“He will be,” is all Fallon says. “I brought you here so you could decide on what to do about her.” His chin lifts to my mother and her eyes flare momentarily with what looks like fear.
How has this become my life? I was a football star. A first-string quarterback in the NFL. Fourth draft pick. I am a father to a wonderful little boy. I live in a small rural town on the outskirts of Raleigh, North Carolina. I’m in love with the most incredible woman I have ever known. This crazy shit is beyond my realm of comprehension.
“If you’re asking for me to play vigilante, I can’t do it. I won’t allow my anger to make me into someone that my son and Aurora would be ashamed of.”
Fallon tilts his head at me. “Fair enough.”
“But I would like to hear what she has to say,” I amend.
Fallon nods at Sebastian. He walks over to my mother and rips off the duct tape. She doesn’t make a sound. It’s a testament to how dead inside she is that she no longer shows emotion of any kind. My father destroyed her soul many years ago. He made her this way. I remember a different woman to the one glaring at me now. I remember a mother who sang me songs when I was two and was scared to fall asleep thinking there was a monster under my bed. Whenever I cried, she played peek-a-boo with me until my stomach hurt from laughing.
I’m looking at her now, and I don’t see that person. I haven’t laid eyes on my mother for five years. Not since that night. Time has been kind to her. Other than her hair having a little more silver mixed in with her dark brown strands, she looks exactly the same. I look more like her than I ever did my father. I have his dark blue eyes, but that’s about it.
“JD, tell them to let me go,” she implores me, a hint of the emotion I thought was nonexistent breaking through her frigid resolve.
“Why?”
“Because I’m you mother.”
I cut her off before she can go on a tirade that will more than likely tick me off. “Not the question I was asking. You know how much I love Aurora. I loved her enough to sacrifice that love and our future together. I did what you and Dad demanded of me to keep her safe. So you need to tell me why.”
Her stony façade cracks open. “Because I have nothing left! Twenty-eight years of my life were spent catering to the demands of William Hallstead, and for what? He died and left me nothing other than a pile of debts that I can by no means pay off!”
“This is about money? Did you think by taking Aurora you could extort money from me, Fallon, or Trevor? Unbelievable! Do you not feel guilty about what you’ve done to her?”
I picture Aurora’s broken and bruised body in the hospital bed and my stomach churns. I saw the small, circular burn marks on her upper chest, so God knows how many she may have under the plaster cast that’s encasing her entire right arm and hand. Her face is so swollen and purple, she’s almost unrecognizable.
“I knew she was your weak spot, and his,” she sneers, glancing at Fallon.
Fallon literally growls at her, and Sebastian reaches behind me to place a hand on his arm.
“Do you have a shred of decency still left in you to feel any kind of remorse for what you did to her?”
“I need the money!” she screams at me. “The men your father owe money to are demanding I pay it all back!”
I talk over her. “Do you have any remorse for what you and Dad did to me? You helped him send me away. You took away my choices and manipulated my life! Aurora’s life! My son’s life!” I stop and take a deep breath. “I’myour fucking son!” I scream at her, thumping my chest.
She stares at me with vacant, dead eyes.
“Are you the reason the youth center was vandalized? Did you send this asshole to do the job?” I ask, nodding down at Ricky who still hasn’t moved since Sebastian kicked him.
“Yes.”
“Did you do it to get Aurora alone? You planned for Ricky to drive her off the road?”
“Yes.”
I wish she were a man so I could smack the smug look off her face along with her monosyllabic answers.
“Who did Dad owe money to?”
“Your father had a gambling habit, but his biggest mistake was when he started manipulating client portfolios. Your family’s being one of them,” she says to Fallon. “William hated Phillip.”
Fallon considers her with frigid blue eyes. “I can guarantee you, I hated Phillip more.”
“Doubtful,” she replies.
“If you needed money, why Aurora? Why not go after Phillip Montgomery’s other children?” I ask her, not caring that I’m throwing Sebastian and the other siblings under the bus. I just want answers.
