Redemption Hills: The Complete Collection

46. Aster

FORTY-SIX

ASTER

When the light goes dim…

My lover.

My life.

My North Star.

What did you do? What did you do?

Grief blew through me like a parched, stricken desert.

Dry and brittle.

No stars or light or reason.

A total eclipse.

I’d only wanted to go. To leave. To escape.

Money didn’t matter. My comfort was in you.

So I’d trusted you to whisk us away. To come to your senses. For you to turn your back on the greed that had tainted my family.

Our time had come and gone.

One a.m. then two.

Dread had filled me to overflowing and threatened to wash me away in the undertow.

I’d heard the frantic footsteps that pounded the compound, the shouts and the anger and the disbelief.

With my heart barely beating, I’d sneaked back inside and slipped down the hall where I’d pressed my back to the wall outside of Papa’s office, listening to the chaos that ensued inside.

It was filled with men, but it was Jarek who’d ranted in stark pain. “That asshole,” he’d hissed, holding himself way up high on his side. “He killed Antonio in cold blood, Andres. He tried to kill me. He took the stones. He took them,” he gritted in abhorrence.

Devastation curled.

Wound and whispered and made me sink farther against the wall to keep myself from slipping to the floor.

My uncle? My uncle was dead?

How could I believe it?

That you would do it?

In shock, I’d peered into the room as if it might paint a different picture.

But it was blotted in red.

Disfigured and mangled and wrong.

The light on Papa’s desk shined through the darkness and illuminated the blood that dripped onto the floor.

Jarek’s shirt was soaked in it.

To me, it’d looked like death.

If only I could have hoped to be so lucky.

That there would have been a measure of grace in this torment.

You’d betrayed my father.

You’d betrayed me.

Because you didn’t come.

And it had come to this.

I’d heard my papa’s voice, his fist that’d slammed against the desk, the horrible words that crashed out, “He will die for this. His whole family. See to it.”

So I’d run.

Run down the corridor with frantic gasps raking from my lungs.

I’d known I had to get to you. Find you. Understand why.

Why?

Why?

Why?

I’d run back to our secret spot, praying you would be waiting. That you would explain it all.

Again, you weren’t there.

I waited and paced some more.

You still didn’t come.

But Jarek did, his dark shadow covering me when he appeared from behind.

Scorn lined his face. “He’s dead, Aster. He’s fucking dead and you’re mine.”

Fear had slithered like the coil of snakes down my spine, pooled in my stomach as he took a step toward me, like the rage that held him had eradicated the wound that oozed from his side.

Instinctively, I’d set my hands over my stomach.

Over our child.

As if I could protect him.

Jarek’s eyes had gone there, and I’d lost air when I’d seen the flash of contempt light in his eyes the moment he knew.

I’d turned to run.

To flee.

I screamed when he grabbed me by the hair, when he yanked me back, when his fist found my face.

He dragged me deeper into the hidden places in the garden.

I’d kicked and pled, but there was no mercy from a merciless man.

“He will die for taking what is mine. Both the stones and this body.”

Agony overwhelmed as he struck me.

Each blow had come harder than the last, powerful enough to shatter bone, to shatter courage, to shatter sanity.

His fists and his boots and the grip of his gun.

So much pain.

But still, I’d fought. With every part of me, I’d fought.

I’d rolled to my side, rocking, curling into a ball to keep him protected.

Jarek had ripped my head up by my hair, and the vile voice whispered like it could be a balm in my ear. “Don’t cry, Aster. This is what was meant to be. You’ll see. You’ll see.”

He’d hauled me to the side gate while I’d prayed for you. I’d even prayed for my father.

The guard had let him pass. I’d pled for help, but the man, he didn’t listen, he didn’t care, the same as Jarek.

Monsters who looked at me like a possession.

Treasure or waste.

Whatever their pleasure.

Jarek pushed me into the front seat of his car.

I’d screamed for Papa. Prayed for him to come and save me. Or maybe he would stand aside and allow Jarek to ruin me.

Maybe I really was nothing to any of them.

Jarek had groaned as he’d gotten into the driver’s seat, his hand pressing on the wound before he’d hit me with his gun again.

“This is your fault, you cunt.”

I was so disoriented when he’d begun to drive. Blood ran in heavy streams down my face. My skin was busted open, throbbing and swollen.

Consciousness had come in and out of focus.

I was almost relieved when I realized we were at the Costa physician. He was the one who repaired gunshots and stab wounds and the evidence of beatings when my father’s men couldn’t be seen at the hospital.

He would help me.

He would help me.

But Jarek tossed me into the room, grated, “Get rid of it.”

It’d taken one look at the coldness on the physician’s face to understand what Jarek had meant.

I’d lost all sanity.

All sense of prudence gone.

I had raged, flying across the room to the locked door.

“No!” I’d screamed as I’d pounded my palm on the unforgiving metal. “Please, someone help!”

