Page 113 of Sweet Possession
“He introduced her to drugs,”Elena said, taking over from Helioswhen his jaw tightened.“Almost overnight, she changed. She started stealing from us to fund her habit. Her whole demeanor changed. Gone was mykind, selfless baby, replaced by a stranger who only cared about two things; her next hit and the man who introduced her to drugs.”
Apparently, my mom had a tendency to be attracted to guys whowere no good for her. A trait I was glad I hadn’t inherited. Fox was the best damn thingthathad ever happened to me.
The last three months had been the best of my life. Old wounds werehealing for the both of us, and every day we made new memories.
Memories I would cherish forever.
Tomorrow, we would be making the best memory yet.
I didn’t reply for a beat. What could I say back tothat? My mom hadchosen drugs over her children. There wasn’t anything anyone could say to makethatokay.
Fox gently squeezed my thigh. His hand had been resting there fromthe minute we sat down, reassuring methathe was by my side if things got too difficult.
He wasalwaysthere.
My best friend.
My protector.
My Daddy.
“What about Andreas? Have you met him?”I asked, changing thesubject. I had lots of questions about my mom, and I’d ask them eventually.
“I’m afraid there’s little we can tell you about Andreas. WhenAlexandria was pregnant with him, she managed to get herself clean. But when he was a year old, we found out she’d relapsed. We had a huge argument, andthatnight, she left home and took Andreas with her.Thatwas the last time we saw her,”Elena said, removing her hand from mine to reach into her purse.
She pulled out a photograph and handed it to me. It was a photo of awoman holding a baby with dark brown hair. My breath hitched at taking in the woman.
My mom.
The first picture I’deverseen of her.
I looked like her. We had the same long brown hair, and our eyeswere the same. Eyes we’d inherited from Helios. In the photo, she was smiling, but there was something about herthatmade her look…haunted.
“That’s the last photo we took of Alex and Andreas,”Elena continuedas I stared at the photo.“We reported them missing, and we raised our concerns about her using drugs. But all the police would tell us wasthatshe was safe and well, and Andreas had been taken into care. They wouldn’t tell us where he was, and we didn’t have the kind of money we would need to track him down.”
“You said he’d turned up at your house a few years ago?”Fox said,taking the photo from me.
“He did,”Helios said as his wife subtly wiped a tear.
My heart hurt for them. I’d never known my mom, it was hard to misssomeone you didn’t know. But for them, they’d raised her. Watched her grow up and become a mother, only for it tothenbe ripped away from them, along with their grandson.
“He turned up about two years ago, completely out of the blue. Hewas an angry kid. Well, hardly a kid, he was twenty. But he harbored a lot of anger toward us.”
“Why toward you?”I said, meeting Helios’ gaze.
Helios sighed.“He thought we didn’t want anything to do with him. Hecouldn’t understand why we hadn’t tried harder to find him. It appeared he suffered abuse at the hands of the couple who adopted him, andhe’d turned to a life of crime to get away from them. When he arrived here, he’djustbeen released from a stint in prison.”
“We tried telling himthatwe wanted to find him,”Elena said, hervoice full of emotion.“But he wouldn’t listen. He blamed us for not doing more to help Alex. We told him we wanted to help himthen, but he said it was too late, andthathe never wanted to see us again. We’ve lived in hopethatone day, he’ll come back and we can try to have a relationship with him. It’s the reason we’ve never moved from the house Alex grew up in. We’ve always hopedthatone day, she’d find her way back to us, and we hoped Andreas would too.”
I swallowed the lump forming in my throat, my heart now hurting forthe brother I never knew I had. Our mother, the one person in the world who was supposed to love us had caused unimaginable pain for the two of us. At least my story had a happy ending, it didn’t sound like Andreas’ story would end like mine.
“Do you think we can find him?”I said, turning to Fox.
He squeezed my thigh again.“We can try, baby girl. But you mighthave to acceptthatthere is a chance he won’t want to be found. Andevenif he does, he may not want to have a relationship with you.”
I bit my lip as a stab of pain tore through my chest. Fox was right.Andreas wouldn’tevenknow I existed, I couldn’t get my hopes upthathe’d want to get to know me.
But we had to try.
