she would yell out when I was in trouble.
There would be no question who sent it.
But there is doubt that she will show up.
I check my watch again. Two minutes late.
My eyes roll a bit. I guess I know where Grayson gets his lateness from. If he didn’t have an assistant running his life, planning every second of every day, the man would be late to everything. Not ten minutes or fifteen but hours. It’s an annoying habit and apparently, it’s genetic.
I’m about to check my watch one more time when my phone starts to vibrate on the table. Flipping it over, I have expected it to be Aria but when I see the screen, the name surprises me.
I click the green button. “Did Bennett tell you what I was doing?” I say into the phone instead of a greeting.
After deciding with Aria to stay in Texas until all this blows over, I called my uncle to let him know what was going on and that I wasn’t going to be in the office for the next couple of days.
I had been right with assuming that he hadn’t known that Marisela had come out of the dark, the ‘fucking bitch’ let out when I told him was a clear indication if I needed any.
He has asked me how I knew and when I told him I had Drake look into he ripped me a new asshole.
It was warranted though. I basically told his youngest child to look into something that he shouldn’t have. One wrong click and Drake could have found things that could possibly makes Marisela ashamed.
Then Bennett calmed down and offered to come to Austin if I needed somewhere there when meeting with my mother.
Hearing the offer made me realize no matter how angry we make him, no matter that we are grown adults, Bennett Lane would drop whatever he is doing, fly to another state and be there for us if we needed him to.
Some questions would be asked but no matter the answers he would come.
He has done it for the past twenty years and he will continue to do.
Because he cares.
Because he loves.
It something I should have put together a long time ago, but I was too wrapped up in hating him, in escaping his hold, to notice the small things he would do for my siblings and me. I was too angry to notice that he became the father that we needed.
The past few years, we’ve built a relationship, yes, but I still very much kept it surface level.
We talked about work, about what was going on with everyone else, maybe some trivial things about our lives, joked around a small bit.
And because I kept it at the surface, I didn’t pay attention to the things he would do.
I should have noticed it when he sent Marisela away when I was thirteen.
I should have noticed it when Ella was taken and he did everything in his power to make sure us kids were safe.
I should have noticed it that first time I tried to leave his house to find my father.
I should have noticed it sooner, but I didn’t.
A voice in my ear takes me out of past indiscretions that can’t be changed.
“He didn’t have to. I called Drake while he was in the middle of find you a way to get in contact with her and Bennett filled in the rest.” Samantha’s voice is somewhat calm.
“How did you know it was her he was finding information on?”
A snort fills my ear. “She’s using the name Maria Garcia, one of the most common names in Latin America.”
She has a point there. Marisela wanted to hide in place sight and what better way to do it than with a name that millions of women may have.
“If you called me to talk me out of meeting with her, you should hang up now. I’m doing it.”
There’s a pause from my sister and then a sigh. “I called to tell you not to let her get into you. Do what you got to do but just be careful with her.”
Her words take me by surprise. It’s almost as if…
“You’ve been in contact with her, haven’t you?” The question leaves my mouth before I can even finish the thought.
More questions want to be voiced.
When?
How?
Fucking why?
And the fuck didn’t I know about it?
A much longer pause meets me, and it takes her a few beats to respond.
“Yes.”
One word is all it takes to get my blood boiling more than it was.
My next question comes out through gritted teeth. “When?”
“While I was in Croatia. Trust me when I say, I didn’t seek her out. She found me and I have no fucking idea how. I was in Split doing some work and she just appeared.”
By the way her voice sounds, I know she’s not lying. There’s hurt and anger behind the words, and I was there to protect my sister.
From what I know, she hasn’t seen our mother since the day Bennett told her to leave. She knows she was the one that took Ella. She knows just as much about her than I do, but to Samantha, are mother is dead and could give two shits about what she could be doing.
Marisela couldn’t get to Bennett and the family fortune through me, so she went to her daughter, who she may have thought would be the most willing. Because every girl needs her mother, right? What she doesn’t know is that Samantha was the worst choice.
She’s the princess slated to be the queen one day, the one that will inherit the kingdom. Samantha would rather die than to betray her blood.
“What did she want?”
“Supposedly to connect. She told me that she had spent years trying to find a way to get in contact, but that Bennett was doing everything in his power to keep her away.”
“Did you believe her?”
No pause, no sigh, just a straight answer. “No. I saw through the tears and the lies.”
Pride swims through me. “The whole encounter took me by surprise though. Especially seeing her. I remember being told all the time that we looked alike, but I don’t actually remember her.
Seeing her messed with my mind a bit. She was beautiful, but ugliness seeped though and I couldn’t help but to wonder if I was like her in more ways than just looks. ”
“You’re not.”
She scoffs. “I’m pretty sure I’ve heard you call me a cold-hearted bitch a few times.”
I cringe a little. I have said that and to her face. “Yeah well I’m your older brother and I get to call you shit all the time. Can you be a bitch sometimes? Yes, but you’re not like her.”
She lets out a sigh but she doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t believe me. So I drive the point home.
“You’re not. You have more compassion than her, more love running through your body than she does. You are not like our mother.”
I’m pretty sure Sam is nodding but since I’m not in front of her, I can’t be sure.
“And you’re not like her either.” She voices, taking me a bit aback.
“I never said that I was.” The words come out defensive.
“You didn’t have to. Knowing you, you are thinking it and have been kicking yourself in the ass for it.”
She has to be a fucking mind reader because how else would she know that? How would she know that I had that though circulating through my mind ever since I decided to come to Texas?
That’s some brujeria shit.
“I swear if you created a device to read thoughts and planted it in my head, I’m telling Bennett you cut you off.”
She laughs. “You’d have to prove it first.”
I’m about to throughout a remark, but when I look up from the spot on the table that I’ve been starting at for who knows how long, movement catches my attention.
When putting together this meeting, I thought it would be best to have my conversation with Marisela somewhere public.
So I chose a Taproom. It was random, and maybe not the best place for a conversation like this, but it was public and filled with patrons.
She wouldn’t make a scene if it were to come to that.
“Sammie, I have to go.” I say into the phone, my eyes on my mother as she looks around the tables filling the space.
She looks just like the pictures in Drake’s file. Older, but yet still beautiful like I remember her.
There are a few men standing behind her and I can only assume they’re her guards.
It’s a little ironic, my mother having guards and I don’t. You would think a billionaire would need more protecting than someone who’s been in the shadows.
“Don’t let her get into her head, Elliot.” As my sister’s speaks, the replica of her eyes meet mine.
My mother’s eyes widen ever so slightly when she sees me, but she composes herself in a nanosecond.