His alertness made me nervous.
I glanced around with new eyes. Shadows that’d been comforting and inviting to doze in were now sinister with men about to hurt us. My feet wanted to dash outside where it was sunny, but Elder reached out and grabbed my wrist. His fingers warm and strong, anchored me to him, granting me protection.
Ignoring the soft flutter in my chest, I allowed him to pull me forward from foyer to open-plan lounge, kitchen, and dining.
For a house that’d looked quaint from the outside, it expanded outward in a U-shape with a central courtyard where the sun warmed a wrought-iron patio set and a bubbling water fountain in the shape of a yin and yang.
Despite Elder’s bristling hostility as he searched for trespassers in his domain, I saw no sign of inhabitants. No empty dishes marring the pristine wooden counter-top or spotless butter-mellow cupboards. No magazines strewn on the rugged coffee table that’d once been a cart-wheel but now had been repurposed.
It didn’t stop Elder from pulling me through the living room, over thick woven carpets with bright, happy colours, and down a wide corridor leading to an office with an empty desk and lonely chair, a bedroom with a single bed and baby blue linen, past a bathroom with a Jacuzzi bath just waiting for someone to soak, past two more guest bedrooms with incredible views onto the courtyard, and finally to the master where evidence of unwanted guests finally confirmed Elder was right to suspect.
“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, taking in the suitcase tucked in the corner and the wardrobe door open with folded clothes.
Women’s clothes.
My heart sank to think of an ex tracking him down. Of him giving me up in favour of rekindling a romance far less complicated than whatever we shared.
But before I could excuse myself and rub my heartache, an adjoining bathroom door swung open, revealing the owner of the clothes. She wore a pretty lavender towel and had a shower cap on her head, keeping her black hair dry from the countless droplets lingering to the plastic.
She didn’t see us for the longest second.
She moved into the room, pulling off the shower cap and tossing her hair until it cascaded down to her shoulders.
Elder swore again; only this time, he sounded as if someone had taken a baseball bat to his insides. He stumbled backward, letting go of my wrist to grasp the wall. “Okaasan?” His voice crumbled with disbelief. “Is it really you?”
The woman screamed; hugging her chest, she clutched at her towel. Her feet left the carpet as she startled, her gaze catching Elder’s then mine.
In that split second, I noticed she was older than I had originally thought. Lines feathered out from her eyes and around her mouth. Streaks of silver played hide and seek in her black hair, and the skin on her chest wasn’t that of a youthful woman but of someone who’d spent more than she should in the sunshine.
In the next second, I saw disbelief, shock, and such heartfelt longing it physically hurt to look at her.
In the final second, her face filled with disgust, ridicule, and rage. “You!”
Elder braced himself, pushing off from the wall as if fortified by her hate. As if he’d hoped for a different outcome but hadn’t received it and now knew exactly how to proceed.
“What are you doing here?” His question was innocent, but his tone was not.
“What are you doing here?” she screeched, grabbing at her towel, totally unprepared for an audience.
I lingered in the background, fading against the wall. I didn’t want the animosity in the room to find and leach me dry.
I’d seen Elder mad.
I’d witnessed him break a man’s neck, hold another for me to shoot, and sinister satisfaction at bloodshed.
I’d seen him stoned to escape whatever issues he lived with, and I’d seen him torn apart by guilt for forcing himself on me when he shouldn’t.
But I’d never seen him like this before.
This twisted up.
This tangled.
His body hunched as if he wanted to strike the woman in front of him while his face resembled that of a kid who still believed everything bad could be made good again.
His sharp cheekbones matched those of the woman in front of us. His black hair and breeding were similar…
Wait…
“What am I doing here?” Elder scrubbed his face, bone weary and looking far older than before. “This is my house, mother.”
My eyes popped wide.
His mother?
Admittedly, Elder and I hadn’t discussed families, and I still had so much to learn. But he acted as if he hadn’t seen her in decades—let alone expected her to be holidaying here without permission.
“Don’t you dare call me that.” The woman held up her finger, stern as a sword and just as sharp. “I ceased to be your mother the moment you killed Scott and Kade!”
My heart opened a suitcase and threw everything painful inside. Knowing Elder was a murderer—watching him commit murder—didn’t prepare me for that horrendous piece of memory lane.
His mother sniffed with her chin high. “Or are you forgetting your little brother and father? Both who loved you. Both who died because of what you did!”
Elder crumpled, bowing his head. “How could I? I could never forget, Okaasan.”
“You don’t get to call me that anymore!” She stormed to the wardrobe and grabbed an armful of mismatched clothes. “You’re nothing to me!” With a withering stare, she stomped back into the bathroom and slammed the door.
It rattled in its hinges as if vibrating with an apology.
Elder exhaled heavily, but he didn’t turn to face me. He braced himself, never taking his eyes off the door.
We both knew the confrontation wasn’t over. She’d eventually have to return. More raised voices and awful declarations would happen.
I wanted to break into Elder’s pain and pull him from the house. I wanted to be brave and stand beside him in the next round.
But I did neither. I hadn’t earned the right to protect him, and I sure as hell hadn’t earned the right to fight beside him.
This was his war.
The room strained with tension, growing thicker and tighter as time inched forward. Finally, a few minutes later, his mother yanked open the bathroom door with murder in her gaze. “I don’t have anything else to say to you.”
Elder locked his spine, balling his hands. “Well, too bad. I have plenty to say to you.”
His mother snarled like a cornered cat. “Nothing you say will change anything. Never! You hear me?!” She no longer wore a towel but a black blouse with red cherry blossoms and pink slacks. With her almond eyes and exotic willowy frame, I saw where Elder got his looks. She was a perfect example of beauty that could come from mixed parents. Her features flirted with Eastern with the accents of European. While Elder looked more Western than her, hinting not only had her parents fallen in love with a mate of different cultures but so had his.
Staring at the irate parent, I couldn’t imagine her having a love affair and ever being happy. She looked pinched and broken and pissed at the entire world.