Page 52 of The Lies Of Omission (Without Limits #3)

THEO

I t was too quiet in the apartment.

Sin had gone back to his place to check in with Thalia and Claire—something about potstickers or pot painting and trashy reality TV they pretended not to be obsessed with.

I told him to go. Said it casually, like it didn’t matter.

Like I wouldn’t rather have him here, pressed up against me on our creaky thrift-store couch, pretending we weren’t both afraid of the silence.

But I needed to learn how to have space now that I actually had it.

Still, when the door clicked shut behind him, the quiet that followed felt like a vacuum. Like something vital had been sucked out of the air.

I stood in the middle of the living room, surrounded by boxes and half-built furniture, staring at the chaos like it might rearrange itself if I looked hard enough.

Sin had helped me haul in a coffee table from Facebook Marketplace, then talked me into rearranging the couch three different ways until we found the perfect angle to be able to sit and watch TV.

Winston approved—or at least, he hadn’t sabotaged it yet.

He was perched on the windowsill now, flicking his tail in silent judgment.

My phone buzzed for the fifth time in as many minutes. I didn’t need to check. I knew the drill.

My therapist said I had to set boundaries—that healing sometimes looked like silence. So I shoved the phone under a pillow and pressed it down like I was snuffing out a fire.

When the last lamp was finally plugged in, I collapsed onto the couch. Winston promptly abandoned his perch to sprawl across my chest, all purring warmth and steady weight. My heart thudded a little too hard beneath him.

I flicked through channels just to hear the noise. Nothing stuck. Infomercials. Crime dramas as old as the building. A rerun of True Blood . I left it on. Thalia loved that show. Said it made being dramatic feel justified. I didn’t get it, but at least it didn’t require me to think.

I let my eyes fall closed. Just for a second. Let my body settle into the stillness. Something I was trying to learn was to just relax and not be riddled with anxiety until I was on the verge of imploding.

Then came the knock. Hard and insistent. I sat up so fast, Winston yowled and bolted. My pulse shot through me like a live wire.

No one knocks like that unless it’s something bad.

My first thought was him. My father. I imagined his shadow behind the door, imagined hands reaching through the gap to drag me back.

My fingers shook as I crept to the peephole.

It wasn’t him.

It was her.

My mother.

She stood in the hallway, hands clasped tightly in front of her, and she wasn’t alone. A man—older, maybe in his late sixties—stood beside her with a briefcase and kind eyes. He looked like the type of man who said things like “let’s take this one step at a time.”

She must have sensed me. “Theo,” she said, her voice quiet, too careful. “Please. I just want to talk.”

Every instinct screamed for me to deadbolt the door and retreat into the safety of the silence. But there was something in her voice I hadn’t heard in years. Not a command. Not guilt. Just… hope.

I took a deep calming breath and opened the door.

She looked older. Not just in years, but in the kind of way time leaves when it scrapes someone raw. Her makeup was understated. Her posture wasn’t perfect. And her eyes—my eyes—looked like they’d run out of sleep weeks ago.

“This is Richard,” she said, gesturing to the man beside her. “My lawyer. May we come in?”

I stepped aside, holding the door open for them before closing it quietly, like if I let it slam shut, this bubble would burst.

She moved through the apartment slowly, like it might vanish if she blinked. She took in the boxes, the clutter, the lived-in mess of a place I was still trying to claim as a home. Winston peeked out from behind the couch and promptly disappeared again. Smart cat.

“It suits you,” she said softly, half to herself.

I busied myself making coffee. Not out of politeness, more that I needed something to do with my hands. I passed a cup to each of them, then sat across from her, shoulders braced for impact.

“Why are you here?” I asked. No softness. Just the blunt edge of exhaustion.

She didn’t flinch. “Because I need you to know the truth,” she said. “And because you walked away before I could tell you.”

My stomach tightened. “What truth?”

She looked at Richard. He gave the smallest nod, the kind you give someone who’s standing on the edge of a cliff.

“I married Washington because it made sense,” she began. “Because my name had weight. Because my family’s legacy came with connections. And money. That was all he ever wanted—an alliance, money and power. Not a wife. Certainly not love.”

I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t sure I trusted my voice not to crack.

