She slowly trudged up the stairs to her bedroom, her feet feeling like they were tied to lead weights. Her entire body felt weighed down. She walked into her bedroom, hoping their one guest hadn’t heard the argument. The last thing a supposedly peaceful and relaxing B&B needed was a reputation for loud, embarrassingly personal, lovers’ quarrels. Talk about awkward.
Lena shut the door behind her and fell into bed, burying her face in her pillow. She contemplated whether or not she needed another good cry or perhaps a restful nap. Before she could come to a decision, she heard her bedroom door creak open. Lena sat up and saw Mara’s large, looming figure. She had a strange glint in her eye that instantly made Lena uncomfortable.
“Hey, Mara. Can I help you with anything?”
Chapter 8
The woman stalked toward her, and Lena didn’t have a clue what Mara wanted but knew in her gut it couldn’t be good.
“Help me? Why yes, you filthy whore, there is something you can help me with.”
Lena’s stomach churned. The woman’s menacing words sounded vaguely familiar, as did her voice and the embittered look on her wizened face.
“Oh, and what can I do for you?” Lena pretended to ignore Mara’s epithet and tried to keep her voice steady her voice and stop her growing apprehension from bubbling to the surface.
Lena put one leg on the ground and started to stand when Mara lunged at her, her bony, claw-like fingers clasping on her neck, her nails digging into her skin. Lena tried to push her away, but she was completely caught off guard. Pressed against the edge of the bed, she had no leverage to push Mara off of her.
“Now that you’re alone again, ‘cause you drove your nasty men away from your dirty twat, what you can do for me…”
Mara’s grip on Lena’s throat increased with every word she spat out.
“Is die!”
A frigid shock of fear raced down Lena’s back, catching every nerve in her body. She knew those words.
“The letters. You wrote the letters,” Lena gasped out as she pulled at the fingers clutching at her throat, fingers she knew meant to squeeze the life out of her.
“Ah, you figured it out. Yes, I sent those letters.”
A twisted smile spread up Mara’s wrinkled face, reaching her eyes in a horrifying glint of pure evil.
Lena’s eyes darted around the room and in her peripheral vision she saw the Tiffany-styled lamp on her bedside table. At the time they bought it, she had told Edie it was too heavy and old-fashioned even for Lena’s traditional taste, but now she was eternally grateful Edie convinced her that the behemoth looked charming.
She pulled one hand away from her throat, her eyes rolling to the back of her head as Mara squeezed even tighter, and reached for the lamp. Her fingers could barely brush against it and Mara cackled as if knowing Lena’s arms were far too short to reach the lamp from that distance. Lena mustered every fiber in her body, her will to survive and rip this crazy bitch apart too strong to quell completely, and she lunged for the lamp. Her hand made contact and wrapped securely around the lamp’s base. In one smooth motion, Lena hurled it into the side of Mara’s head.
Multi-colored glass rained down on them and Lena squeezed her eyes shut, praying it wouldn’t cut her as it came down. Upon contact, Mara screamed and released her hold on Lena’s neck, backing up to the center of the room. She clutched her head as blood poured down, dripping into her eyes and spreading through the wrinkles on her face.
Lena gasped for air, but didn’t allow herself to sit idly, recuperating the precious oxygen her body had almost completely run out of. She looked down, grabbed the largest, sharpest shard she could find and lunged with all her force at the woman inexplicably hell-bent on ending her life.
Even though Lena fully extended her arms over her head, she could barely reach the woman’s throat and had to settle on slicing the thin, liver-spotted skin of her chest. Mara held her hands protectively across her body, but Lena kept stabbing, not knowing whether any of her attacks landed. All she wanted to do was survive this ordeal, even if that meant killing this lunatic in the process.
Mara pushed back and Lena realized with horror that both her wrists were in the woman’s hands. Scratch that, hand. Mara had managed to grab a hold of both Lena’s wrists with just one of her massive hands. Lena could feel the glass she held press into her skin, leaving shallow cuts across her palm, and she had to let it go. With her free hand, Mara fisted Lena’s hair and lifted her off the ground. Lena screamed as her scalp lit up in searing pain. It seemed as if each follicle on her head had a personal vendetta to torture her. She flailed her body and kicked blindly, even though her movement only made the pain worse.
