Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 62811 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 314(@200wpm)___ 251(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62811 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 314(@200wpm)___ 251(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
But am I any different since I used her as well?
“To survive. Not everyone grew up with a silver spoon, Tristan.” Her words are sharp, and they sting upon impact, which only adds to my anger.
“You could’ve had that, but you ditched us, remember?” I tell her bitterly. “You could’ve had a life just as we have now, but you chose to walk out.” I hold her gaze. “Why?”
Her eyes glass over with unshed tears before she eventually shakes her head and blinks them away. “It doesn’t matter now,” she says softly.
“Like hell it doesn’t,” I scoff. “You don’t think you owe us some kind of explanation? Some kind of closure? We cared about you—loved you even—and you just disappeared. Never came back to visit, never reached out…just disappeared.”
“It’s complicated—”
“I think we’re well past complicated after these last couple of weeks, don’t you think?” I say sarcastically, my frustration making my words so tight that they’d snap if I could physically touch them. “You left right after we lost Mom. Do you know how hard it was for us to lose both of the most important women in our lives?”
Something akin to guilt flashes in her eyes, but her expression remains passive. “I’m sorry if my actions hurt you, but I had to do what I thought made sense for me at the time.” She sighs softly. “Look, this current situation is already enough, so I’d rather not bring the past into it right this minute.”
I’m not sure if I’m more upset with her or myself. I’d thought about this girl for years, wondering where she was, if she was happier now than she was with us, if she ever thought about us. It never crossed my mind that Kitten could be Cleo, but her reaction to us in Heaven when I called Talon by his nickname makes sense. And I’d revealed the monster that dwelled within me when she was never meant to see it.
This situation is becoming more fucked up by the second.
There’s so much I want to know about her and her life, but she’s so guarded. Each question only comes with a vague response that doesn’t quite satisfy the itch of satisfaction that I’m looking for.
“Was it us?” I finally ask after a long while. Her brows knit together on her forehead as she frowns at me, confused eyes searching my face.
“What are you talking about?”
“Did we make you mad? Make you feel as if you weren’t wanted or something?” I feel like I’m throwing shit at the wall in an effort to try to understand what happened all those years ago, but she only continues to stare at me with a blank expression.
“Me leaving had nothing to do with you and Talon,” she says, but she struggles to meet my gaze.
“Then what was it?”
But she only sadly shakes her head. “I can’t talk about that right now, Tristan.”
Frustration mounts in my chest. I don’t like being in the dark. After everything that’s happened since she’s reappeared in our lives, the least she can do is give us the full truth. Instead, she continues to hold it close to her chest, locked away in her heart to never see the light of day.
She’s an anomaly I didn’t account for, a complication that I can’t necessarily fix, and the lack of control I have fills me with anxiety. Now that the truth about her identity is out of the bag, where do we even go from here? Will she take her money and walk out on us…again? Will she choose to stay?
Knowing that she could end up rejecting us once again sends a sharp pain through my chest. I have to get out of here before I’m tempted to do something I’ll regret, something that I won’t be able to fix.
I simply turn away from her and give her a taste of her own medicine—leaving without a single word.
CLEO
“What do you mean, it didn’t go through?” I all but squeak. After checking my account for days, Lucian finally called me to inform me that the transfer was sent back due to the account not existing. This has to be some kind of trick, some kind of scam for him and his stupid club to potentially exploit desperate girls looking to make quick money.
“There was a problem with the transfer, but it’s a simple fix,” Lucian says, his voice calm and steady despite my growing panic. “It may be as simple as the wrong number on either the account or routing number when you filled out your form.”
We take a few moments to confirm the numbers and find that I’d screwed up the order of two numbers when I wrote it down. I almost want to slap myself. Here I am thinking this man, and the guys, are trying to cheat me out of my money, but I’m the one who wrote down the wrong information to begin with.