I don’t want to forgive her. She doesn’t deserve it.
But something about the precariousness of my entire existence right now, something about sending Brick away and breaking my own heart yet again, about realizing how fucking complicated and not very black and white life is gives me a sliver of compassion.
She’s a dying woman. If she needs to get this off her chest, I will allow it.
“My mother suffered.”
“I know, my dear. I’m sorry. Edgar has already cut a check for her.” She flaps her hand in the direction of the lawyer, who holds up an envelope.
I narrow my eyes. “What are the conditions this time?”
“Ah, so bright and savvy. No conditions. I’m trying to make amends to you and her.”
I keep my face blank. Money doesn’t fix twenty-two years of spurning us, but I’m not about to refuse it, either. My mom needs that money.
“I want you to run Torrent Cosmetics.”
My eyes fly wider, and I suck in a shocked breath. “What?”
“You’re bright. Motivated. The child I always wanted to have. You’re capable of great things, Madison.”
I rub my lips together. They suddenly feel so dry. “I prefer Madi,” I find myself saying.
“Madi.”
“You-” I swallow down the lump in my throat. “You rejected me. You didn’t think I was good enough to be in your family. Now that I have a Princeton education and a job on Wall Street, I’ve proven I’m good enough?”
Eleanor’s eyes fill with tears. “I’m so sorry. I know I was wrong. I made a mistake when I found out your mom was pregnant, and then, when I learned she kept you, it felt too late to change course or tell Brett. I kept doubling down on my mistakes. I watched you from afar and pulled strings to ensure your success. But now,” -she waves a trembling hand at the monitors and IV drip bag- “I have the benefit of near death to make me realize my reign is coming to an end. I want to make amends-to correct my mistakes. And I would love to have you by my side, Madi.”
I blink back the water in my eyes. “What’s in it for me?” I ask with a humorless laugh.
“A large stake in Torrent Cosmetics now and controlling interest when I die.”
My mouth falls open. I wasn’t trying to manipulate her for money. My brain makes a few rough calculations. We’re probably talking about an inheritance exceeding a billion dollars. My net worth would be comparable to Brick’s.
This is insane. I don’t know why I feel like I might puke.
“And if I say no?” I choke out.
“It’s still yours. You’re my legacy, Madison.”
I let out a long, shaky breath.
“You might as well come and learn how to run things from me now, while I’m still alive. Otherwise, there will be a steep learning curve when you inherit the throne.”
I blink back tears although I’m not sure why I’m crying. There’s just so much emotion stuck in my chest. Pain from all the years of feeling rejected by my father and his family. Overwhelm at now being chosen as worthy. Anger warring with forgiveness.
“May I think about it?” My voice cracks.
Eleanor clasps my hand in both of hers. Her skin is dry, and her hands are cold. “Of course, my dear. It’s not a trick or a test. I’m proud of who you are, Madi, and after keeping you apart from the family all these years, now I selfishly want to know you better.” Her eyes well with tears.
I’m not sure I can say the same.
“You don’t owe me anything. We can start small. You can come to work with me, change your mind and leave. For once in my life, I’m not trying to manipulate.”
I try to swallow and fail. “What about…him?” I look out the door in the direction my sperm-donor went.
“I’m going to tell him. I don’t know how he’ll take the news.”
The floor of the room feels unstable. My skin is hot. I need to get out of here. “It’s a lot to digest, Eleanor.” I call her by her first name mostly as a sign of disrespect. Because I sure as hell won’t be calling her
Grandmother.
If I call her anything at all.
The old woman receives the rebuke in my voice with a steady blink of her eyes. “I know. I am sorry. I made a horrible mistake with you and your mother. I am trying to make amends before I die.”
I manage a wobbly nod and stumble backward toward the open door.
The lawyer thrusts the envelope addressed to my mother in my hand as I back out. “Take your time considering the offer,” he murmurs, as if this was a business deal not a family matter.
