Crossed (Never After Series)

M Y MOTHER WASN’T A GOOD PERSON, SO IT makes sense that she wasn’t a particularly good Catholic. Not that it ever stopped her from dragging me out of bed every Sunday morning for Mass.

I’d dress up in the nicest clothes I owned and we’d walk to whatever church was in the area. We moved around a lot, but no matter where we went, religion never seemed to change. Always the same stringent rules and regulations.

Do this. Don’t do that. He is forgiving, yet He will smite you down.

It was enough to convince me that we were committing sin just by being there. Visions of a lightning bolt splitting apart the clouds and thundering down the center of the sanctuary filled my head. I was sure that seeking forgiveness for something we weren’t truly sorry for was blasphemous enough for hell. And I know my mom wasn’t remorseful over her actions because she continued to do them over and over again.

Still, every week, we went, and every week, nothing ever happened.

And nobody in the church ever seemed to catch on that my mother was a hypocrite. A fake. Or maybe they did, and they simply stayed quiet. After all, people often ignore traits in others that exist within themselves.

Perhaps we just didn’t stick around in a single place long enough for anyone to really care.

But when we showed up in Festivalé, all that changed.

Because somebody did care. Florence Gammond.

We’ve been in Festivalé for months now, and I think I can count on one hand the number of times my mom has stayed around for an entire day. She chugs coffee, her hair pulled back in a ponytail as she flits around the small kitchen in our apartment, humming to herself while she gets ready to leave.

“What time will you be home?” I ask, tapping my nails on the table. Irritation simmers deep in my gut as I watch her.

“Hmm?” She spins around, her eyes not even able to meet mine. “Oh, late probably. I have some errands to run, and then Parker’s taking me up into the Green Mountains for a weekend getaway. Isn’t that so romantic?”

Her cheeks flush and my stomach drops.

“But Quin has an appointment today. You promised you’d be here.”

She waves me off. “You can get him there, yeah?”

I sigh as a heavy weight drops down in the middle of my chest. “Yeah, Mom. I’ll take care of him.”

I don’t add that I’m always taking care of him. That I’m pretty sure he’s supposed to be mimicking by now or smiling and making noise. Bringing up my concerns will just make her angry, and she likes to throw things when she gets mad. Her mood can flip as quick as a switch, and I learned years ago to pick my battles.

Besides, this isn’t anything new. Mom disappears most days, leaving me alone to care for Quinten. Ever since she came home from the hospital.

She’s never even told me who his father is.

After she leaves, I strap Quinten in a stroller and take to the quaint city streets to pass the time before his checkup. We live on the edge of town, where the French architecture is starting to crumble and the homeless sleep in tents, but it’s only about a twenty-minute walk from the main square, and I like to go there whenever I can to take in the dark brick exteriors and steep roofs. There’s something so magical about Festivalé, something that makes me want to immerse myself in its history and soak up the culture.

The square itself is teeming with people, most of them likely tourists, coming to the area to experience “Little France” without leaving the country. The main attraction is the Notre- Dame Cathedral, which was erected in the late 1800s and has been preserved beautifully ever since. We go there on Sundays for Mass, but otherwise, I stay far away.

Religion creeps me out.

The sun beats down on my head as I push Quinten’s stroller past the Champlain Patisserie and am about to turn around and head to the doctor’s office when a sound rings out from the back alley and draws my attention to the noise.

My jaw drops as I take in the sight of my mother’s boyfriend. Parker has a woman pressed up against the brick wall, her pasty white leg wrapped around his hip and her auburn hair stark against his blond.

I stop in my tracks, jerking the stroller so harshly that Quinten begins to cry.

Both Parker and the mystery woman’s bodies fly apart, and as they do, she comes fully into view.

Florence, the woman who’s always helping with Communion during Mass and is always glaring at my mother. She smooths down the front of her skirt, her giant diamond wedding ring glinting in the afternoon sun, and Parker’s eyes narrow when they zone in on me.

I spin around and scurry away before either of them can say a word, my heart pounding as I try to compartmentalize what I just saw and whether I should tell my mother.

If I tell her, I’m sure she’ll have us packed up and ready to leave before the sun can fully set. And I love it here. I want to stay. No matter what.

Three nights later, long after I put Quinten to bed and lay down to fall asleep, Parker crept into my bedroom.

I remember my blood pumping in my ears and my stomach tightening in fear when the mattress dipped behind me, his large frame cocooning mine as his hand reached around my side and up to cover my mouth.

“Don’t make a sound,” he said.

I didn’t.

“Whatever you think you saw the other day, your mother doesn’t need to know. Nod if you understand.”

Slowly, I nodded. My mouth ran dry, but I bit my tongue to keep quiet.

“I can make your life very difficult, sweet Amaya. I’d hate for you to find out just how depraved of a man I can be.”

His hand ran down the front of my nightgown and slipped between my legs, and my teeth chomped down on my tongue so hard, the taste of copper started flooding my mouth. Tears pricked behind my eyes, my muscles tense and ready to fight, but his next words stopped me in my tracks.

“Say a word and I’ll kill her in front of you and then take this little pussy for myself while she bleeds out at your side. Is that what you want, sweet girl? You want your mother’s last vision on earth to be the man she loves fucking the younger, tighter version of her?”

Bile surged up my throat, and I shook my head, my lungs burning from the need to let out a sob.

“Good.”

He pressed a kiss to my cheek and then he was gone, just as quickly as he had arrived.

