Page 163 of Songbird: Black Kite
Present
Icouldhearthescreaming the moment I opened the door, the obnoxious screeching as familiar as my own music.
For a moment, I froze, the sound of Victoria’s voice in my house drawing me back in time, back to a place where I was stuck with her in my life with no hope of escape.
The memories of all the times I’d been in this exact same scenario, walking into the house to find her ranting about something I wasn’t even aware of and had no possible way of changing, slammed into me, and it was a hot second before I could shake off the intense wave of anxiety and realize that she may have been yelling, but she absolutely wasn’t alone.
Wren. Cooper.
The thought of my girls being in this house with her had me moving fast, flying up the first flight of stairs and into the kitchen, my heart lodged securely in my throat.
But it was the words I heard Wren speaking that really stole my breath and had me faltering in my tracks.
“...it was your sabotaged condoms that resulted in my pregnancy, Victoria. You caused all of this, and now you’re paying the price.”
What the fuck did she just say?
I didn’t want to believe it, the thought of Victoria doing something so absolutely heinous almost too much to contemplate.
But as I stood there, watching the two women facing off in my kitchen, I knew it was true.
It was true, and even though I should have been livid, I found I was just sad.
Sad for Tori, the woman who went about love in all the wrong ways.
Sad for Wren, who was forced to pay the price for all our mistakes.
I was even sad for Cooper, my beautiful girl, having faced her entire life thinking that her father didn’t want her.
But the person I wasn’t sad for was myself. Because how could I be, when I was finally here, with everything I could have ever hoped for within my grasp.
There was only one thing left to do. One loose end to clean up and tie off, and then we could finally start living our lives the way we deserved.
Together.
“Victoria,” I called, and both women swung their gazes to me.
“Hawk,” Tori breathed, her voice both excited and apprehensive at my presence.
Wren said nothing, but the anxiety in her expression told me everything I needed to know. This situation needed to end, the sooner the better.
“It’s over, Tori. You’re done. You need to leave. Now.” I watched as she searched my eyes for some sign that I was kidding, something to give her the hope she seemed to be constantly clinging to.
I wasn’t offering her shit.
“And don’t come back.”
“You don’t mean that, Hawk,” she said, her smile brittle and sorrowful at the same time. “We’ve been through so much together, you and me. Twenty years, Hawk. That’s a lifetime in this industry.” Stepping up to me, she moved to place her hands on my chest, but I stepped back, making my position more than clear. Her hopeful expression crumbled, leaving devastation behind. “You can’t just throw that all away.”
“I’m throwing away twenty years of toxic bullshit, Tori,” I snarled, my exhaustion and rage wearing my patience thin. “I’m throwing away twenty years of lies and manipulation and more hate and resentment than you could possibly imagine.” Blowing out a breath, I looked at her, and seeing the desperation clear on her face, Iknew.
Victoria Castor was never going to see herself as anything but the victim.
“If I’ve learned anything in the last few weeks, Tori, it’s that this life is too precious to fill it with all that garbage. I don’t need or want that shit in my life anymore,” I said, shaking my head in sadness. “It’s just such a fuckin’ shame that the cost of that wisdom was half my lifetime.”
Flicking my gaze to Wren, seeing her arms crossed protectively over her chest, one hand clutching the guitar pick necklace she was wearing once again, I smiled.
God damn, I loved that woman. I could feel it in every fiber of my being, the sheer joy and radiant happiness that just looking at her filled me up with.
