Chapter 41 What Had To Be Done
WHAT HAD TO BE DONE
PATIENCE
“Where are my parents?”
“They’re checking in on something with your brother.” The deacon closes the door behind him, and walls start to close in. “You’ve been avoiding me, Patience.”
“Why would I avoid you?” I try to keep my nerves steady but fail.
He’s right. I have been avoiding him. Ever since that night he placed his hand a little too high on my leg. Mom might disregard what Deacon Beech did because he’s a man of God or even just because he’s a man, but I refuse to.
“Sit with me.” He motions to the long bench seat as he sinks down onto it himself. “Let’s talk.”
I have nothing to say to him, but I don’t want to end up bleeding and reciting the rosary later, so I do as he says and sit beside him.
“You’re a beautiful girl, Patience. You have so much promise if you put your mind to it. I know you’re under a lot of pressure with school and family, but I can help you if you want.”
“I’m fine.” I avoid his gaze, even as I feel it burning into the side of my head.
“Are you sure?” He places a hand on my thigh, and this time I don’t shove him off.
I sit perfectly still and hope he’ll come to that decision on his own so I can avoid getting in trouble. I press my lips together and fight back the burning behind my eyes as his fingers trail inward.
“Your mother seems to agree that I could be of great help to you if you’d just let me.” He leans in closer, smelling my hair.
Of course my mother did. To her, I’m something to be traded, something to increase her value someday. My father has tried to keep her under control, but lately, she’s become more determined.
“Such a sweet girl, Patience.” Ian drags his hand higher, and I wonder if Mom knows he’s in here.
If that’s what she’s intended.
“Don’t.” I push his hand just before it reaches my core, and the first tear slips free.
It’s a weakness I shouldn’t show.
“I don’t need your permission.” He snags my wrist when I try to stand, stopping me. “Your mother already gave it to me.”
In one quick move, he shoves me down onto the bench, stomach first, so he can climb over me from behind. He twists one arm behind my back, while I try to scratch and fight him with the other. It’s no use. He’s too strong, pinning me at my hips.
Any composure I’ve tried to maintain slips as tears spill freely now.
“The more you fight this, the rougher I’m going to have to be with you.” He grabs my thighs to spread them. “Your mother warned me you were a fighter, but I reassured her I was more than capable of handling you.”
He moves for my clothes, but just as he does, the door to the room swings open.
It takes me a moment to realize what’s happening as Ian’s weight is suddenly off me. I grab the cushion and slowly slide to the floor, curling into a corner.
“Alex, stop!” I cry as my brother begins beating the deacon’s face to a pulp.
As he becomes nothing more than bloody bone and flesh.
But Alex doesn’t stop. He can’t. Like my mother always promised, I’d be both our downfalls.
The moment I cross the property line into the Lancaster estate, my heart is racing.
I swore to myself I wouldn’t come back here after returning from LA.
There’s nothing left for me between these walls.
But saying that this place has no power over me and proving it are two different things.
Which is why I’m here, responding to my mother’s text, to show her that she no longer has control.
My car rolls to a stop in front of the ridiculous estate my parents called a house, and I regret not taking Jacob up on his offer to come with me. Regardless of what my family did to him, he would face this for my sake. It’s one of the many reasons I fell for him.
Except I need to do this alone.
Just me and my mother. Then I can be free.
I cut the engine and stare at the front door before climbing out, but it doesn’t open. Mom sent most of the staff away after my father disappeared. Weeds make a mess at the edges of the driveway, and leaves carpet the cobblestone.
Taking a deep breath, I spin the diamond band on my left ring finger and let that settle me. It might have been trauma that brought Jacob and me together, but it’s love that binds us now.
When he first proposed, I thought he might have lost his mind. Too high from what we were doing to think clearly. But after he dressed me, gave me water, took care of me, and walked me out of Sigma House, he dropped to his knees in the forest dirt and proposed again, erasing any doubt.
He wants me to be his in every way.
It might be ridiculous or sudden. And it might go against everything I’ve said I wanted in a life free of Sigma House.
But looking into Jacob’s green eyes, it doesn’t matter who he is to the fraternity.
It doesn’t matter that he’s my professor or that there are seventeen years between our ages.
It doesn’t even matter that we both went through hell to get to each other.
Only one word sat on the tip of my tongue because I love him enough to stand at his side through the good and bad. Through Sigma Sin.
So I said yes.
After all, this is a world only the two of us understand. One where our roughest edges fit together. He’s it for me.
Taking a final deep breath, I climb out of the car and make my way to the front steps. Birds chirp in the trees. A few break a branch when they take off quickly, and it makes me jump.
The front door creaks as I swing it open, finding it unlocked. And every step echoes on the polished marble floors.
I don’t find Mom in any of her usual places. It isn’t until I see the door to the basement open that I realize where I’m being summoned. A black pit that has the hair on the back of my neck standing tall.
