Jaden by Tijan

EPILOGUE

My call to my mother had gone to her voicemail. It was her assistant that heard the alert from her phone and listened to the message. When she heard enough, she made two calls immediately. The first was toDaughter’s bfin my mom’s phone. That call went to Bryce and the other call was to 911.

Bryce was with Corrigan and Denton. All three of them got to the hotel first. I was told later that the guys carried us to the elevator. They were in the lobby when the police arrived. Paramedics weren’t far behind them. Corrigan had been carrying me. Denton carried his sister and Bryce helped Carolina, who had gone into shock when she realized what had happened.

Mena survived her own stabbing and charges were brought against her. She was sentenced to life in prison. It never went to jury so some information was never leaked, like that she was my sister. My father never found out, and everyone who did know had sworn to secrecy. It would only hurt him, and he seemed happy with Beth. Even though my own relationship would never be repaired with him, this was one way I was helping him, in my own way.

It was exactly one year ago that I found Grace’s killer. This was the first day I would speak to her again.

The visiting area was cold and impersonal.

Sitting in that seat, waiting for the guard to let Mena through, was surreal. Sitting here now, waiting to talk to her through a wall of glass and a phone between us for our conversation, I couldn’t help but ask myself why I was there. She took away so many people in my life. During the trial, I listened to every detail and every day, I got sick afterwards.

She had sought Marcus out. They bonded over their love for me and she was the one who molded him into a killer. She insisted they had to protect me. Everything was because of her. Marcus, though he had his own share of crazy, had been swept up in her delusional world.

I killed him, and I couldn’t help to think if I ever would’ve done that if she hadn’t entered his life? His blood was on my hands. Thinking about it now, I stared straight ahead and my hands curled into my lap, tugging on my sleeves. I gritted my teeth. It was her fault. All of it.

Then I heard a buzzing sound and a far door opened.

Mena was led inside wearing a bright orange jumper. The guard undid her chains and she walked to me, smiling.

I tugged harder on my sleeves. Damn. Even now, even after I had testified against her and shared everything she told me, everything she had done to me, she didn’t hate me. There was love shining back from her eyes.

As she took her seat, she placed a hand to the glass wall and spread her fingers.

The usual response would be to place mine on the other side.

I still didn’t even know if I wanted totalkto her, much less that response.

Coming to see her had been my only thought process. I wasn’t sure how I would react when I actually did see her, but she was here and she was reaching out for me.

My stomach turned over on itself again.

She frowned, pulling her hand away, and indicated to the phone. She picked hers up and waited, still frowning at me, her flawless skin marred from the lines in her forehead.

“What are you going to say to her?”Denton had asked when I told him I was coming here. He was wrecked by everything. Learning all she had done and the trial had been brutal on him. His career had taken a hit. Movies dumped him, but his agent spun it. Denton was urged to do a one-on-one interview with a primetime news channel. It worked. Some people cried out that he knew what she had been doing. They didn’t believe his tears. He was playing the sympathy card. But everyone else, like me, had been moved by his interview. He had been one hundred percent honest.

He loved his sister. She had been unloved by one parent and ignored by the other. He tried to protect her, and he knew she had problems, but this—everything—had been unprecedented.

Denton welled up then, and he fought to keep the tears from falling.

The image of one of their A-list actors so raw and so exposed had swept through the nation. There was renewed Denton love, and it created pandemonium. All his old roles came back, and he had offers like he had never had before.

Everyone loved Denton.

Everyone hated Mena.

But the two of us, Denton and myself, we were in the middle.

He asked one time in the courtroom, we had both remained seated as everyone left so the entire room was empty except for us two, “How can I still love her? After the destruction she caused?”

I had no answer. I only said, feeling the same dazed and numb sensation I heard in his voice, “How can I when I just found out?”

“Do you?”

I didn’t look at him, but I knew that he had lifted his head, watching me. It was another question I couldn’t answer, but I didn’tnotlove her. That was all I knew. I only replied, “It’s all a mess. That’s what I feel. That’s all I feel.”

Denton still loved his sister even though he hadn’t come to visit her yet. And me—looking at her now, holding her phone to her ear and waiting—I still had no idea how I felt.

My hand reached for the phone. That old feeling of being dazed and confused came back to me now. It never left me during the trial. I pressed the phone to my ear, but didn’t say anything. My throat didn’t work all of a sudden.

“Hi,” she breathed into her phone. The relief was so loud.

I almost put the phone back. I didn’t want to hear her relieved.

“Uh,” she glanced down at the table. Then laughed to herself. “This is so weird. Why is it weird?”

“Because you killed my friends.” I stared hard back at her. Anger stirred in me. “Because you hurt me.”

She flinched, “Sheldon, I . . .”

You what? YOU WHAT?I yelled at her in my head, but said nothing. I waited as chains started to wind around my body, starting at my feet, then calves, then thighs. It wrapped around my waist, looping around my chair and worked its way around my shoulders, ending around my neck.

I was weighed down. I was trapped and bound.

