Twisted (Never After Series)

I hated leaving Yasmin this morning. She spent the entirety of last night crying, and I spent mine trying to come to terms with the fact that the only man who’s been any kind of positive influence on my life is gone forever.

Everything I was trying so hard to take from him seems pointless now.

It was his legacy.

I’ve just left his lawyer’s office, having had him draft up a prenuptial agreement, one that protects her assets, not any of mine. I don’t care if she takes me for all I’m worth. She could burn Sultans to the ground with me inside, and I’d die happily, knowing she was queen of the ashes.

But I need to show her that for me, this is real. My penance for being so blinded by greed for so long that I couldn’t see the forest for the trees.

She’s under no illusion of what this started as, but I want to make sure she knows that if she isn’t in my world, it isn’t worth living.

She’s changed me for the better. In all the ways I care to change, that is.

I’m not sure that she’ll ever realize the impact she’s had on me. I’m a powerful man, and I’ve worked incredibly hard to get to where I am in life. To pull myself from rags to riches and make something of myself.

There’s a type of confidence that comes along with that, a sense of pride that I feel, one that I don’t think anyone can take away from me.

And the only person who can is about to no longer have access to my life.

I thought about driving to my mother’s house and seeing her in person one last time. All night long, as I was holding Yasmin in my arms, comforting her loss of her father, I imagined what it would feel like if the shoe were on the other foot.

If I lost my mother suddenly, would I cry? Would I feel pain? All that came was longing for the freedom it would provide.

She doesn’t deserve my time in person. I’m protecting myself and the little boy who’s still living and breathing somewhere deep inside my soul from ever dealing with her abuse again.

People only have the power you give them, and I’m done giving her mine.

She picks up on the second ring.

“Do you remember when I was little?” I ask instead of saying hello. “And you had to take me to the hospital because I had a broken femur?”

“Are you not even greeting your mother now?” she complains.

“Just answer the question.”

“I don’t know. You were sick a lot back then.”

“No.” Anger bubbles like a cauldron deep in my chest. “You don’t get to do that. That femur break was from when you stomped on my leg so hard it fractured, remember?”

“I don’t want to talk about this,” she interrupts.

“You were mad because I got straight As on my report card and it was the first time ever that Papà said he was proud.”

She scoffs.

“Proud of me. Not of you,” I finish, disgust filling me up until it bleeds from my pores. “You always were a jealous bitch.”

“How dare you— ” she starts.

I cut her off. “I’m no longer interested in entertaining this relationship.”

She lets out a laugh. “Please, Julian. I’m your mother. Family.”

I won’t lie; her words have the intended effect. They sink into me like hooks, trying to reel me back in, but then I remember what real family is. What it feels like when someone chooses you over everyone else.

My family is Yasmin, and that’s all I’ll ever need.

“For years, I felt responsible for you,” I say.

“Good,” she replies.

I shake my head, my eyes growing glossy and my stomach burning like acid. “Five years old and I was your protector. But who was there to protect me, Ma? Huh?”

“Look, vita mia, I’ve made mistakes just like anyone— ”

“You can keep the house, although I doubt you’ll be able to afford it. But we’re done. Do you hear me, Ma? We’re done.”

“You’d cut your own mother off?”

“You have no idea what I’m capable of.” My fingers dig into the side of my phone. “Contact me again or bother my wife, and I’ll pay you back for every single pound of flesh. Don’t push me, Anita.”

I hang up the phone, blowing out a sigh of relief and running a trembling hand over my face. Invisible chains lift from my shoulders, breaking the tether I felt to her for so many years.

Some people say that family is family, blood is blood. But I say that toxic is toxic, and no one is more important than my inner peace, even if it means I lose them for good.

I’ve tried not to bother Yasmin too much today, giving her the space she needs to feel whatever it is she’s feeling and grieve, but the few text messages I have sent her have gone unanswered, so there’s a niggling feeling that’s curling around my middle, urging me to hurry home and make sure that she’s okay.

I pull into my garage and walk inside, noticing immediately that the house feels off, and that gut feeling that I’ve had all afternoon about Yasmin grows stronger. I walk through the back hallway from the garage and go immediately up the stairs, walking to our bedroom and peeking inside. I don’t see Yasmin, so I turn back around and walk into Isabella’s enclosure, making my way over to where she’s lazing on one of the tree branches.

She looks fine, and Yasmin isn’t here either, so I turn around and walk back out, making my way through each of the rooms, my heart ratcheting higher into my throat with every step.

My hand goes to the pocket of my pants, and I pull out my staff, elongating it as I check the spaces, just in case. I can’t imagine anyone would be able to come in without being let in, my security system is far too advanced, but I can’t shake off this feeling, and I’m not going to be foolish and walk through without a weapon.

She’s not in any of the rooms upstairs, so I make my way down the steps and head to my office, walking through the door and around to my desk, noticing there are papers on top when I didn’t leave them there.

My heart drops to the floor, panic suffusing every single pore of my body when I see what’s laid out.

Will of Yasmin Karam-Faraci.

I swing around and rush out of the room, now worried that she left of her own volition. I haven’t had time to explain how things have changed, how when I fell for her, I fell out of love with the idea of power, because she gives me everything I’ve been missing instead. I hit the entrance to the kitchen, my foot crunching on top of a small piece of green glazed clay.

What the hell?

My stomach twists as I look down at the ground and lift the sole of my shoe up, noticing pieces of a vase that’s usually in the corner of the hallway stuck beneath my foot.

I take a step farther into the room, the panic of thinking Yasmin left being replaced with something far more sinister when I see the vase is smashed into a hundred pieces on the floor. Drops of blood trail over the ground, and my mouth goes dry when I think about Yasmin lying somewhere, broken and bleeding.

Another step forward, and I see a phone, tossed haphazardly as though it flew from someone’s hand. I bend over and grab it, then twist and head back to my office, pulling up my computer, an unbearable agony mixing with the anger that someone thought they could come into my house and hurt my wife.

I bring up the security cameras and watch.

And when I see Ian smash her over the head, dragging her out to his car, bloodied and unconscious, fury races through my veins like an avalanche.