Page 52 of Fierce Love (Tucker Billionaires)

Chapter Forty-Three

Hollyn

W hen the door closes, I collapse against it, my chest heaving with the sobs I’ve been barely holding in while talking to Nate. Of course he needed to leave, couldn’t bear to look at me for very long before going. He must be disgusted with the choices I made, the way I threw his love away.

I didn’t have to go to Celia that night.

I could have given up my dreams of leaving the island, and I could have tried to save up enough money to get Aunt Verna a decent lawyer.

At the time, it felt impossible to leave my aunt’s fate up in the air, to trust that the truth would come out, to be sure that the truth would vindicate her and not damn her further.

On top of that was the pregnancy—the idea that my parents would be in charge of a second human being.

And fighting Mickie and Niall for custody would have taken more money, more time, more resources that my aunt and I didn’t have.

Aunt Verna and I never talked about the deals I made once she was released. I never asked if she was innocent, and she never tried to tell me I made the wrong decision. What happened lay between us, unspoken, even when Kinsley was being handed over to me to take to New York.

When I’ve cried all the tears I have left in me, I crawl over to the papers scattered on the floor. The first one I find is the court document I already saw Nate holding. It’s not new. I have a copy of it myself in New York.

But as I sift through the other loose pages, a chill runs through me.

Oh my god. Nate’s right . There’s so much I knew nothing about.

I pour over the contents of the pages, reading every word, every concealed document.

I’ve watched enough movies, read enough books, seen enough TV shows to understand that parents are supposed to protect their kids.

That has never been my reality, but for all of Celia Tucker’s faults, teenage Nathaniel thought she came from a place of love, and even adult Nathaniel seems resigned to the kind of love Celia can give.

But nothing on these pages looks like love to me. Not the kind of love Nate’s given me so freely. Celia’s love is centered on power and control. And now that I’m older, I don’t think that’s any kind of love at all.

I shove all the papers back into one of the manilla envelopes, and I check my watch. I’m not on the visitation list—have never been on the list—but I think she’ll see me. If for no other reason than curiosity. I’ve never sought my mother out before.

Like most things in Bellerive, the jail is more upscale than you’d expect.

Leather sofas in the front waiting area, high ceilings, tasteful décor.

God forbid anything on the island seem less than idyllic for tourists and the rich people randomly hauled into jail to sleep off one too many drinks.

I’ve heard the prison—the place dominated by the lower classes in Bellerive—is much less comfortable.

When my mother struts into the visitation booth, I’m not even surprised that her outfit for jail resembles hospital scrubs more than regular prison attire. The branding around the Bellerive blue runs deep.

She drops into the recliner, nimble despite her age and the rough life she’s led. She motions to the switch on the wall, and when I glance over, I see it is labelled with Sound On and Sound Off. I flick it to On.

“My eldest, finally lowering herself enough to visit her dear mother in jail.” Her voice has a harsh edge to it. “You’re just like me, you know. Only turning up when you want something.”

“I came for the truth.”

“Did you?” Her laugh seems like genuine amusement.

“Why is that funny?”

“Truth is subjective. Whoever is telling the tale is in charge of the truth.”

“When the truth is documented, it makes the details a little firmer, I think.” I hold up the manilla envelope I brought.

“Does it?” She lets out a derisive chuckle. “Maybe. I guess we’ll see.” She leans forward and gestures to the envelope I’m holding. “You found my stuff?”

Everything I uncovered is clearly my mother’s, but I don’t understand why my aunt had it stored in a secret compartment that Mickie didn’t know anything about. The pieces are all around me, but I can’t make them fit.

“When you went to jail last time,” I say, slowly, “what were the circumstances around that?”

“If you found my stuff, you fucking know, Hollyn.” She gives me an unimpressed look.

“I’d like to hear your version of the truth.”

“That’s a first.”

I don’t say anything in response, because it’s true. Instead, I just wait for her. She’s always liked to tell a story. Loved the ring of her own voice in a room. The only sound I think she liked more was my high-pitched cry as I begged her not to hurt me again.

“I’m always getting fucked over by a Tucker. You should watch your back. If your guy can do this to me, he can surely do it to you. He has it out for us Davis women, you know.”

“Cut the shit, Mom,” I say, exasperated.

There was a time when I would have frozen up, been unable to speak back or fight back.

Whether it’s the years that have passed, the wall between us, or the fact I was actually able to find the courage to rise up against her last time we were face-to-face, I’m done taking her lies as the truth. Now I want the real thing.

“Just like last time, I’ve been framed by a Tucker,” she says, pointing her finger at me.

No matter the depth or scope of Nate’s anger at how Mickie treated me, I can’t see him bending the truth that far. He’s not that kind of person. Whatever Mom’s been arrested for this time, I’m sure she’s done it. Maybe she even did it last time, too, and she’s just bitter she got caught.

“Who framed you?” I ask, seeing an opening.

“Celia Tucker. But you already know that if you found my papers.”

“I read it all, and I don’t feel like I know anything .”

“That fancy fucking school she sent you to not teach reading comprehension?”

“Mickie,” I say, exasperated again.