I flee, my stomach in a tight knot as I fast-walk down the hospital hallway.
It’s strange that my first thought is to call Brick rather than Aubrey. And that loss cuts so much more acutely than anything Eleanor Harrington has ever done to me or my family.
Brick
I keep myself extremely calm over the next couple of days. It’s a practice in mind-control. I don’t allow myself to think about Madi. I only concentrate on Moon Co. If my business is strong, my pack members won’t defect-they would lose their shares.
All of that goes to shit when Ruby shows up knocking at my penthouse door after work.
When I open the door, she scans my face with concern.
“Still sane,” I mutter in answer to her unspoken question.
She pushes past me, walking into the living room on her high heels. “Well, then, what the fuck, Brick?”
“Which part?”
She whirls to face me and spreads her manicured fingers. “Let’s see…could it be the fact that you haven’t been to see Mom in your own building after she nearly died defending your mate? Or maybe that you left Madi on an island to publicly find a mate?” Despite being my older sister, Ruby usually plays more of a support role to my alpha. Her condemnation hits me square in my already gutted chest.
“Are you really this broken around female relationships, Brick? Are you trying to go moon mad again by ruining your relationship with Madi?”
Electricity sparks and sears behind my eyes. I stab my fingers through my hair. “Do you think it’s ruined?”
Ruby sucks in a breath, holds it, then lets it out slowly, like she’s considering her words. “I think…” She glances toward the door. “I think our parents were the worst possible model for a relationship, and you’ve taken a page from their book.”
I sink onto the couch and bury my head in my hands. “I feel torn in two, Rubes. Pack versus Madi. Every move I make is wrong for one of them.”
Ruby comes and sits beside me on the couch. “Start with Mom,” she says softly.
My head jerks up, and I frown. My mom and her duplicitous loyalties are an old problem. Hardly one that is most pressing to solve right now. “I’m not sure how that will help.”
“It will,” Ruby says. “You need to clean up that mess. Once you do, I think it will be easier to see what’s required for our future.”
She hooks her hand around my elbow and stands. “Come on. I’ll go with you.”
I push back the chaos that churns behind my breastbone. I can’t go mad again. I wouldn’t be able to pull back a second time.
We take the elevator down to the fourth floor, where I installed my mother under a constant guard.
Ruby taps lightly on the door and pushes it open. The fourth floor houses four apartments, which I use as guest suites. They are decorated with the same industrial minimalism as my penthouse.
I’m shocked by the sight of the frail, older woman lying on the couch. My mom looks pale and thin. There’s yellow and green bruising on her forehead, jaw and cheekbones. Bandages wrap around her ribs and loop over one shoulder like she broke her collarbone.
“Brick,” she croaks and attempts to sit up, groaning as she swings her feet toward the floor.
“Don’t sit up.” Before I can think, I find myself crouched before her, my hand covering hers.
Her blue eyes light with that same hope and love I always see in them, only this time it hits me that it’s real.
She couldn’t fake that.
“Mom…you look awful.” I scan her broken body with horror. Shifters heal fast. If she’s still recovering days later, she must have been nearly beaten to a pulp.
As Madi tried to tell me.
The pain of being separated from her hits me anew, causing more chaos beneath my skin.
“She’s had to regrow a few ribs,” Ruby tells me, accusation in her voice.
I squeeze my mom’s hands, shocked at how much emotion I suddenly feel for her. As if the last ten years of stonewalling all feelings related to my parentage only made the pain grow and swell, and now that I’m opening the door, it pours over me like hot lava.
“Thank you-” My voice breaks, and I clear my throat. “Thank you for protecting my mate.”
My mom’s eyes fill with tears. “It’s my fault they found her there.” Bitterness shreds her throat. “They must have followed or tracked me. I told no one where I was going or why. I can only surmise I’ve been under surveillance all this time.”
