The Marine (Black Hawke Security #3)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

brIAR

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“M om!” I call out as I walk inside the house. It’s Tuesday night, which means it’s our weekly family dinner.

Just her and I.

That’s all that’s left of our family. Dad’s parents had been killed in a car accident not long after I was born. Mom’s father died when she was only a year old.

Then my maternal grandmother had passed away five years ago. Grammy.

So now it’s just us.

Mom is a shadow of the woman she was since Dad died. I don’t understand why she isn’t relieved that the violence is over. It was as if she lost the great love of her life.

“Mom,” I yell again, not finding her in the kitchen.

The three-bedroom house isn’t that big.

I wanted her to move after Dad died, but she wanted to stay. His life insurance paid for the mortgage—and not much more—which meant she didn’t have to worry about money immediately.

She still works at the local accounting firm as a clerk, which I know she hates, because she tells me and everyone who will listen that she does.

Mom is a Taurus.

Rooted into the earth like a two-hundred-year-old tree. She’s impossible to shift. She doesn’t want to move or change. No matter how unhappy she is.

Some days that helps me to understand why she stayed with my father despite the way he abused us. We were both victims. I see that now.

Other times, I’m really angry with her.

I went through a stage of hating her after Dad died and I lost Aidan. At the same time, I lost the two men I loved.

“Love? You call that love? He killed your father!” Mom had said to me when she asked me why I was grumpy one day.

“Mom, he didn’t. The medical people said it wasn’t linked.” I sobbed.

I was sick of the same argument over and over.

“They just don’t have proof. That doesn’t mean he didn’t. The man you say you love murdered your father. I’m disgusted you can even feel that way about him.”

Tears had poured down my face.

I loved Aidan so damn much. I missed him every second of every day. I ached for him.

Craved him physically.

“I do love him and he’s innocent. It’s not fair that we can’t be together.” I’d snapped.

Her face had hardened and that finger lifted, pointing at me with pure anger. “Don’t you dare go back to him, Briar Sutton. After everything I sacrificed for you. Staying with that man.”

“Staying was the worst thing, Mom.” I cried.

“Staying saved us both. What do you think would have happened if he’d got half custody of you?”

I swallowed.

My brain misfired as I stared blankly at her, and her face softened a little.

“Do not think about it, child. I protected you. But he kept this roof over our head. He restrained himself and took his...needs out on me.”

My stomach curdled as the reality of what she was barely saying sunk in. I closed my eyes and let out an incoherent sob.

“I loved your father despite his weakness.”

Weakness?

“But you brought a man into our world who ripped him away from us, Briar. He took my husband and your father from us!”

I didn’t believe that completely at that point, but after what she’d said, I was silent. Mom had sacrificed her life to protect me.

I couldn’t disrespect her.

Then she solidified my loyalty with her last statement.

“Go back to him and I will disown you.”

Sobbing, I’d collapsed on my bed and curled up in a ball that day knowing any hope I’d had was now gone.

It was him or her.

There was no other choice.

“Mom,” I called out a third time and opened the back door.

The sun was low in the sky and the yard was in its usual unkept state. She needed to weed, put things away, pick up rubbish.

None of it would take long, but it’s the depression she tells me.

“Your dad used to do it, and every time I try, it reminds me that he’s not here to take care of me.”

It’s been ten long years.

I know she’s manipulating me, but she’s been doing it for so long I don’t know how to stop it.

It’s her garden. If she wants to wallow in her grief instead of finding a way through, then that’s up to her. But I don’t want to lose my mom, so I just nod and pretend I understand.

Outside, I find her sitting in one of the chairs staring at her phone. Behind me, the aromas from the dinner cooking waft out, and I wonder if I need to turn the oven off.

“Mom, what are you doing?” I ask, confused.

She doesn’t look up.

Crap.

I run back inside and pull open the oven. Yeah, the lasagna is more than cooked. I turn it off and sigh, glancing out the window.

Mom shakes her head.

Jesus, something has triggered her.

I find her long gray cardigan on the dining room chair, so take it with me outside.

“Hey,” I say, laying it over her shoulders when I go back outside.

She glances up and it’s like looking into an abyss.

Scrambling at her cardigan, she throws it at me.

“How dare you!” she hisses.

I’m so taken aback that I step away.

Is she having a mental breakdown?

