Page 38 of Heartfelt Pain (Ruling Love #3)

Mom scoffs, a dry bitter laugh coming from her.

She raises her hands, in a flare of dramatics I’ve never seen from the woman.

“Yes, please tell me how hard your childhood was, Elijah. Were you not the one whispering in your father’s ear about how I was the wicked stepmother.

Where is my thanks? Where is my thanks, Elijah, for ensuring your girlfriend’s mother never castrated you! ”

Elijah opens his mouth, but Mom is laughing again. Max and I share a startled look.

“You think your father kept you out of Gia’s clutches?” Mom asks. Lennie pales at her mother’s name. “Your father has worried about you turning out to be a serial killer since you were born! He didn’t give a damn if she took away your ability to reproduce!”

Like we’re a well-trained school of fish, all our eyes blink up at Dad. Somehow Dad appears more shocked at this revelation than when Mom took out the gun.

“I am not your mother,” Mom tells Elijah. “I am not Emma. And there are no words for how much I can apologize to you for that.”

Something swells in Mom’s chest. Elijah blinks when her voice breaks.

“I am sorry that she was not here for you! Here to witness your achievements and your strange habits. She would have loved them nonetheless. I am sorry I am not Emma.” She directs this to Dad, who even after all these years can’t help the softening of his face at the mention of his first wife.

As a family, we’ve always known the truth. Now we are witnessing it first-hand.

“But I went into this, knowing I could never be your precious Emma. And we did make it work.” She takes a dangerous step closer to Dad. “We always made it work because we always agreed the boys come first.”

The last word echoes in the silence.

“But you broke that rule,” Mom says, pointing. “We always said we would not harm the boys. You broke that when you forced my son to play your games! To put his heart on the line and for what?”

My jaw aches, the tension in my forehead building. I realize what she means.

She’s talking about me.

Me.

Me and Ren.

She demands an answer. “And for what?” She stomps her foot.

Dad’s chest lifts .

“M-Mom,” I croak.

She shakes her head slightly, not meeting my eye. We might be witnesses to this conversation, but we have no voice in it yet.

“I want a divorce,” she says. “And if you cannot find it in yourself to grant the one wish your loyal wife asks of you then put me out of my misery. I will no longer be ridiculed in my own home. With my own children hating me because of the games you twist them into.”

Dad takes another breath, his chest ballooning. We all stare at him in disbelief when he doesn’t respond.

Mom’s shoulders sag. Her face breaks. The mask shatters into a million pieces as her forehead creases. She slumps into a barstool, miserable.

Max for all his moaning the past few years, is a mama’s boy at heart. So it’s not shocking when he’s the first to break the silence. “But where would you go?”

Mom rubs her face. “Home.”

It touches my soul. The way she says the word. Home. As in not this place. Not here with her sons.

But the stab is eased when Mom continues.

“Your grandmother is very ill. She will not come here for fear of dying anywhere other than her home. She will be buried by your grandfather. I cannot blame her, but I cannot live with myself if she were alone by herself. I hate knowing she is so alone in that big house of hers.”

Mom has some extended family, but she never lied about wishing Grandma would move to America. There’s a wistfulness as Mom speaks. I get the idea that she’s picturing herself in her childhood home, running around playing instead of sitting here, in a home her kids refuse to visit most of the time.

“No one is keeping you from your mother,” Grandma says. She’s much more mollified than when she waved her fist around.

“But you should come back,” Max says, almost desperately.

We might be twenty-seven but it hits us then. How much we still need our mom.

Sadness clings to her as she stares at my older brother.

“You can’t just leave Sailor!”

Russ closes her eyes like she’s making a heavy decision. “H-he’s right.” She clears her throat. “Sailor won’t stop talking about wanting to watch the blue fairy with you. She needs a grandmother.”

And I wonder if Russ understands it then.

My mom is not warm and fuzzy. She will never be like Lennie’s mom, cooking in the kitchen and giggling with her kids.

But she will be your biggest champion. Your protector and ally.

Dad took us to events and cheered us on. He’d take me to car shows and Max to bookstores. He tried to keep an eye on Elijah.