Breathing feels difficult, like I’m in a hot sauna, and the air scorches my lungs. “It’s not your fault. Madi needed you, and you went to her. Your loyalty was to me and my mate.” I surprise myself as I say the words, but it becomes obvious that they’re true.
And if I admit that truth, everything in the past must rearrange to fit it. My mom would never harm her own family. She may be an Adalwulf, but she’s aligned by love with us.
My mom attempts to adjust herself to sit higher and wheezes.
I gently lift and arrange her, moving a pillow behind her back.
“Odin was making his last stand,” my mom says weakly. “Or Oma was. Their reign of power is about to end.”
“Because they will die together.” I realize suddenly that there’s no purer source of knowledge about the Adalwulfs than my mother. I’ve just never mined her for it because I didn’t trust.
She nods. “The magic bound them. But Oma is ancient-she’s sapped all the life force and sanity she can from Odin, just as she did from your grandfather. Odin will be her last alpha, though. The magic is already in place to transfer to her successor.”
“A young virgin.”
“Yes, Aster. She’s been locked away like a medieval princess her entire life, serving the old hag. She will not unduly influence your cousin. The pack leadership may actually become stable again.”
I study her. Is she hoping I won’t destroy them?
“Brick, Odin and Oma killed your father.” My mom’s hands tremble beneath mine. “I didn’t know the cigar was poisoned. They manipulated me into thinking the gift was my idea. I didn’t know. I would’ve died on my own blade before I would’ve killed my own mate.”
It’s been ten years since my father’s death, and she never said this before. But then, I haven’t let her near me. I refused to read her letters. When I have seen her-like at Thanksgiving-she was soaked with the scent of guilt and shame and regret.
But her words ring true. Now that she speaks them, I feel certain that was how it transpired. No wolf could kill her own mate. It’s just so contrary to nature. But if her family had used her as the weapon against my father and she’d been the unwitting pawn, it wasn’t really her fault.
Of course her scent would carry guilt. Of course she would feel responsible.
But she wasn’t truly evil. Not the way I’d feared or imagined.
I want to demand to know why she didn’t try to tell me this before, but I’m painfully aware it was my own fault.
The beautiful middle-aged woman on the couch appears so fragile. Not dangerous. Not treacherous. Just weak and manipulated by her own family members and a powerful pack.
I can’t find anything to say.
It’s a profound sense of loss that settles over me, which is better than the roar of frustration that’s been simmering in my cells since Mad-no, I can’t think about her.
And then for some reason, I see something I’d forgotten or blocked out. Memories of my parents together, fleeting as they are. “You loved him.”
Her face crumples. Tears swim in her blue eyes. “Of course I did. He was my mate.” Her chin wobbles. “They wouldn’t let me have him. He wouldn’t let me have you three. I’ve been… robbed of my due at every turn.”
I want to tell her to lay off the victim horn, but she’s not wrong. She was dealt the worst possible hand for a powerful alpha she-wolf. Her circumstances and the people she loved reduced her to nothing.
And sadly, I’m one of those people.
“I’m sorry, Mom.” I hug her.
She trembles like a leaf, her belly shuddering with sobs.
“I’m sorry I didn’t listen. I was an idiot.”
“Brick.” She sounds broken. I don’t know whether her grief over me now is for the time we’ve lost or the fact that I may not have a future. Either way, something about this feels like closure. If I am going to lose my pack or my sanity, at least the edges of this gaping wound with my mom have been stitched together.
Ruby crouches beside me, and I open an arm and pull her in for a three-way hug. I kiss the tops of both their heads. “I love you both.”
“Now what is going on with you and your mate?” my mom asks when we untangle.
I shake my head. “She’s human. Getting the pack to accept her may be impossible. Especially after all the stunts Aiden and Odin have pulled recently-first the security breach, then the video leak of me shifting. Word about the Swedish Games hasn’t circulated yet-Fate only knows why. But the pack leaders are questioning my ability to rule.”
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