She whoops on the other end. "That's my girl. As much as it pains me, I'll wait for the details, but you better deliver, sista."
There's no way I'm sharing the most romantic moments of my life and all we did, but I can give her enough to keep her satisfied. "Deal," I say.
"Awesome. I'm on my way home now, but I'll be expecting a call later. Smooches, darling." She makes kissing sounds into the phone and then disconnects.
It will be a lot later before I can call her since another big event is about to unfold tonight.
It's time to catch a Tiger by its tail.
Cruz and I planned this part of the night just a week ago. I knew that after what we just did, there was no way I was letting Victor keep me from him. Tonight, I'm confronting Victor and bringing him down.
With Byron's help, I think we have a solid plan. Cruz told his dad, who did NOT take it well. According to Cruz, his dad has been acting weird these last two weeks, and when Cruz told him about what's been happening in my home, and what I plan to do, he went postal and didn't want to wait. Cruz said it was a fight, but he got his dad to agree to let me handle this my way since this is my fight.
This isn't just for me, though. This is for my mom, Byron, Byron's mom, and everyone Victor has controlled and extorted. This will be the ultimate revenge.
I'm terrified.
I put my phone back in the small purse on my shoulder and look up at the boy who owns my heart and soul. "Are you ready for this?"
His face darkens. "If by 'this' you mean making that bastard pay for all he's done, I'm more than ready. Are you sure you don't want me there when I drop you off?"
I shake my head. "No. Byron and I need to do this part alone. Just be ready with your dad when one of us calls or texts."
He gathers me in his arms and holds me close to his chest. Sunshine and grass. Nothing will ever smell better.
"I love you, Jo. Nothing will keep us apart again," he whispers in a voice filled with resolve.
"Always together," I say against his chest.
"Forever," he replies, then kisses the top of my head.
It's time to take my life back.
I'm standing on the front steps, waiting for Byron, and fingering a drawing that I've kept with me since Cruz gave it to me.
On the anniversary of my mother's passing, Cruz and I spent the afternoon at her grave. I laid on the grass and told my mother all that's been happening and how much I miss her. Cruz sat against a tree with his sketchbook and left me to mourn in my own way. When it was time to leave, he gave me the drawing he'd been working on, and my heart cried out at the beautiful image. He'd drawn me lying on the grass, the headstone behind me, and a perfect image of my mother standing beside me. It broke my heart and mended it all at the same time. His talent is unreal, and this drawing means everything to me. I have carried it with me everywhere I go since the day he gave it to me.
I look down at the incredibly drawn replica of my mother as run the pad of my thumb gently over her face. "I hope I make you proud tonight. This is for both of us, and all we lost. He's never going to hurt us again," I whisper to her image.
"I can only assume you must be speaking of me," an angry voice hisses from above.
I snap my eyes toward the door where Victor is looming.
No! Byron is supposed to be here when I confront him.
I quickly fold the paper and put it back in my purse. Victor's nostrils flare and he growls, "You're late."
I swallow thickly and try to appear meek when I answer him. "There was an incident at the school. They wouldn't let us leave until it was dealt with." It scares me how fast and easily lying is becoming.
He points a finger at me. "I watched that boy drop you off, so don't lie to me. You told me you were going with your friends. You also promised me you were done with him. Want to explain yourself, and with the truth this time?"
A feeling of righteous anger snaps my spine straighter and has me glaring back at the source of all my pain. "You want the truth? I never planned on giving you anything from me, especially my body. You disgust me and I hate you! You ruined my life, and you ruined my mother's life. You will never keep me from the boy I love, and you'll never have my virginity since I gave it to him! That's why I'm late, and I don't regret a single thing, other than I had to think of you for a split second at the relief of knowing you'll never have that part of me.” I screech at the man whose face has darkened into an unhealthy shade of red.
With more speed and agility than I could ever predict, he's on me and dragging me up the stairs and through the front door. He throws me to the floor of the sitting room off the front entrance and slams the front door shut.
He advances on me with menace radiating from his body. "You think I can't see the evidence of your betrayal written over your face? You think I couldn't smell him on you when I caught a whiff of his cologne coming off you while you stood there?" He starts unbuttoning the sleeves of his dress shirt as he delivers his little speech. "He may have taken your body first, but my stamp will be the last. Now that you've had a boy between your legs, let's see what you think of having a man there."
I watch in horror as he starts to unbutton the front of his shirt, and my flight instincts take over. I scramble off the floor and make to run, but his fist snags my hair and jerks me back with a sharp tug. He wrestles me to the chaise lounge by the front window and straddles my back, effectively pinning me down.
He leans down to my ear and whispers, "You belong to me and I'm going to prove it to you."
I can't see what he's doing as I refuse to look, but I can feel him moving above me. Bile is threatening to choke me as it rises up the back of my throat and tears blind my eyes.