But Mom was the one with us every day.

When I didn’t want to do my homework she bribed me, letting me spend time with our chauffeur in the garage around all the fleet vehicles.

When Max’s elementary teachers laughed after he asked about reading Tolstoy she bought him the collection and read with him every night.

And it turns out she kept Elijah’s balls safe.

I wonder if Russ, with all her heart and reasoning, is starting to understand that while Mom won’t laugh, she will go to the ends of the Earth to protect her granddaughter.

Just like she went to the ends of the Earth to protect her kids.

And all the while she felt like Dad didn’t put in the same effort.

Her grounds for divorce have nothing to do with how he treated her as a wife. But about how she thinks he’s treated us. Like soldiers to be used.

Dad pieces it together just as I do.

“I love our boys,” Dad says softly.

Mom tenses all over again.

“I love them,” he repeats. “You know I do.”

“You forced our son to marry,” she whispers, her voice raspy after the bout of yelling. “And that was after you saw how Roma’s heart broke. How can you say you love them?”

“Did you ever doubt your parent’s love for you?” he asks. “And did we not marry for the better of our family?”

“I was twenty-eight,” she says. “If I had not truly liked you, my father would not have forced me to marry you.”

Dad frowns. Did he not know this or does he think Mom had been naive to believe it?

“I told you, you had no business messing with Aunt Macy’s business.” It’s a remonstrance. “You laughed at me and then my son stopped talking to me.”

I didn’t mean to. Not really.

My visits became few and far. I didn’t want to see Dad after the Ren debacle. I’d seen a side of him, I didn’t like. I wrongly assumed Mom had gone along with the idea as well. I had no idea she’d fought against it. That she harbored such hard feelings.

But that’s my mother. She hides everything deep down.

I think I do the same. Instead of facing my parents and having it out, I avoided everything. I never meant to hurt her in the process.

“Mom,” I say gently.

Her weary blue eyes cause a fission of nerves. They burn through the layers of my mind and suddenly I’m falling back through memories. Only this time I’m examining all the images, thoughts, and words from a perspective only time can bring .

“You told me to kill Cliff.”

I ignore the startle in the room at the abrupt change in topic.

“That day you saw me.” I’d just told Ren about it. How my mom found me puking in the bathroom right off the kitchen. For years, all I’d remembered was the burning shame of acidic puke coming up my throat. How I’d looked up to see Mom.

But the full memory comes back to me now. How she’d sunk to her knees and brushed tears out of my eyes.

“You told me to kill Cliff,” I repeat.

I’d thought it was a violent madness. That Mom and Dad deserved one another because all they thought about was blood.

But holy shit. . .

“You knew Cliff had put a hit out on Ren.”

Dima speaks for the first time. “He what?”

“You knew he was going after her.” Mom, with her watchful, silent nature. “That’s why you told me to kill him. You wanted me to save her.”

Grandma puts her arm on my shoulder, urging me to calm my breathing.

I hadn’t understood. I hadn’t understood and she could’ve died.

“If Nancy Mulligan hadn’t warned her. . .”

“Nancy?” Russ utters.

“If she hadn’t told Ren about what was going on, what he was up to, Cliff would’ve killed her.”

“Did you know about this?” Dima asks Dad.

“No.” He shakes his head.

“You knew.” The words are faint to my own ears.

Mom lifts a bony hand, cupping my face. “Open your car shop, Roma. But do not launder money through it. And no favors for anyone. Not even a free oil change. People get so upset at perceived favors.”

I shake my head slightly.

“And they will try. Especially, the Irish. They’re always looking for new businesses to tear apart.”

“Mom. . .”

“Be happy, Roma.” It’s a request. My fingers curl around her. She says one more thing. “Call Andrea Petrova.”

I don’t follow, but then neither does anyone else.

Mom states directly to Dima, “Call Andrea Petrova.”

He’s sitting with his arms crossed, his shoulders slumped like usual. “Andrea? What’s she got to do with any of this. . .”

“Nothing.” She pats my cheek, pulling out of my grasp. “But ask her what her husband is up to.”

He straightens, a realization sparking in his eye. “Oh, that British bastard.”