Page 17 of Unleashed (Dark Sovereign #11)

“Because in this world, a sickly widow tied to scandal is social cancer.” Her voice drops to a near-whisper, venom laced beneath the calm. “Because no one wants to be seen sipping champagne next to the woman whose daughter married the man who murdered her husband in a goddamn church.”

She spits the last word like it’s poison, like it’s something foul lodged in her throat. Then, with eerie grace, she lowers the envelope back onto the glass tabletop—as if she’s setting down a tombstone instead of paper.

“I gave my life to this world. To being proper. To fit in. And now?” She shrugs one elegant shoulder.

“They look at me with pity. Whispers behind glasses of wine. They send casseroles instead of invitations.” She gestures around her immaculate, sterile foyer.

“You think I care about your apologies? I can’t even show my face at fundraisers without carrying the humiliation you caused. ”

I press a hand to my stomach, nausea twisting so hard I think I might be sick. “Mom, I didn’t want this. I didn’t plan any of this—”

“But you allowed it.” She crosses her arms again, tighter this time, like she’s wrapping herself in armor. “And now the consequences are mine to carry, too.”

My voice splinters. “I didn’t ask for any of this. I didn’t ask for him to die.”

“You may not have pulled the trigger, but my husband’s death is on you, dear.”

The envelope still sits there, like a monument to everything I ruined. I stare at it—just a stupid square of paper—and want to rip it in half. Not because it matters, but because it’s the only thing in this house honest enough to reflect how small I feel.

“I came here because I had nowhere else. Because I need you.”

“Because you’re pregnant.”

It’s like a hit to the head. “You know,” I murmur. “How? Wait.” My eyes narrow as realization sets in. “Anthony. He told you.”

“Of course he did. Poor man has no one to talk to. I’m the closest thing he has to a mother.”

“But you’re my mother.” My voice cracks. “I walk in here—scared, alone, pregnant—and you treat me like a stain on your carpet. Like I deserve everything that’s happened to me.”

She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t blink. “I’ve always treated you with the realism this world demands. You never could stomach the truth, Everly. That’s your problem.”

“No,” I breathe, the ache rising in my chest like floodwater. “My problem is that I keep hoping you’ll love me. Even now. Even after everything.”

Her expression doesn’t change. That stony, detached mask she’s worn for as long as I can remember stays perfectly intact. Like my words bounce off her before they even have a chance to cut.

“I buried a husband,” she says coolly. “And the gossip buried my reputation along with him. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be whispered about at galas I used to host? To be pitied by women whose shoes I used to outbid? You made me small, Everly. Not the other way around.”

The room spins slightly.

“You knew I was pregnant the moment I walked in,” I whisper. “And you never once asked if I was okay.”

“I assumed if something were wrong, Anthony would’ve said.”

I laugh. A dry, bitter sound that tastes like acid in my throat. “Of course. Because his word carries more weight than mine.”

“Because you’re dramatic.”

“I need you, Mom.”

“What about what I need?” She softens, but not kindly—more like a condolence given out of etiquette.

“I’m sorry, Everly, but I can’t do this.

I don’t have the strength. I lost my husband.

I’m losing my body. And the last thing I need is to be reminded of the life I lost because of my selfish daughter. ”

Her words settle over me like cinder, and something inside me wilts. Hope is drained out of my muscles, leaving only the rejection, the ache, and it all folds in on itself, and what’s left is just an emptiness that comes with being completely…and utterly…alone.

She steps forward and gently, so gently, reaches up to adjust her wig, fingers smoothing a strand in place. “If you don’t mind, I’m exhausted, and I do not have the strength to continue this conversation with you right now.”

I wipe at my face, but the ache doesn’t leave. It’s not just in my chest. It’s everywhere. “You mean you don’t have the strength for me. Your daughter.” I place my hand on my belly. “Your grandchild.”

As her gaze drops to my hand, I beg silently—see me, please, just see me. But when her eyes lift, they hold nothing but a glacial detachment. “That child is nothing of mine.”

It isn’t a blade. It’s a mother’s rejection turned to shrapnel, shredding through me in a way no enemy, no bullet, no man ever could.

She turns. Heels clicking against the floor.

Each step final, cold, echoing like nails in a coffin.

Not once does she look back. But I can’t get myself to turn away because the ten-year-old child in me is hoping her mother will pause halfway, glance over her shoulder and whisper the words, ‘I’m sorry. ’

She doesn’t.

The sound of her leaving is louder than her voice. Louder than my heartbeat. Louder than anything.

We’ve had so many fights, so many screaming matches, words hurled like daggers that always seemed impossible to take back. But no matter how brutal they were, some fragile part of me still believed there was a thread tying us together, something that could be mended if we just pulled hard enough.

But this time is different. This time, the thread is gone. Cut clean. Burned to ash.

This isn’t a fight we’ll recover from. This is an ending.

A trembling hand flies to my mouth, stifling the cry clawing its way out.

My vision blurs until the hallway dissolves into nothing but shadows and grief.

I collapse, knees striking the floor, the cold rushing through my skin like punishment.

Everything comes crashing down all at once until I can hardly breathe through the sobs, can’t find the edges of myself.

There’s no hope. Not in this moment. Not right now. The light’s been snuffed out by my mother’s rejection in a time when I have to learn how to be a mother myself.

A crack of doubt tears through me. A whisper sharp enough to bleed. What if I can’t do this? What if I don’t have it in me to continue fighting—not for me, not even for this baby? With nothing left, with no one left, the strength to get up feels unattainably distant.

I’ve been gone for months, but not a single day passed that I didn’t think of her.

My mother. The woman who raised me, who should’ve been the one safe place in a world that’s only ever taken.

I pictured her at night, sitting alone at the kitchen table.

I worried she was drowning in grief and fear all alone, without me there.

I hated the thought of her suffering alone.

And all this time she’s been blaming me. Hating me. Hoping I’d never come back.

The ache of that knowledge is worse than Isaia’s lies, his absence, worse than Anthony going behind my back, spinning invisible threads that’ll eventually lead to control.

Because no one can carve you open like your own mother.

No one else can look at the pieces of you and decide you’re unworthy of love.

It’s a pain that doesn’t just cut—it brands. Bone deep. Permanent.

And sitting here on the cold floor, my hands clutching my stomach, all I can think is that my baby will never have a grandmother’s arms to run to. That the cycle of rejection is already written. I’m not just motherless. I’m unwanted. We’re unwanted.

As I wipe at my tears, allowing the pain to crack me wide open, a thought slides in through the tears.

Did Isaia know? Did he know my mother blamed me? Is that why he kept me from calling? Kept me from reaching out to her?

Was he…

Was he protecting me?