“When I got pregnant with you, he changed. Revealed his true colors if you will. He drew up contracts. Postnups full of clauses. He buried me under legal paperwork so complicated I couldn’t sneeze without his permission. I was trapped, Theo. Just like you.”

I gripped my mug so tightly I thought it might crack. “Then why didn’t you stop him?” I asked, my voice low. “Why did you let him send me away?”

Tears welled in her eyes, but didn’t fall. She pulled a small stack of papers from her bag and laid them gently on the coffee table between us.

“Because I didn’t know,” she said.

I laughed. Bitter. Cold. “You didn’t know where your own son was? That’s the story you’re going with?”

“He told me you were at a mentorship program abroad. Sent me fake letters on fancy stationery. Emails from burner addresses. Photos that were doctored. Every time I tried to visit, there was an excuse. You were in exams. Sick. Traveling. Every door I knocked on, he’d already locked.”

She slid one of the letters toward me. It was in my handwriting. But it wasn’t mine. I scanned the words. Neat. Hollow. Polished. Too perfect. Too composed to have belonged to an emotionally ravaged teenager.

“He forged my letters,” I whispered. Horror bloomed like bruises under my ribs. “He forged me. ”

“I didn’t know until recently,” she said. “I started digging into the financials—documents and accounts he kept hidden for decades. And once I started pulling the threads—with Richard’s help—the whole story unraveled.”

I sat back, chest heaving. Every part of me felt frayed at the edges, like I’d been stitched together wrong.

“Why now?” I asked.

She swallowed. “Because I don’t want to be another person who lets you down.”

And just like that—something inside me shattered and reformed.

There was no apology big enough to patch the years. No perfect sentence that would rebuild what we never had. But at that moment, in that quiet, I saw something in her eyes that hadn’t been there before.

Want.

Grief.

Maybe even love, still trying to figure out how to breathe.

I looked down at the forged letter. Then back at her. “I don’t know if I can forgive you,” I said. “Not yet.”

“I don’t expect you to,” she replied, and her voice didn’t shake. “But I’m here. If you want me to be.”

The silence stretched between us. Not heavy this time. Not hollow. Just real. Tentative and fragile. Like something we might one day call a beginning.

Her voice cracked like thin ice under pressure. “You walked away,” she said. “And for the first time, I saw the weakness in his cage too. You gave me the strength to do the same.” Then she dropped the bomb. “I’m divorcing your father.”

The room stilled. My breath snagged in my throat. For a heartbeat, I forgot how to blink. My mind went blank, a hollow shell filled with static as I processed what she had just said.

Richard cleared his throat, stepping forward like he’d rehearsed this.

“Your father is bankrupt, Theo. He’s facing civil lawsuits…

possibly criminal charges. Most of the deals you worked on?

They were smoke. Fabricated paper trails.

Shell companies. He used you to sell the illusion—your name, your talent, your polish. You were the bait.”

I fell back in my seat. Hard. “I thought they were real,” I muttered, numb. “Every one of them—I… I poured myself into those deals.”

“They were real enough to convince others,” Richard said gently. “But not to sustain anything. He was drowning. And he used your brilliance to buy more time. The only thing that was real was the country club and that belongs to you.”

My pulse thundered in my ears. My skin crawled like it didn’t belong to me. The silence that fell wasn’t peaceful—it was ruinous. A dead weight collapsing everything I thought I knew.

My mother reached into her purse and pulled out a slim leather folder. Inside, a single document—official, heavy with history. “Your grandfather left you a trust,” she said quietly. “I kept it hidden. If your father had known, he would have drained it dry. But it’s yours now. Completely.”

She placed the folder beside me. Her hand trembled as she pulled back.

“I should have protected you,” she whispered. “And I know I can’t ask for your forgiveness. But I’m here. And I want to try. If you’ll let me.”

I looked at her. Really looked. The woman beneath manicured perfection, beneath the pearls and the designer silk. Her eyes were raw. Grief-etched. Hope barely held her upright.

“You knew about Sin,” I stated. “You didn’t seem surprised when I chased after him that night.”

She nodded. “He makes you happy. I met his mother once. Elizabeth Soul. Fierce woman. I liked her.”

I couldn’t suppress the bitterness scraping my throat. “Then you don’t know what they did to him.”

She blinked, taken aback. “What do you mean? She’s the darling of Hollywood.”