With every creak of the wooden stairs groaning beneath me, my knees ache. My heart races. And when I find Mom standing in front of the cross at the bottom—her blonde hair in place and her outfit ironed to perfection—my mouth is suddenly dry.
Candlelight flickers around us, painting a long shadow of the cross on the floor.
“He was supposed to come for me.” She doesn’t look at me, but she must hear the scuffle of shoes on the concrete because she knows I’m here.
Tucked away in a corner is the stool Mom used to bend me over when she whipped me. The sight of it makes my skin hurt.
“He’s gone now,” she says as my toes bump the chains on the floor.
“Dad?” My eyebrows pinch with my guess, and she nods. “Where is he?”
“Your brother took him.” She glances over her shoulder, but her stare is on the ground, not on me. “If I had to guess, he’s with your husband.”
Finally, her eyes meet mine, and there is nothing but the fiery pits of hell shining through.
“Dad lied to Sigma House.” I swallow hard. “It’s their place to deal with him.”
Mom laughs. “Now you’re spouting to me about the rights and rules of the House? What has Ezra done to you, Patience?”
“His name is Jacob now.” I fix my gaze on her.
“Yes, I suppose it is.” She turns, and that’s when I see the gun in her hand.
“Why do you have that?” My heart thunders between my temples.
“You’ve finally become something, and it’s what I was always meant to be.” She ignores my question. “A Sigma House queen. His queen at that. I suppose he should thank me after all.”
“What are you talking about?” I shouldn’t entertain this conversation, but I can’t run without risking her aiming the gun at me, so I have no choice.
“I helped him with Molly.” Her tone is distant, like she’s taken something. “Ezra—Jacob’s—first love. She was a weak girl. Couldn’t handle the House like a Lancaster can. She was never going to be strong enough to stand at his side.”
Mom drops her hand from the cross and starts to pace again.
“I didn’t realize you knew Molly too.”
“Your father and I spent our time trying to prepare them. Trying to guide them.” There’s a whimsical delirium in her tone; she’s here but not. “Molly was resistant and going to be a problem. She didn’t deserve a man like that. I did what had to be done so she wouldn’t drag him down with her.”
My heart races. “What did you do?”
Mom grins, her eyes distant. “I whispered her secrets in Gideon’s ear. Your father’s love for me was always his downfall. I suppose I should feel guilty for that, too, now that he’s gone.”
The ice in her tone makes my spine stiffen. I’ve always known my father loved my mother more than she loved him. But hearing it stated in such a cold, emotionless manner is heartbreaking.
“Molly fought back, of course. You have that in common with her. You’re both so determined to dig your heels in and hold on.
She thought Haven knocking her up would be enough to keep Ezra if she told him it was his, but I made sure she never got the chance.
I made sure the doctor dealt with it. Of course she thought it was a checkup, until we took care of the problem. ”
“You forced her to get the abortion.”
“Ezra Stone was set to take his place as president. With our help, he would have risen to the top. He couldn’t be tied to a weakling like her—like you.
” Mom aims the gun at me. “He is better than that. Gideon didn’t see it.
He couldn’t. But I did. I saw him. Why couldn’t Ezra see me in return?
I was right in front of him. I could have given him what she couldn’t. ”
Pain cuts through her words as her frown deepens. Realization hits me.
“You were in love with him.” It’s nearly a whisper, and my stomach turns like I’m going to vomit.
“Ezra couldn’t see past Molly, so I took care of the problem. Without her distracting him, he would finally see me.”
“You had Molly killed so you could take him for yourself?”
“He should have hated her!” Mom’s voice shoots up, and a tear slips out. “She cheated on him. She got pregnant by another man. He should have hated her for what she did, but he has a weakness for weak women, so I suppose it figures he chose you of all people.”
Mom sneers, disgusted by me.
“You were married.” I shake my head. “You had a husband. A family.”
“Unfortunately,” she seethes. “You and your brother always held me back. How could Ezra love me with all that baggage? I was only a few years older than him, but he couldn’t see past you and your father.”
It makes sense now. Why Mom resented me. Why she never showed love to my father. She wanted someone else, and in her mind, we were all obstacles in her way.
It couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Mom imagined this entire sick fantasy, destroying Jacob’s life in the process. And when he grieved for his girlfriend instead of falling into her arms, she held it against her family. I’ve always known my mother’s reasoning was off, but this is delusion.
“He never would have loved you,” I say finally, rolling my shoulders back.
“Don’t say that.” She lifts the gun, aiming it at me. “He loves you, doesn’t he? You’re no better. We’re practically the same.”
“I’m nothing like you.”
“You’re right.” She keeps the gun trained on me. “You’re a disappointment. And like I told Molly, if I can’t have him, no one will.”
Mom’s smile falls, and there’s nothing but an empty face staring at me as she pulls the trigger.
I jolt, waiting for the sting of pain. But it never comes.
Red blooms on Mom’s chest from the gun backfiring, and her face slackens the moment before she falls to the ground.