Regret?
Cut turned out to have so many avenues and trapdoors. I’d always believed he was mad. A barking, raving lunatic to do what he did. But what if he became who he was because of circumstance? What if he fell for my mother just like Jethro fell for me? What forced him to take Emma’s life if he loved her?
“Get on with it,” Bonnie snapped when Cut didn’t move.
He flinched, but it was Emma who forced Cut to obey.
She scrunched up her face and spat on his shoes. “Yes, listen to the wicked witch, Bryan. Do as you’re told.”
Acres of unsaid tension existed between them. They had a connection—strained and confusing—but linking them regardless.
Cut cocked his head. “You know your orders don’t work on me.”
My mother balled her hands. Her perfect cheekbones and flowing black hair defied the whistling wind, hissing into the camera like a thousand wails. “Do your worst, Bryan. I’ve told you a hundred times. I’m not afraid of you, ofyour family, of whatever debts you make me pay. I’m not afraid because death will come for all of us and I know where I’ll be.”
She stood proudly in the pentagon. “Where will you be when you succumb to death’s embrace?”
Cut paused, the grainy image of his face highlighting a sudden flash of nerves, of hesitation. He looked younger but not adolescent. I doubted he’d ever been completely carefree or permitted to be a child.
Bonnie ruled him like she’d ruled her grandchildren—with no reprieve, rest and a thousand repercussions.
“I’ll tell you where I’ll be.” Cut stormed forward. His feet didn’t enter the salt, but he grabbed my mother around the nape. The diamond collar—
My fingers flew to the matching diamonds around my throat.
The weight of the stones hummed, almost as if they remembered their previous wearer.
—the diamond collar sparkled in the sunlight, granting prisms of light to blind the camera lens, blurring both her and Cut.
In that moment, something happened. Did Cut soften? Did he profess his true feelings? Did my mother whisper something she shouldn’t? Either way, he let her go. His shoulders slouched as he looked at Bonnie.
Then the sudden weakness faded and he stiffened with menace. “Accept the debt, Emma. And then we can begin.”
My hand fumbled for the remote control, my cast clunking on the table-top.
I can’t do this.
Once Jethro had delivered me into the room, I hadn’t been able to move. My feet stuck to the floor, my legs encased in emotional quicksand. I couldn’t go forward, and I couldn’t go back.
I was locked in a room full of scrolls and videos.
For a second, I’d hated Jethro for showing me this place. I knew a room such as this must exist. After all, Cut told me he kept countless records and their family lawyers had copies of every Debt Inheritance amendment.
But I hadn’t expected such meticulous documents.
Stupidly, I thought I would be strong enough to watch. To hold my mother’s hand all these years later and exist beside her while she went through something so terrible.
In reality, I wasn’t.
These atrocities didn’t happen to strangers. These debts happened to flesh and blood. A never-ending link to women I was born to, shared their hopes and fears, ancestors who donated slivers of their souls to create mine.
But I had to stay because I couldn’t keep them shut in the dark anymore. If I didn’t release their recorded forms, they’d be forever locked in filing cabinets.
Pointing the controller at the TV, I stopped the tape as Cut ducked Emma for the second time. I’d been with her while Cut delivered the history lesson. I’d hugged her phantom body as she awaited her punishment. But I couldn’t watch any more of her agony. I couldn’t sit there and pretend it didn’t shatter me. That while my mother was almost drowned, I’d been alive hating her for leaving my father.
Forgive me.
Forgive me for ever cursing you. I didn’t know.