She managed to land a hard kick in Mara’s stomach. Instead of simply dropping Lena and letting go, Mara threw her across the room. As her body collided with the wall, the impact knocked the air out of her lungs.
While on the floor, Lena suddenly heard footsteps pounding up the stairs. She and Mara locked eyes and for the first time that day, the woman looked concerned.
“Lena? Where are you? We just wanted to give you something and then be on our way,” Brock called from down the hall.
“Babe, what’s going on? Are you okay? Say something.” Wes yelled, worry evident in his voice.
“I’m up here in my room,” Lena managed to squeak out. Her throat was still sore and she could barely speak.
As a last ditch effort, Mara came at her again, but before her gnarled fingers could strike, Brock came and pushed her away. Wes raced in right after him and knelt down beside her.
“Holy shit, baby, oh, my God. Are you okay?”
Wes lifted her torso off the ground so she could sit up and cupped her face in his hands, looking her over. Even though his firm hands did wonders to still the frantic pattering of her heart, the jostling seemed to awaken every bruise forming on her body. Her eyes focused on his face, and she realized how wrong she was for pushing her men away.
Men…Brock!
She looked up and saw Brock struggling with Mara, trying to pin her arms down to her side. Though Brock had an incredibly strong physique, even he had difficulty getting that crazed woman under control. He was physically strong, but Mara clearly had blind and ferocious rage going for her.
“Damn it, lady. You need to simmer down and—Argh!” Brock fell back from the impact of Mara’s meaty fist on his jaw. He released her from his grasp, sending Mara flying back. She lost her footing and fell, her head landing hard against the edge of Lena’s dresser. She hit the floor, not completely gone, but definitely out.
Lena gasped, putting her hands to her mouth and noticed that Brock did the same.
“Christ, Lena. I didn’t mean for that to happen.” He rushed to the fallen woman and felt for her pulse. “Well, at least she’s still alive. I always swore I’d never lay my hands on a woman, but I was just trying to get her under control. That woman’s a fucking beast. She’s strong and it looks like she’s still got a lot of life left in her.”
He nodded his satisfaction that she was still alive and then rushed over to Lena’s side, addressing his brother.
“Wes, I’m going to check Lena for injuries. You make sure that crazy old lady’s not gonna be causing any more trouble.”
Brock carefully examined every cut, scrape, and bruise on Lena’s body. Even though he was obviously in control, fear still laced every feature on his face.
“It’s okay, Brock. I’m okay. Definitely a little achy, but I think I’m fine.” Lena started to stand, pushing herself up with her hands, when she winced. That damn wrist again. Brock’s face softened as he carefully helped Lena up and held her wrist tenderly in his hand.
“Sweetheart, I fixed up this wrist once. I think I can do it again.” He smiled and leaned down and gently kissed Lena’s swollen lips before kissing every knuckle on her hand and the inside of her wrist. “I’m just glad the beautiful woman it’s connected to is alive and well.” Lena leaned in for another painful, but satisfying kis
s when she heard a groan.
“I think this woman’s in a lot of pain, Brock, but she’s still pretty much out.” Wes looked up. “What do you want me to do with her?”
Brock’s attention turned back to the woman on the floor.
“Lena, why don’t you sit in this chair. Wes, come over here and help her. I have to make sure that old loon is okay. Even though she wanted to kill you, I’m still a doctor.”
Lena limped as Wes held her hand and elbow and lead her to the cushiony chair in the corner of her room that rested at the foot of her bed. He pushed all the clothes Lena piled on top of it to the floor before he sat her down.
“I’ll help you pick those up later, sugar,” Wes said as he kissed her fingertips and smoothed the hair off her face. “Babe, I hope you know this means you’re never leaving our side again.” Wes smiled and kissed Lena on her forehead.
