Page 48 of Pride
Unable to speak, the woman shook her head. She almost lost control of her tears, but swallowed and took a deep breath. “Tell me about your childhood. Please.”
Feeling more naked than when George and Bridget had stripped her, Alice hugged herself. “What’s going on?”
“Please, just tell me.”
“I… God, okay… I guess, I was in a car accident when I was young. Drunk driver. Lost my parents. Some distant family looked after me for a few years. When they didn’t want me, I went into foster care. A few years of that and the Sisterhood found me. That’s it.”
Mary slumped onto the couch, her head in her hands. She started mumbling words under her breath in her native tongue.
“You’re freaking me out, Mary,” Alice said. “I think I liked the fighting better.”
Mary barked out a pained laugh and then handed Alice the manila folder. Alice flicked through the documents, her spine stiffening with each page turned.
“Why are you showing me this?” She closed the folder and put it down. It didn’t surprise her. It was just a background check. A dossier. A very detailed one, but she would have expected no less from the Lazarus family.
“I’m so sorry,” Mary said. “Everything that has happened to you since you entered foster care is my fault.”
Alice blinked. “What?”
“Flint was friends with the driver who crashed into you all those years ago. He hated that he never stopped his friend from getting into the car that night, and making amends was the sole reason he got a job at Biolum Tech—that’s the original Syndicate lab. He was so filled with guilt that he donated most of his salary to you. For years.”
Alice frowned, casting her mind back to what she could remember, but she was too young to pick up anything about money. She had vague memories of her aunt and uncle always heading out, dressed up for a party. She remembered her aunt and uncle fighting a lot, but she was so young. Her days had been filled with wishing for her parents to come back, or for finding a new family.
At the thought of Flint, the ghost of a memory flickered in her mind. Familiarity. Had she met him when she was younger?
“The money was supposed to help you.” Mary took Alice’s hand. This time, her grip was soft, her eyes warm. “It’s because of me the money stopped coming. Because of us. After we escaped the lab, when we went into hiding and made the decision to leave all ties behind, that included you. If we had known your family shoved you into foster care when the money stopped coming, we would have done something.” Mary shook her head, bitterness in her expression. “The only reason the Sisterhood found you was through Flint’s money trail. They knew you were someone important to him, and thus to me. They couldn’t get to me, so took you as a replacement. You’re my punishment.”
Alice snatched her hand back. At first, fury and denial pumped through her. The Sisterhood chose Alice because they saw potential. And they were right. So what Mary was saying didn’t make sense.
Alice’s fatewas notsomeone else’s punishment.
“I can’t believe this.” Alice rubbed her temples and paced, her dodgy leg hurting more than before. In her mind, she repeated everything Mary had told her. From the car crash that stole her parents’ lives, to being linked to Flint, to the lack of money being the reason her selfish family gave her up, to Alice’s initiation into a secret society of assassin nuns.
Alice’s connection to this family had started decades ago.
“Flint wasn’t driving the car that killed my parents,” Alice said, turning to Mary.
“No.”
“So…” That ghostly memory finally hit Alice. She’d been little and at a new school a few years after being fostered to her aunt and uncle. She hated the new school and had told her teacher she felt sick so went to the office where she sat on a bench waiting to see the nurse. It was there she’d seen the bearded man talking to the principal. He wore a checked shirt and a backward baseball hat. The man was tall, rumbly, and a little scary. But she’d overheard bits of the conversation because she’d caught her name—a name she couldn’t even remember now. It hadn’t been Alice. Over the years she’d assumed she imagined him because she’d wanted so desperately for someone to come for her. To whisk her away to a loving family that sings with her. Could this memory have been real? Had this been Flint checking up on her? Alice met Mary’s eyes. “So he was only ever helping me.”
“Yes, but, what I’m trying to say, rather unsuccessfully, is that he would have still been helping you if I hadn’t come along.” Mary smiled thinly. “I remember him telling me he was saving for your collage fund.”
A harsh laugh ripped out of Alice. “College? Me?”
She couldn’t think of anything worse.
Alice went to the windows overlooking the city. The mid-afternoon sun cast long shadows against the buildings. The world was so big out there, and yet, somehow Alice kept coming back to this family, to that feeling inside her chest that refused to go away when she thought of Parker.
“Does Parker know?” she asked. She couldn’t stand it if he felt sorry for her, and that was the only reason he—she glanced at the shopping bags and winced.
“No one knows but me. I had to… I had to…” Mary scrubbed her face, guilt written all over it.
She had to protect her family first.
“That’s why you fought me,” Alice said. “You thought if I knew who you were and hated you for it, I wouldn’t be able to hide my feelings. I’d hurt you back. I’d show my true intentions.”
“And when you kept defending, never truly trying to hurt me, I knew you had no idea.” Mary inhaled and exhaled. “You had no idea I was the woman who ruined your life.”