I never did tell my mom.

But she found out about Florence anyway.

And after she made a scene in front of the entire town, she disappeared, the way she always had before. Only this time, she didn’t take us with her. And whether she knew it or not, she handed me over to Parker on a silver platter.

But there’s nothing I can do about it now. Not if I want to keep Quinten safe and a roof over our heads, and Parker’s weird fixation on me lends itself to a type of protection that I wouldn’t get anywhere else. He’s the mayor’s best friend. He’s a dangerous and powerful man. And although people still sneer and whisper about the rumors my mother left in her wake, when he’s around, at least they don’t say it to my face.

“Amaya,” Parker says as he walks into his office.

The lock clicks as he closes the door, and his voice grates over my skin, leaving it raw.

“Parker.” I force a tight grin.

I peer at him closely, trying to figure out whether he recognized me at work. He’s never been there before, and him popping up out of the blue worries me. The thought of him stripping away the last piece of my freedom makes me sick to my stomach. As it is, he thinks I make my money from doing freelance data entry work from the comfort of my home.

His fingers coast along the back of my neck as he breezes by where I’m sitting, the touch so light it could be considered an accident. But I know better. Parker doesn’t have accidents. Everything he does is methodical.

He moves to sit behind his desk, his gaze undressing me like I’m a gift sent just for him.

I don’t like his staring, and I like staring at him even less.

It’s not that his face isn’t appealing; it is, and most women in this town drool at the sight of him simply because his money makes him the most eligible bachelor in Festivalé. But to me, he’s just another filthy creep. A bad man dressed up in thousand- dollar suits.

He continues to watch me, and my hands grow clammy in the silence. If he doesn’t speak soon, I might throw up all over his fancy wood floors.

“You look nice,” he finally says. “Everything good with Quinten?”

“He’s fine.” My chest smarts. I don’t like him pretending that he cares.

He nods slowly. “School treating him well?”

I grit my teeth because no, it isn’t, and I’m pretty confident that Parker knows that. Quinten and public schooling don’t mesh. There are too many students and not enough support for someone on the spectrum. He doesn’t do well with standing in lines or with having to keep still and quiet at a desk, and no matter how many times I fight for accommodations that allow him to feel safe and comfortable, his teachers shut it down. His iPad is part of his self-regulation, and they don’t allow that in class. So he acts out, and then I get a phone call where I end up fighting back tears as I beg for them to reevaluate his IEP: his individualized education program. The school is understaffed and underfunded, and they don’t care about why Quinten might be struggling. They only care that he is.

But I can’t afford to put him anywhere else.

“It’s the same as always,” I reply carefully.

Parker sighs, standing up and moving until he sinks down into the chair next to me, reaching out to grasp my fingers. “I don’t know why you insist on resisting this. I could take care of you.” How many times can we have this same conversation?

“I’m not interested in the ways I’d have to pay for that.” I pull my hand back.

The muscle in his jaw ticks, and he runs his hand through his slicked- back hair. “Would it really be so bad? To be with me?”

“It’s not that it would be bad,” I say, even though it would be. “It just wouldn’t be real.”

“I can shelter you,” he argues. “Take care of you. Put Quinten in the best private school in the state. You’ll never want for anything again.”

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted, but him using what I care about most to try and control me makes hatred burn through my veins. Parker knows me well enough to know I would do absolutely anything for Quinten, and my biggest fear is one day having no choice but to shackle myself to a man who would use stability and the people I love as a bargaining chip.

He’s already taken so much.

“Parker,” I plead, wishing he would stop doing this every single time. “I can’t.”

“Fine.” His features drop, the softness molding into harsh edges, a coldness entering his gaze. “You got my money?”

A sharp laugh escapes me before I say, “Don’t I always?”

“I don’t see what’s so funny,” he spits.

“You.” I wave my hand in between us. “This. You want me to be with you, to marry you, but you’re the reason we’re struggling so much in the first place.”

He scoffs, picking an invisible piece of lint off the arm of his suit jacket. “I’m a businessman, Amaya. Your mother made a deal with me, and she left before fulfilling her end. As her next of kin, it falls to you.”

I lift a brow. “You pimped her out to your clients. You didn’t sign a million-dollar contract. It would hardly stand up in court.”

“Semantics.” He shrugs. “It holds up where it matters. Should I remind you of that again?”

I swallow around my suddenly dry throat, because no, he doesn’t have to remind me. I got the message loud and clear after Mom left and I tried to tell him no.

Huffing, I reach into my worn purse and pull out the wad of bills, almost everything I was able to make this past week, dropping it in the small space between us.

He snatches it up immediately, his thumb flicking through the tops of the rubber- banded bills. “This feels light.”

My heart stutters. “Just by a hundred bucks, Parker. I need…I need to keep the internet on.”

“That’s not my problem.”

I swallow.

“You won’t let it be my problem,” he amends.

“Well, paying you isn’t supposed to be my problem either,” I bite back.

Chuckling, he reaches out and cups my cheek. To an outsider, it would look like a tender moment between us, but his grip is tight and his eyes are empty. “As long as your last name is Paquette, it is.”

He stands up then, clutching the money in his fist and turning his back, effectively dismissing me. I follow suit, my legs tingling from the blood rushing back into them, and I walk to his office door, flicking the lock open.

“Same time next week, Amaya,” I hear from behind me. “And don’t be short or you won’t like how I’ll make you pay.”