Page 207 of Vexatious Queen

Her grip tightened.

“Ren—” Nash whispered the warning. He could see her unraveling as much as I could.

“I’ve got this,” I said quietly, never taking my eyes off my mother.

This was between her and me.

Queen to queen.

“I don’t know why you came here tonight or why you chose to stay dead,” I said, the words burning as they left me. “But whatever war you think you’re finishing tonight—it doesn’t end like this.”

Something flickered in her gaze then. Pain. Regret. Fear maybe. Her lip trembled. She looked at me, and I saw something akin to hope in her eyes.

“You sent me to Wayward, didn’t you?”

I glanced around the room and landed on Dean Henry, who was far too calm. There was an unspoken apology on his face that felt like another blow. He knew. He had to have known. But he didn’t say a word.

“Yes. I told Neil to bring you here,” Mum answered.

“Because you wanted me to learn the truth of who I was, to be protected, and to become strong?”

Tears spilled down her cheeks. “Yes.”

“Well, I have. Look at me.” Her entire body trembled as she looked at me once more. “Put. The. Gun. Down,” I said again. “If you ever loved me—if any part of you still does—don’t make me live with this, too.”

The room held its breath.

Mum exhaled. It came out broken. Not loud or dramatic. But, like a breath she’d been holding for years. Her eyes never left mine.

For a moment, everything but her disappeared. The men. The history pressed into every corner of the room. There was only us. Two women forged by the same fire, standing on opposite sides of a choice neither of us should have had to make.

“You look like her,” Mum said quietly. My heart stuttered, unsure what she meant. “Not the girl I left,” she continued, her voice pained. “The woman I dreamed you’d become.”

The words hurt more than she would ever know.

She looked at Vadin and slowly moved the gun away from his temple.

“I will not make you watch me become a monster.”

My knees threatened to give out.

This wasn’t the reunion of my dreams. There were no apologies that could fix this. No arms reaching across the room. No collapsing into each other’s grief. This grated against my soul and cut me a million times.

I blinked, and for the first time since I’d walked into the room, I saw the woman I remembered. This was my mother stepping back, not because she was weak, but because I was strong enough to demand it, and there was enough of her left to listen.

As she lowered the weapon, I understood two irreversible truths.

My mother was alive.

And nothing would ever be the same again.

MARCH 7 – SATURDAY 8:00 PM

Ren

Eddie stormed past me, barking orders as he grabbed the gun and hauled Mum out of the room by her arm. At any other time, I would’ve been angered by the blunt and aggressive treatment of my mother, but not today.

I felt nothing and everything.