"Dad, what the FUCK are you doing?" Byron's voice yells from somewhere in the room.
I want to weep in relief but know it's too soon for that yet.
Byron roars, then I feel the weight on my back shift and fall off me. I sit up as fast as possible and watch in fright as Byron is punched in the face by a shirtless Victor, falling to the floor. Byron is a scrapper though, and gets right back up and tackles his father, their weight landing on the glass table in the center of the room and shattering it.
I grab my phone from my fallen purse at my feet in a panic and quickly send Cruz the alert that shit has gone sideways as grunts and curses echo around me. I toss my phone on the lounge and look up just as Byron is thrown onto a wingback chair, with Victor's hands around his throat.
I'm not going to let him hurt my brother.
I launch myself at Victor from behind and latch onto his back, placing my arms around him in a chokehold. He staggers back with my weight clinging to him, but quickly bends forward, dislodging me and whipping me over his shoulder and onto the floor.
I lay in a dazed and gasping heap as he towers over me. "Don't fucking move!" He yells.
I don't think I can, even though I want to.
He goes back for a choking and gasping Byron, grabbing him by the shirt and laying a sickening punch to his face and then one to his gut. Byron doubles over and falls to the floor, not far from me. I can see a puddle of blood forming beneath him and really start to panic.
Just as I'm trying to move myself in his direction, my ankle is grabbed, and I am dragged back as I scramble against the hardwood for purchase. Victor's weight, once again, lands on my back.
I try pushing myself up, but a large hand grabs my wrists and holds them above my head. "How fitting that my spawn has to watch as I claim you. This won't be gentle, but I'm actually happy about that. Please feel free to scream. Your mother did at first, too."
I go crazy beneath him, bucking and thrashing with everything I have. Byron reaches a swollen and bruised hand out to me, but can't speak past the blood in his mouth. One eye is swollen, but I can clearly see the tears falling from them both. My own tears fall faster as I cry with him and stretch my fingers in his direction.
Victor laughs behind me. "How touching. And here I was believing there was ne
ver anything between you both but hate. You've been a busy girl lately, charming every male in your circle. Tell me, did you plan to fuck him too?"
Byron makes an angry noise, but I refuse to give Victor the satisfaction of my own anger. I'll let it burn through me and save it for the right moment.
With a voice colder than a winter's night edged with frost, and loud enough to shake the walls, I hear, "Get your fucking hands off my daughter!"
And my world tips one last time.
There's no way I heard that right, but I'm too relieved to hear Jake's voice at the moment to stop and really think about it. With a sound like an enraged animal would make, I watch as he hurls himself toward me, and the body that's holding me down. The weight is suddenly gone, and my eyes register the white face of the boy I love, standing frozen in the doorway. Whether it's from the scene, he just walked in on, or what his father declared for all to hear, I don't know, and at this moment, I don't care.
I try to call his name and fear he doesn't hear me over the noise of the fight that's happening behind me, but his eyes spark back to life and he rushes toward me with a tortured sob. He scoops me from the floor and whisks me to the hallway, but my hand points back to my brother, the one who defended me so bravely, lying on the floor.
He leaves me leaning against a wall, then rushes back into the room to help Byron get to his feet, slinging one of his arms around his waist, and helping Byron limp out of the room. He has him lean beside me, then Cruz spins around and grabs at his hair, horrible noises of pain coming from deep in his chest.
I wish I could comfort him, but the sounds from the other room demand my attention. I peek around the corner and see that Jake is laying into Victor with both fists, blood flying and covering the front of Victor's naked chest.
I'm about to ask Cruz to stop it when three huge and tattooed men storm through the front door. One nods at Cruz, then all three head into the front room. I watch in wonder as they approach the two fighting men, one pulling Jake off an almost unconscious Victor, and the other two hefting Victor's limp body between them. Jake is breathing hard and has blood splatters on his flannel shirt, but otherwise, he looks fine.
Victor does not.
The one holding Jake, and who nodded at Cruz, says, "Sorry, boss, we got here as soon as we could. We got it from here. You go take care of those kids out there. Cruz looks ready to either commit murder or faint."
Jake says something back to him, but my sole focus is on the two huge men dragging Victor out of the room. Jake says, "Wait," and marches up to Victor. He grabs him by the hair and gets right in his face, growling, "That was for taking the woman I love away from me. I had six years of pain to deliver, but nothing comes close to the pain I'm going to rain down on you for hurting my daughter. You're a worthless piece of shit and your kingdom has fallen. Enjoy your night in hell." He spits on Victor, then nods for the two men to take him away.
There's that word again - daughter.
Is he speaking metaphorically? That's the only thing that makes sense. Cruz makes another noise filled with pain, and Jake finally turns his eyes on us. There are too many emotions there for me to read, but something in the way he looks at me causes the tiny hairs on the back of my neck to stand.