I jerked from a hand that grabbed me by the upper arm, and I ran through the room, tossing trays and supplies onto the floor.

They’d crashed.

The clanking metal piercing and loud.

The panic so fierce.

I had to get away.

I had to.

A needle was stabbed into my arm.

I fought for coherency.

I’d fought, Logan, I’d fought.

But I should have known it from a young age.

I was a possession. Property. Inanimate.

I never had a chance.

I’d awoken the next day with my father sitting beside me where I lie on an unfamiliar bed, my sight partially obstructed by a swollen eye. It took half a second for me to come to awareness. To the gutting, horrified recognition.

Still, my hands flew to my stomach.

To the emptiness that would forever ache within me.

A wail climbed from the depths. So deep and severe I’d thought it would rend me in two.

“Foolish child,” my father had said. But it was soft, his fingers brushing through my hair.

Everything hurt. My broken face and my beaten body and my shattered soul.

Another sob ripped up my throat and banged from the walls.

A grief so deep I’d thought I’d perish right then.

“I warned you not to do something so foolish. Something that would force me to do something I would regret.”

My father had the audacity to let tenderness fill his voice.

“Is Logan dead?” The question cracked, so thin and brittle. I didn’t know if I would survive the answer.

“It seems he and his entire family have fled. But we will find them.”

It was the smallest fraction of relief.

A shooting star that passed in a blink through the sky.

“You cannot hurt him, Papa,” I’d begged.

“He betrayed me, mia vita. He took my brother.” His own sorrow wound with his words. “Betrayed me. Stole from me. Touched you.”

“I love him, Papa.”

Even after what you’d done. Even after what you’d cost.

Everything, everything.

I still loved you.

“You must not.” It was a demand. “You must fulfill your duty. To me. To Jarek.”

Jarek.

Sickness clawed through my consciousness.

I began to weep. Guttural cries that came and came.

“Please, Papa.”

Pain.

Intense.

Unending.

“He will be held accountable for his actions.”

Yet my father sat there and looked at me with the evidence of what my tormentor had done. This was the man he’d intended to be my husband, and he sat there and looked at me as if it were my fault?

At the realization, my broken spirit split apart.

“I will die if you have him killed.”

“Blasphemy.”

I didn’t know if in that moment it was true. It must have been because I was sure my father saw the truth of it in my eyes.

Frantically, I grappled to take hold of his hand. “I need one thing from you, Papa, please, grant me one thing. I need him to live.”

“Aster Rose,” he’d warned, torment in his voice.

My hand had grasped at his. “I’ll do anything, Papa. Just promise me you’ll spare him. Promise me, and I’ll do what you demand.”

He’d wavered, but in it was a glimmer of the humanity I prayed he possessed. His lips had thinned then he’d said, “Okay, mia vita. I will spare him and his family, as long as he never shows his face here again.”

Two months later, you came. You stood in our spot after what you’d caused.

I was so angry.

So angry.

Depression had come, dark, eternal rage its partner.

So lost. So sad. So empty.

“The baby.” It was the first thing you’d said.

The impact of it nearly knocked me to my knees.

Tears fell and fell, but I held on to the anger.

“I got rid of it.” I’d tried to spit it like venomous truth, but halfway up, the lie had stuck in my throat.

You’d swayed to the side.

Gutted.

I knew it.

I saw it in your face.

And I hated you even more that you’d made me put you through this.

If you’d only listened.

If you’d taken us far from here.

We could have hidden away together.

That’s where I’d always wanted to be—hidden away with you.

I knew the second you saw the gaudy, disgusting ring on my finger.

A shackle that maimed.

“What the fuck is that?” Your voice was so hard. Shocked and outraged.

I was outraged, too.

“I’m Jarek Urso’s wife. What did you think, you could crawl back here, and I’d just be waiting for you? How could you come here? After what you did? You stole from my father. You killed my uncle.”

How could you?

How could you?

God, you were still so beautiful out there beneath the hidden stars, even with your face contorted with disgust.

I’d wanted to go to you.

Fall on you.

Beg you to take me away from this horrible place.

I had to guard myself from your words. From the desperate pleas that fell from your mouth.

I couldn’t listen.

I couldn’t hear.

Because I’d bartered my life for yours, and I hated you for that, too, and it was now my responsibility to see to it that you never returned again. Just your standing there could have been a death sentence.

So I’d forced out the bitterness that was bottled inside me, tried to claim the lies as truth. “Don’t touch me! Don’t. Fucking. Touch. Me. You were never good enough for me, and we both know it.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? I would have died for you.”

Your words broke through, and my soul screamed that I was dying for you .

“That’s good because you’re dead to me.” I’d forced myself to take a step away. “I hate you, Logan Lawson, and I don’t want to ever see you again.”

Then I’d turned and run.

And that was the night my North Star went dim.