That was how I was feeling as I waited for her to talk.

“I love you. You’re my sister.”

I almost started laughing. “That’s it? That’s what you say?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say?”

I didn’t either. I shook my head. “Why am I here?”

“I’m glad you are. I didn’t think anyone would come, but,” she hesitated, “how’s Denton?”

Hurt. Angry. Devastated.

I was holding back. I couldn’t do that anymore. As I gripped the phone tighter and cleared my throat, Mena raised her head. She knew something was coming and she was ready.

Oh, no, honey. You’re not.I sneered at her then. “You want to know how your brother is?”

She opened her mouth to respond. I didn’t give her a chance. I kept going, “Youdestroyedhim. Acting like the broken man he is might’ve helped his career, but you ruined him. I have no idea if he’ll ever come to see you. Hell,” a bitter laugh came from me, “he couldn’t believe I was coming here. You manipulated Marcus and turned him into a killer. I don’t know if he would’ve been one without you, that’s the sad part. I might not have killed someone if you hadn’t been involved. I had friends who would still be alive.Alive, Mena. They aren’t, and that’s at your hand. You’re a psychopath. And as I’m staring at you, you don’t care. You have no remorse. You’re just,” I was gutted. Her eyes were beaming back at me. My words weren’t making a difference. “A statue with a fucked-up moral compass. You’re fucked-up.”

I was done.

I started shaking my head and I looked down.

“No.” She pressed her hand to the glass again. A whimper left her. “Sheldon.”

I couldn’t look at her anymore. I stared at her, but I wasn’t seeing her. I was seeing Leisha behind her. Bailey. Grace. Guadalupe. Maria. Even Marcus. All their blood was on her, and she had done it because she loved me.

Their blood was on me.

Numb and cold, I hung up my phone. She was crying out through the glass, begging me to stay, but I turned deaf ears on her. Standing, I walked out with my heart ripping in half. Those people died because of me.

She had wrecked her brother, and as I left the prison, I knew she had shattered me as well.

Walking through the parking lot, I heard a wolf whistle and glanced up. Corrigan lifted two fingers in the air. “Yo, hot woman walking.” He flashed me a cocky grin. He was standing outside his car, his arms spread out on both sides of him, holding onto his car and his legs were crossed at the ankles. With his green eyes and his golden brown hair that he’d cut recently, he looked like a movie star posing in a blockbuster ad. All thoughts of Mena fled, and I took in the rest of him. He was wearing designer jeans and a shirt that molded to his form, showing off his broad shoulders and his tapered waist. The wind kicked up then, riffling his shirt so it stuck to his form, and I glimpsed the six-pack I already knew was there.

Bryce had always been the athlete. His body was the most cut and was sculpted from his soccer training, but Corrigan was no slouch either. Since Mena’s last attack, we’d both started running together. Whereas it made my legs feel like lead, it seemed to have transformed Corrigan into a lean machine. Knowing an answering grin was on my face, I started for him, and the closer I got, the more my mouth watered.

Corrigan was delicious.

As I stopped right in front of him, his eyes were holding mine, watching intently. He dropped his arms from his car to rest on my hips. He didn’t pull me into him; he only held me. It was an intimate touch, and I shivered from the memory of this morning, how he had been so gentle as he made love to me. It had brought tears then, and I felt some tears threaten to spill again.

He murmured, “I’m trying to be dashing here to distract you from your sister.”

I jerked my head up and down. My hand lifted to rest on his chest and I felt his cement-like strength there. I absorbed it because, to be honest, talking to Mena had taken some of my fight. “Thanks. I need that.”

“Should I ask how it went or do you really want to be distracted?”

I lifted a shoulder. My eyes lingered on his lips. One touch from them and all feelings would be wiped away. He could make me forget. Bryce used to be able to do that. He was hot and passionate. He made everything disappear and melt away, but then it came back. It always came back, but it was different with Corrigan. Corrigan transformed the world for me. He lifted me up. He spun me around. He made the world look like a beautiful painting. I was craving that feeling again. He could make everything feel all right. Even Mena. Everything would be all right with her. I could handle it, if Corrigan was at my side.

“Sheldon?” His hand lifted to my cheek and he traced his thumb over my skin, a gentle caress.

I let out a soft sigh. “Have I told you lately how much I love you?”

The corner of his mouth lifted up. “Yes. This morning. I think you told all our neighbors, too.”

I laughed and moved into him. Resting my forehead against his, I breathed out, “I do. I love you.”

His voice dropped to a husky whisper. He said back, “I love you, too.”

“You make me feel like a pansy-ass girl.” I wrinkled my nose. “I was way more hardcore with Bryce. What the hell, Raimler? You’re making me weak?” My tone was teasing, but my god, I was addicted to him. I think I always had been. A few words from Corrigan had always been needed to make me feel better.

He tightened his hold on my hip and jerked me farther against him, aligning our hips so there wasn’t an inch of space between us. He leaned down and nipped at my lips, grinding into me. “If I do, then you do the opposite for me. Trust me, Jeneve, I’m rock hard right now.”