He walks our way with measured steps, glancing between me and Cruz, then finally gets a good look at Byron. He turns to me and says, "Jolene, why don't you help your brother to the kitchen and get him some ice and bandages. I need to speak with my son."
For just the briefest of moments when he said the word "brother," I wasn't altogether sure which boy he was referring to, and that's when everything becomes scary.
With a shuddering breath and a sudden sense of wrongness, I numbly do as I'm told, helping Byron from the wall and shuffling him down toward the kitchen. I look back over my shoulder one last time for Cruz and see the same look of dawning devastation on his face.
What does this mean for me, and for us?
What feels like hours later, but is probably closer to twenty minutes, Cruz and Jake slowly make their way into the kitchen.
I cleaned Byron's cuts the best I could and gave him two bags of ice - one for his eye and one for his hand. He's got a split lip and his tongue got cut from his teeth, but only his eye looks bad. He also has a nasty bruise on his stomach, and I told him we should get him checked. He refused and said there would be too many questions. I'm not happy about leaving him like this, though.
My hands are balled into tight fists on the table as my leg taps restlessly beneath it. Cruz notices, of course, and pulls the chair out beside me and takes both my rigid and frozen hands in his. His eyes give nothing away, but they don't have that haunted look they did before.
Jake leans against the island counter and regards us all with solemn eyes. "I guess I have some explaining to do with you as well, Jolene."
I manage to find my voice and say, "I think so."
He takes a deep breath and looks at the ceiling. "Damn you, Deanna. We should have been doing this together." His eyes come back down and rest on mine. I don't know why, but I start crying.
Jake's eyes soften, then he begins. "A few weeks ago, I got a letter delivered to my first shop. I'll let you read it since there's a part in there for you too. The night I met your momma to tell her that Maria was back, and to see if they could mend the fence between them, we both had a few drinks to drown our pain. I ended up confessing my feelings to her, and we spent the night together. I never suspected anything because you were born the month after Cruz, and the math didn't add up. Turns out you were almost two months early. When the officer told your momma about the accident, it caused her to go into early labor. I never knew. I loved your momma all my life, and I feel so betrayed that she kept this from me. From both of us.
"I understand why she did it, she explained that in her letter. It seems she wasn't blind to what was happening in this house. The letter was supposed to find me right after she died, so I could protect you, but the woman at the bank who had the instructions to deliver the letter from her safe deposit box got fired. It wasn't until they were cleaning out that box after it went unpaid for a year, they found the addressed letter. They had someone deliver it to me and I paid the fees for the last year. Your birth certificate was in there too. She never meant to leave you here in the hands of that monster. Leaving you was her biggest regret, but God was calling her home. In her final moments, she gave me the greatest gift and the means to set you free. I think we can forgive her for keeping this from us in light of that. You're my daughter, Jolene, and even if I can't have her, she gave me you."
He is watching me carefully for a reaction, but my heart hurts too much and the pain has stolen my breath. So much time wasted because of secrets and lies. My heart aches at all Jake lost, and my mother too. Their love should have been a fairy tale, not a nightmare.
I'm not sure how to feel about Jake. He was always just Cruz's dad and Mr. C to a small girl. Now, how do I reconcile that? Am I supposed to call him Dad? Does that make me and Cruz brother and sister?
Oh. My. God!
I swing my wide, panicked eyes toward Cruz and he correctly guesses where my thoughts have gone. He squeezes my hand gently and says, "That's what I thought too, but nothing has changed. We're still us. We're still Jo and Cruz. The only difference is that you're not alone anymore. Dad knows that this is a shock, for both of us, but nothing is changing. He said I'm still his son, but you're almost a grown woman now, and all he wants is the chance to know and love you."
I blink the tears from my eyes and whisper, "But what does that mean? He's my father now too, right? People will talk and they'll assume we're really brother and sister."
Jake clears his throat. "Actually, I can answer that. No one needs to know the truth of your parentage, hunny. You're almost a legal adult and can stand on your own. My only role in your life moving forward is as it's always been. The only difference is that we know the truth. I've loved you since you were just a little ankle-biter, and I love you
now. You've always been special to me, first because you were the child of the woman I loved, then as the little girl who befriended my son, and now as the young woman who holds his heart. I'll admit, knowing you're my daughter is a joy and a gift, but my love for you has always been there, regardless of DNA. You're still my, Jo-Jo Bug," he tells me with a wealth of love shining in his moist eyes.
With a sob, I push my chair back and race into his open arms. "I love you too," I whisper brokenly against his big chest.
After some snuggles and more tears, from both of us, a throat clearing breaks us apart. "I hate to poop on the party, but what about my dad? Where did those three walking ads for steroids drag him off to?" Byron asks.
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