Crossed (Never After Series)

I’M SITTING ACROSS FROM THIS ABSOLUTE stranger.

She has my mother’s face, but she isn’t the woman I know.

This isn’t Chantelle Paquette.

This is Sister Genevieve. A woman of faith. Of renewed hope.

One who’s been granted forgiveness, though not from me.

The truth in that statement lights my insides on fire until there’s nothing but rage left in its place. That same ball of tension from earlier in the church percolates in the center of my gut, coiling tighter and tighter until it pinches my chest and makes my lungs fill with smoke.

She’s a fake. A phony. A narcissist wearing a habit and preaching words she’s never lived.

“Do you have any— ” My voice catches on the knot in my throat, and I try again. “Any idea what you’ve done? The mess you left behind?”

She shakes her head, taking a sip of her tea. “I won’t talk about this with you. I’ve paid my penance. I’ve lived through my guilt.”

“Same old Mom, brand-new packaging, huh?” I eye her outfit with disgust. “Oh my God, do you know Cade?”

Her mouth drops open, something sinister entering her gaze. “Of course. We’re…close.”

“Really?” I say dryly, although her words make jealousy spear through my middle and wrap around my throat.

“That’s right,” she continues, a haughty gaze slipping into her eyes. “He trusts me. More than anyone else, I’d imagine.”

My blood heats with a possessive rage and I lean forward, something dark and wicked spinning through my mind like a spiderweb. “You’re not special, Mother. Not like me.” Her face drops.

I smirk because I know how to press her buttons so easily. I spent nineteen years of my life at her mercy. Listening to her tell me I wasn’t good enough. That my breasts were too big, my hips were too wide, and I was a distraction to all the men in her life.

And I know envy runs deep. Deep enough to leave your responsibilities at the door. Deep enough to forget about the people you’re supposed to love.

I shrug. “Truth hurts, doesn’t it, Mom?”

She places her mug down on the table and leans back in her chair. It’s a comfortable move, one that shows just how settled she is here. Here, less than an hour away from where she abandoned Quinten and me, leaving us to clean up her mess.

That knot in my gut cinches tighter. “If I asked him to kill you, he would without blinking.”

She scoffs. “He’s a priest, child. Please.”

“No.” I shake my head. “He’s mine.”

“Still the same delusional little Amaya. With bigger dreams than you have tits.”

I laugh. “There she is, good ol’ Chantelle Paquette. A decent fake but a terrible mother.”

“People can change, Amaya.”

“Bullshit,” I hiss through clenched teeth, smacking my hand on the table. “You fucked up, over and over and over, and then you left, painting me as some witch and leaving me to pick up the pieces. I don’t give a fuck if you’ve changed. I do not forgive you.”

“Well,” she sniffs. “God forgives, and He’s all that matters.” A little bit tighter now.

I huff out a breath, sadness filling up my chest, that lost young girl who still aches for a mother rearing her pathetic little head. Maybe she’s here because she wanted to be close. Just in case. “Did you ever miss me at all?”

“Oh, Amaya.” Her voice is soft, and my naive heart pounds in my chest. “No.”

The last tiny strands of hope from that kid inside me break away, leaving behind a lightness that I’ve been searching for since the day she disappeared. “How’s Qui— ” Boom.

I surge up from the table and am across it before she can blink, wrapping my hands around her throat and squeezing as we both topple to the floor.

She yelps, and I’m fairly certain my rib is cracked from the way we fell, but the fury pounding in my blood silences everything else. I climb on top of her, straddling her lap until she’s pinned to the ground, and then the rage pumps into my arm and I swing before I can think, backhanding her across the face, droplets of blood spraying from her mouth.

“Don’t you dare say his name!” I yell, my hands going back

to her throat. She fights, and she fights well, nails gouging into the skin of my arm and ripping out chunks of my hair, but I don’t care.

She can’t hurt me more than she already has.

I tighten my grip, and eventually her flailing turns to jerks and then stops altogether, quiet taking over the room.

My breathing is heavy and uneven, and a clock ticks on the wall. I glance up at it, a delicious buzz racing through my system.

And I feel free.

The door bangs open from down the hall, and I scramble to my feet, spinning around and racing out of the kitchen toward the front.

Cade stands there like a dark angel, tall and imposing with snowflakes dusting his black hair and Quinten’s hand in his.

I let out a sob, rushing to Quinten and grabbing him in my arms, hugging him so tightly he squirms. “All done! All done!” he squeals.

Releasing him, I sit back on my heels, the knot in my chest untangling as I catalog his every feature. Tears flood my eyes again, and I would give anything to stop crying. I’ve done enough of it in the past few days to fill up a fucking river.