“She’s bleeding, but not a lot. I don’t think she has any other serious injuries either. Man, for all that ruckus, you two managed to miraculously not hurt each other too badly.” Brock picked Mara up and put her on Lena’s bed. “She may be old, but this woman has a heck of a lot of fight in her.” Brock patted Mara on each cheek, trying to wake her.
Mara let out a few pained groans. Her body stiffened and her hands reached out again when she opened her eyes. Brock quickly grabbed them and pushed them back down to her chest, holding them there.
“Shh, ma’am.” Brock managed to coo and be stern at the same time, clearly a well-honed skill from his years of dealing with sick children and agitated parents. “We’re not having any more of that now. Don’t make me do anything we’ll both regret.”
Mara looked as if she wanted to protest, but instead she lay back down.
“Now, we’re going to call the police in a minute, but before we do, I need you to answer a few questions for me. Lena is the love of our life and it is our job to protect her. Who are you and why would you try to hurt her?”
Mara swallowed and cast a cold stare in Lena’s direction that probably would’ve scared her if it weren’t for the security of knowing both her men were with her. She planned to keep it that way. But then, the words that came out of Mara’s mouth, fighting past gritted teeth, did have the intended effect of freaking Lena the fuck out, forever changing everything she thought she knew about herself and her family.
The old lady turned to the men and sneered. “I’m Margot’s twin sister.” Bitterness laced her voice. “I’m her great aunt.”
Chapter 9
“Wh–what? That’s impossible. I don’t believe you.” Lena felt dizzy, as if her world had turned upside down.
“Believe it, Lenora,” Mara said, holding her hand to the cut on her head. She looked at her bloodied fingers and rolled her eyes, reacting to the wound as if it were a mere annoyance.
“How come I don’t know anything about you? No one ever mentioned you.” As Lena looked deeply into the woman’s face, she began to see the resemblance. She was Margot except bigger and more grotesque, sharing the same expressive eyes and blasé attitude. All her features where slightly larger and less graceful, and the woman’s frame had to be at least twice as big as the woman who housed Lena since childhood.
“No? Well, of course not. It figures. I was always the proverbial little, black sheep.”
“Lady, you are anything but little,” Wes said. Mara glared at him with daggers and sneered.
“As I was saying, the bastards cast me out with nothing except the clothes on my back. They always accused me of being mean and hurtful toward their precious, perfect Margot. When we were kids, we would play and fight just like all kids at that age, but because she was so tiny and I was so much bigger, she would get hurt. I never meant to hurt her but our parents always blamed me. They always put poor, innocent Margot first. It was always Margot this, Margot that. Mara, everything is your fault. It’s all your fucking fault!”
Mara’s eyes grew icy cold. “So finally, I did exactly what they thought I would do and I hurt her. I served the bitch a special little pie one day and out she went.”
“Goddamn.” Brock raked his hand through his hair, his dark brows knitted together in thought. “It was a nut pie, wasn’t it? Margot was allergic to nuts, just like—”
“Yes, just like your Lenora.” A dark, toothy smile spread across Mara’s face as she turned to glare at Lena.
As their eyes locked, Lena’s skin prickled with goose bumps and a cold sweat formed on her body.
“You…you tried to poison me. You made that pie because you knew I’d be allergic, just like Margot was.”
“Aren’t you a clever one?” Mara’s face darkened and the upward curves of her smile turned down into a frown. “And I thought I was clever, too. I put three times the amount of nuts I put into Margot’s pie, but your men got to you too damn quickly.”
Lena felt Brock’s warm hand encase her shoulder in a firm squeeze as Wes mirrored his brother’s grip on her forearm.
“With you, I didn’t get the pleasure of watching your face contort as Mara’s did, while her throat slowly closed up and her lips started to turn the prettiest shade of blue I’d ever seen. The poor, little dear looked so scared.” Mara’s twisted smile returned.
“Oh, Mara, how could you? To your own sister, your own flesh and blood?” Wes asked with a deep sadness pooled in his voice. Mara ignored Wes’s question and continued.
“She went into a coma for two weeks and those were the best two weeks of my life as I played the dutiful sister.”