I laughed and swept a hand down between us. He sucked in a breath as I slid my hand inside his jeans. I didn’t go farther. I held my hand there, my fingers touching underneath his waistband, and I let them linger.

Corrigan laughed hoarsely. “Yep. I’m now like a rocket. Thanks, Jeneve.”

Grazing his lips with mine, I teased, “Maybe we should head home and do something about that, huh?”

He groaned and pulled his lips back, but resting his forehead to mine, he looked at me, peering right into my eyes, his green eyes suddenly sober. “We have that dinner premiere thing tonight.”

I let out a matching groan and lifted my head back. “For real?”

He nodded. “You promised Steele we’d go.”

My hands lifted from him and raked through my hair. I shook my head. Corrigan’s hand fell back to my hips. I said, “I totally forgot Denton was opening his restaurant tonight.”

“Bryce is bringing his new girlfriend, too.”

A litany of curses spewed from me then. “Way to really make me not want to go.”

He laughed, his eyes scanning my face, then falling and resting on my lips. “Bryce said he really likes this one so you have to be nice to her.”

I snorted. “Nope. No way. Once he finds a girl who can handle me, then maybe I’ll give my approval. Until then, sorry, buddy. I’m not holding in my bitchiness so he can keep getting screwed by some weak-ass wannabe.”

“Sheldon.”

“Not going to happen.” My eyes flashed in warning. “I’m protective of him. That’ll never change. You know that.” Bryce would always hold a special place in my heart. Corrigan knew this and understood this.

He said, “You’ve consistently started to get meaner and meaner to them since the first one.”

I shrugged. I didn’t care. Things had been tense and awkward during Mena’s trial. There was supposed to have been time apart once my decision had been made known, but it hadn’t happened. Because of the trial and all the legalities since Bryce had been there when Corrigan flipped her wrist so she stabbed herself, the whole idea of giving the other person space from me hadn’t happened. Instead, Corrigan and I figured out our new relationship only when Bryce wasn’t around. When he was there, things had gone back to normal, how the three of us were all only friends. When the trial ended, Bryce did go away then and six months ago, he resurfaced with a new girl at his side. Corrigan and I ran into him by accident at Denton’s newest movie premiere, but we should’ve known. Of course, Denton would invite Bryce, and of course, he would invite Corrigan and me. But seeing the model attached to Bryce’s side had been hard at first.

Bryce was my first love. A new wave of sadness and grief came over me that night. I didn’t love Bryce the way I loved Corrigan, but that had been another night when I started to relinquish my hold on him. He would find another girl. I knew this. He wasn’t mine anymore, but it still stung at moments. Corrigan had pressed me when I grew quiet that night. I hadn’t known how to talk about this with him. I was with him, but mourning another guy? But he understood. Corrigan always understood and he said to me that night, “Bryce is yours. He’s mine, too. He’s family. You let him go a long time ago, but you still care for him. You still love him. Those feelings, as strong as they were for you, won’t disappear overnight. I’m still here, no matter what. I understand, Sheldon. It would be the same thing if you had chosen him. You wouldn’t be able to stop loving me in one night. He would’ve understood that, too.”

“It makes me the worst person in the world.”

He pulled me to his chest and whispered, cradling my head to his shoulder, “It makes you a person who loved. That’s all it does.”

And the tears had started, but he was right. I didn’t love Bryce the way I loved Corrigan, but releasing him took a while . . . The more girls he brought around us, the more territorial I grew, but I was to the point where I only wanted the right girl for him. If she wasn’t worthy of him, she wasn’t going to get him. I wouldn’t let him have anyone less the best.

Hearing that he had another girl coming, I only gave Corrigan a smile. “We’ll see how she handles me.”

He shook his head, rolling his eyes, but he couldn’t stop a grin. “You need to let him find the girl, not you.”

“I just want to make sure she’s good enough for him.” My throat swelled. “He deserves the best.”

Corrigan pulled me back to him, pressing a kiss to my forehead. He held me and whispered, “He’ll find her.”

Just like we have.

He didn’t say the words, but I closed my eyes and thought them. My hand lifted to his arm and I held him back. He was right. Bryce would find his happily ever after, just like I had with Corrigan.

Then I snorted to myself.

Corrigan asked, “What?”

I pulled back, grinning at him. “You’re my happily ever after.” I snorted again. “Why does that make me want to curse?”

Corrigan rolled his eyes. “Because it’s sappy and cheesy. It’s all those mushy feelings you hate to acknowledge.” His hand lifted and pressed against my chest, resting over my heart. “Because you’re happy and you’re scared to death to admit it?”

“Yeah.” Those damn tears were coming back. I covered his hand with both of mine, my eyes holding his. “Goddamn, I love you.”

His lip lifted in a tender smile. “I love you, too.”

Always. Forever. Screw it—Corrigan was my fucking fairytale come true. Grabbing his shirt collar, I pressed my lips to his.

We were going to be late for Denton’s restaurant opening.

THE END

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