“Mom. Calm down. What’s wrong?” My phone is in my pocket, and I wonder if I need to call a doctor.

“Him! You’re seeing him! How dare you?”

My eyes widen as I try to work out what she means. If she means him. There is only one man who can make her react like this.

She means Aidan.

How could she possibly know?

Oh fuck.

Mom holds her phone up, her hand shaking, but it’s enough for me to see the Instagram newsfeed. She follows me, Trina, and Alice because that’s what moms do. Occasionally she hearts our photos and puts some random comment.

Trina shared some photos of Saturday night, careful not to put Savannah in them.

But not Aidan.

Not the one of him sitting with his arm around me as I drunkenly pout in his direction.

Aidan, cool as a cucumber—and sated after fucking me in the bathroom—sits back like the tough and sexy Marine he is. My hand rests on his thick pec as I press my breasts into him.

“ Hot , and I quote, Marines in the house . My god Briar. What are you doing with him?” Mom hisses.

I go to answer but instead slam my lips shut. I have no answer. No excuse. I wrap my arms around myself and glance down at the long, dry grass.

Shame and anger collide.

“He does Savannah’s security. I’m not with him.” I answer, partly lying.

But not completely.

“Don’t treat me like I’m an idiot.” She stands and storms into the house.

I follow.

“Does Kael know you are seeing someone else?”

Oh, my god! Fury plows into me.

How can she ask that when she knows exactly what I’ve been through with my husband? She knows everything. I’ve kept nothing from her.

She is the only person who knows.

And yet, this is her question.

“I’m divorcing Kael, Mom. You saw what he did to me last week. Jesus. No.” I argue. “It’s nothing to do with him.”

“Adultery is a sin.” She opens the oven door.

Wow.

Just wow.

“So is raping and beating your wife.” I snap angrily.

Whose damn side is she on?

“Actually, it’s not,” Mom replies and turns to me. “I thought I brought you up better than this. I accept you want to divorce him, but sleeping with other men before the divorce is final is cheap, Briar.”

I feel the slap of her words on my face.

This has nothing to do with why she’s angry with me for seeing Aidan. But as always, she attacks me with her words.

I don’t feel guilty. It doesn’t feel like I’m cheating with Aidan. It feels...it feels like a lot of things. It feels hot, sinful—yes—but I also feel sexy and desired and protected.

It feels right.

And I don’t want to feel those things, but I do.

I want to get him out of my system and heart as I’ve tried to for so long. Even on my wedding day, I thought about him on and off, wondering if he was married now. If, had things been different, he’d be the man I would have married instead.

But I loved Kael.

I just didn’t know who he truly was.

It was irrelevant anyway. Neither of us had contacted one another again after that time, and I knew I’d lose my mother if I did.

And could I really? Despite my feelings. What if the medical people were wrong? I had convinced myself that Mom was right, and Aidan was responsible.

To one degree or another.

And moved on with my life.

Marrying Kael had felt like the start of a wonderful life. Until he showed me who he was. A violent, controlling man.

Just like my childhood, I never knew when he would snap. Some days, it was a relief when he did hurt me. I knew then I’d have at least a few weeks before it would happen again.

The golden days, I called them.

I could relax and feel safe.

It’s the not knowing, the tiptoeing around that consumes you. That have you living on edge.

The same as it was with my father.

When he chose to hurt my mother instead of me, I’d lie under my bed with my hands over my head and cry, feeling guilty. Hell, sometimes, I’d distract him and send him my way instead of hers.

One night, I watched her blink when she realized what I’d done. She sat back down at the kitchen table and closed her eyes while Dad flew across the room and slapped me across the face, dragging me up the stairs.

I never let myself dwell on that too much. I know why she did it. She needed a break, even at the cost of her own child being harmed.

But the truth is, she had let it happen.

She let all of it happen.

There was only one person who had ever stopped him. Aidan.

A lifetime of fury and pain and resentment came flying back. How could she? I would never let a man harm my child.

Glaring at her, the hate felt like it consumed me.

I knew if I didn’t leave, I would say something I’d regret for the rest of my life.

I swallowed, then walked into the living room and picked up my purse from where I’d dropped it when I walked in.

Mom ran after me. “Where are you going? To him. Are you seeing him?”

“I can’t talk to you right now.” I ground out and walked out the door, slamming it behind me.

But yes, I was going to him .

Right now.