Mara’s eyes grew wistful as if she reminisced about the atrocity she’d committed.
“Oh, how I cried, big, salty crocodile tears. For the first time in my life my parents paid me the smallest amount of attention. They thought I had rescued her, that everything had been an accident. Unfortunately, your great aunt Margot was tougher than I thought, and the bitch woke up and she told them everything, that it was all my fault and they believed her unquestioningly. They didn’t even try to give me the benefit of the doubt. They just threw me out, said I was dead to them. What they didn’t know was that, inside, I was already dead.”
Mara’s eyes went blank as if she were lost in some terrible, distant place deep within the recesses of her tortured soul.
“Mara, why did you let them get to you? Why didn’t you just move on instead of harboring all this bitterness, all this pain?”
Lena knew she should have hated this woman, but instead she just felt sorry for her. Lena identified with the feelings of being neglected and unloved and even though she could never imagine hurting someone else, she knew how terribly lonely that existence could be.
Mara looked up and focused on Lena’s face. Tears welled up in Mara’s eyes and slowly spilled over, spreading into the wrinkles on her face, diluting the drying blood that had collected there.
“So, why’d you come back?” Brock asked. “Why did you want to hurt Lena? She had nothing to do with those people who hurt you.”
After a brief pause, Mara’s face reanimated as she addressed Brock’s question.
“First, it was just for the money. I thought I deserved her inheritance. Everything Margot had should have been mine, too. When I saw Lenora, my rage intensified tenfold. She looked so much like her, like Margot, except she looked like how Margot would’ve looked if she had been healthy, if I hadn’t sucked the life out of her in the womb.”
“And then there was the time when you tried to kill her,” Wes interjected.
Lena glared at him. There were few instances when it was okay to aggravate an old woman, and this was certainly not one of them.
“Shut up, Wes. Not helping,” Brock said to his brother before turning to the unhinged woman before him. “Mara, when you were in the womb, that wasn’t your fault. You were a fetus for Christ’s sake. It was survival of the fittest.”
Mara looked at him as if she didn’t know what to say. Perhaps after all this time, she just couldn’t believe him. Mara began crying again, except this time her silent
tears turned into sobs. Her body shook with her heartache.
“Mara, listen to Brock,” Wes said. “He’s a doctor. If anybody would know about what fetuses do, he would.”
Lena softened at Wes’s attempt to ease Mara’s pain and self-doubt and make up for his previous jab. Lena eased herself up and then moved to the edge of the bed to sit down. She reached out and held Mara’s hand in hers. Although it dwarfed Lena’s in size, her age enfeebled it, leaving her skin spotted and paper-thin.
“Listen, Mara, you need help. This needs to stop. You must let it go. It’s time to move on.”
“Lena’s right, ma’am. You’ve experienced enough pain to last a lifetime. It’s time to start over.” Brock reached up and wiped away her tears and the misery carved into her face seemed to soften.
Then Mara grimaced as she clutched her chest. Her breathing became labored. Her eyes squeezed tightly shut.
“What’s wrong, Mara? Mara, are you all right?” Lena gently shook her great aunt’s arm. She turned to Brock for an explanation. He pulled a tiny flashlight out of his back pocket and shined it into her eyes.
“Lena, I think she’s having a heart attack. Go get an aspirin and make sure you crush it up. Wes, call an ambulance. Hurry!” Brock shouted as he loosened the top button of Mara’s blouse and checked her other vital signs.
Lena left Mara’s side and ran to find an aspirin, praying that she wouldn’t lose the only family she had left.
Chapter 10
Lena and Wes stood as Brock walked into the waiting room. His face was serious and she feared the worst. Wes put his arm around her in a soothing embrace as if to steady her for the blow to come.
“So, how is she?” Lena searched his eyes for any hint of the news he was about to give, but Brock had perfected his poker face.
“It was touch and go for a moment, but she’s going to be okay. Unfortunately, the strain she put on her heart from all the stress in her life and also all her bad habits, means that now her body is going to be very weak from now on. There’s little that can be done to change that now. Her heart can’t handle any more stress.”
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