“I’m not Mickie to you. I’m your fucking mother. You came shooting out of my vagina. You don’t get to treat me like I’m some stranger. I gave you life. You’re full of my genes.”

I’m not arguing with her over what I call her. In my head, I call her both. But naming her Mickie when I was younger helped a lot with separating the things she did to me with what I knew a mother should be.

She gives me a hard stare. “I didn’t know who framed me and your dad when I went to prison last time.

A mountain of evidence, and I knew I hadn’t done shit.

Other things, sure. If they’d picked me up on something else, maybe.

Your dad and I were careful. Did we clean money?

No. Not me. And sure as shit, that wasn’t Verna either. ”

At least that answered that. My aunt hadn’t been involved in what my parents had been arrested for.

“It wasn’t until I got out that I decided to do some digging.

Figured out how the whole thing went down.

Phenomenal scheming, I have to admit.” There’s a hint of admiration in her voice tinged with anger.

“Celia Tucker fucked us over good, didn’t she?

” She looks at me as though I should be nodding in agreement.

I mean, yes, but it feels wrong to agree with anything my mother says.

“Once I connected the dots, I went to Celia with the picture I’d formed. I told her I’d tell Nathaniel, tell you, about all the scheming she’d done behind the scenes to set you up. The whole thing would blow up in her face.”

“You’re lucky she didn’t have you killed.” Saying it feels like an exaggeration, but part of me believes it.

“She had enough money to make us both happy. No need for extremes.” Mickie shrugs.

“Of course, when I told Verna, she got all up on her high horse. You’d sacrificed so much to keep her safe and blah, blah, blah.

Said I couldn’t prosper off your heartbreak.

I went to fucking prison, and I’m not entitled to anything?

” She gives me a petulant look. “Guilted me into giving her the money. She said she’d tell you everything, give you the money, when the time was right. But she never did, did she?”

“No,” I admit. But there’d been another document in the pile that makes me wonder whether she could tell me.

“I don’t feel so bad about keeping half that cash, then. If it was just sitting somewhere in that apartment the whole time. Leave it to Verna to only do half a job.”

“You kept some of the payoff?”

“Tuckers got deep pockets.” Mickie’s expression is unfazed. “Your dad and I needed something to get us back on our feet, get us up and running after prison. She sent us there to benefit herself. Least she could do was pay for our time.”

Hot and cold keeps rushing through me in waves.

At eighteen, I thought life and circumstances had backed me into a corner, were forcing my hand.

Or maybe I thought Mickie was forcing my hand through her poor choices, but I never, not once, suspected that Celia was both my executioner and my savior.

Celia gave me impossible choices, but this whole time, I’d thought they were my choices to make, that I’d gone to her of my own free will.

“She knew what I’d do,” I whisper.

“That’s what hunters do. They stalk their prey. Learn their weaknesses. Then they go for the jugular. Aunt Verna was your biggest weakness.”

But if it had just been that, I might have held strong.

Forfeited college. Stayed here and tried to make enough to pay for a lawyer.

The true tipping point was Kinsley. I couldn’t stand the idea of my parents having her, of her growing up in the poverty and violence I’d been raised in.

I wasn’t even sure my aunt and I could afford to raise her.

Now, I was left with a different set of if onlys to mull over.

If Aunt Verna hadn’t been arrested, I’d have caught my flight to New York.

I’d have stuck with my scholarship, and I think, with a clearer head and more life experience, that I would have stuck with Nate too.

We would have made it, I think. So when it came time to get custody of Kinsley, we’d have done it together.

A whole alternate life laid down, impossible to achieve after I’d veered onto a different track after one night, one set of choices.

“She told me that if I didn’t take the deal on the spot, she wouldn’t help me,” I say.

“Of course,” my mother says with a bitter laugh. “The ticking clock always works in the favor of the person holding the power.”

A familiar trick, one I’d used at Reyes and Cruz to provoke an answer to a product we needed to order or a plan I wanted to execute.

Apply pressure in just the right way. I understood the psychology behind it now, but at eighteen, my vision was clouded by my love for Aunt Verna and my terror over Kinsley being forced to walk the same path I had.

I couldn’t see the forest—the big picture if I made a different choice—because my vision was filled with those trees right in front of me, the two problems I felt like I had to solve right now in that moment.

Aunt Verna couldn’t spend one more minute in jail, and I couldn’t allow my parents to have custody of Kinsley.

But maybe neither of those choices had to be made that night .

Nate must think I’m such an idiot for making those choices. I cover my face with my hands, and I try to hold back my tears. I was so foolish and na?ve.

Now that I have all the pieces, the puzzle doesn’t look the same.

“Sometimes life fucks us over,” my mother says, hands splayed. “You just gotta ride out the fallout.”

For years, I’ve thought I understood what that fallout looked like. The complete and utter loss of Nate, of the kind of love and security he gave me. Being seeped in those feelings again, learning all this truth, has only made me question everything.

Even if I was pushed to the brink back then, I still made the choice. If I was in Nate’s shoes, I don’t know who I’d forgive, if anyone. My world might feel like it’s teetering, but I can’t imagine how he must be feeling right now. Everything flipped upside down.