“Everything all right?” I ask, my eyes flicking up to Cade’s.

He smiles down at me, but I can sense the worry in his gaze. “Everything is taken care of, mon trésor.”

Quinten starts to move past me, looking around this new place he’s never been to, and I suddenly remember our mother’s dead body in the kitchen.

Panic must show itself on my face because Cade stiffens, his eyes glancing around the room before coming back to me.

“Quin,” I call out, my muscles stiff and sore. Now that the adrenaline is wearing off, it hurts to breathe. “Stay close by, dude.” I spin around, watching as he moves into the small sanctuary to the left instead of closer to the kitchen.

Definitely cracked a rib.

Cade moves in front of me, his gloves icy from the winter air as he cups my face, his eyes searching my face. “Are you all right?”

My eyes flutter closed as I sink into his hold. “I did something bad. And I’ll need your help to clean it up.”

Thirty minutes later and I’ve finagled Quinten into a bedroom upstairs while Cade is in the kitchen, seeing the damage I’ve created. I haven’t told him who Sister Genevieve really is yet, but I know that to him, it won’t matter. I lie down next to Quinten in the small bed, listening to his breathing even out and thanking God— if He exists— for keeping him safe, and eventually I stand up, tiptoeing out of the room and making my way downstairs.

Cade’s there waiting with a fresh cup of tea, my mother’s body gone and the broken chair cleaned up like it was never there to begin with.

He sets down the mug, stepping into me and pulling me flush against him, one hand cupping the side of my head and his other gripping my jaw.

“I’m sorry if she was your friend. I just— ”

“Shh,” he soothes, stroking my hair. “I don’t care.”

And now the emotions that were missing well up in the center of my chest, leaving me tired and ragged and worn. I rest my head against his chest and listen to his steady heartbeat, letting it calm me the way it always does. “She was my mother.” His body tenses.“She came up here to, I don’t know, stay close but far away? I don’t really care why. I just…I didn’t mean to kill her.”

He leans back, tipping my chin up with his fingers and pressing a soft kiss to my lips. “If she hurt you, she deserved to die.”

I sigh, nodding at his words. “Is there something wrong with me?”

Cade smiles, bringing me back into his chest and wrapping his arms around me, cradling me like I’m his to hold. Like I’m the only thing that matters.

It makes my body warm and my fractured heart swell.

“There’s darkness in us all, petite pécheresse. We just have to learn to control it.” He presses a kiss to the top of my head. “I can help you with that.”

THE NEXT MORNING, I wake up feeling tired and sore but ready to face the day. Cade fucked me deep into the night last night, kissing away my tears and breathing life back into my bones. He was gentle, and it still hurt, but it was also cathartic. I needed him to wash away the memory of Parker and replace it with himself. Because I choose him.

He’s sitting on the edge of the bed when I get out of the shower, staring at his hands, that muscle ticking away in his jaw.

My stomach dips. “What’s wrong?”

He blows out a breath, running a hand through his hair as he turns to look at me, smiling and reaching out his hand.

I take it, letting him drag me into his body until I’m standing between his legs. My hand squeezes the towel around my body tight, dread over what I can just feel is bad news creeping up along my spine.

“I have to tell you something, and it’s…I’m not sure how to make it okay.”

I back away from him, but he reaches out, gripping my hips and holding me steady. “What’s going on?”

He licks his lips and stares up at the ceiling before meeting my gaze. “Dalia, she—Parker got to her and took Quinten before I could…”

My heart drops into my stomach, vomit rising in my throat, and I push away from him, running to the trash can, dropping to my knees, the towel unraveling around my hips as I throw up into the bin, the taste of bile and grief burning the back of my tongue. Cade moves behind me and holds back my hair as I dry heave.

I look up at him, shaking my head, my vision blurring. “She’s dead?”

He nods, empathy swimming in his gaze. “I’m so sorry, mon trésor.”

My nostrils flare as I nod, sitting upright, my stomach tossing and turning like a ship in a storm. My heart aches, and there’s this pit in my solar plexus, gaping wide and feeling like it might swallow up everything I am.

Sadness grips me by the throat, and I close my eyes, tears squeezing from beneath my lashes and dripping off my chin.

Another notch in my already scarred heart. So many more now than there were a few short months ago. Only now, I’m stronger. I’ve been through more, and I have someone by my side and in my corner.

I look up at him, my teeth clenching so hard it makes my jaw ache. “Did you make it hurt?”

His hand runs down the length of my hair, something dark flashing through his gaze. “Yes.”

Closing my eyes again, I try to control my breathing, the heaviness of this new reality pressing down on the center of my chest.

“Good.”