182 Unmasked
Mara
“Stop Looking at Mara. Leave her out of this,” Darian snapped, his voice like steel. “She already knows everything. Everyone at this table knows everything. So drop the act, Mother.”
Martha’s mouth twitched, but she said nothing..
“Where is he?” Darian pressed. “Where was the child buried, if there even was a child? I know you’re hiding something.”
He leaned forward, fury simmering in his eyes.
“We asked around in Goldenpeak, about you and Alaric. No one had anything good to say. Did you really go stay with your late sister? Or was that another one of your stories?”
Martha flinched.
“I know Grandpa and Grandma are lying for you. Whatever you did, you saved them from poverty. They’ll cover for you till their last breath, but it won’t save you.”
He let out a bitter laugh.
“You should be ashamed. All this damage, all this pain, just because you thought Mara wasn’t good enough for me. You said her family was too poor. But you know what I saw in Goldenpeak?”
He stood now, tall and cold and devastating.
“I saw what real poverty looks like. The Thornridges are ten times wealthier than your folks. Mara is premium, refined, honest, dignified. Everything you’re not. And because of that, I know you’ll do anything for money. Which is why I knowyou know where Alaric Moongrove is.”
Martha’s hands began to tremble. Her lips quivered. She didn’t deny it.
Darian didn’t stop.
“If you don’t start talking, you’re on your own. Father said he was done, and this time, I believe him. Lucian already put the Goldenpeak duplex on auction. Your people are probably packing up right now. When you go back there, it won’t be to that cushy house. It’ll be to the broken-down shack you came from.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Don’t look to me for help. I don’t want your name tied to mine. You’re too wicked.”
He stepped around the table.
2
“You abused your stepson, the same boy Father married you to protect. You lived in Natasha’s shadow and took your
resentment out on Lucian.”
Then Martha snapped.
She slammed her fists onto the table. The sound echoed like a gunshot.
Her claws burst out, and her body trembled with rage. I stood instantly, instinctively moving between her and Tiffany. She wouldn’t touch Darian, but I knew she’d come for me.
“I could never love Lucian!” she screamed, eyes wild. “Vander never gave me the chance!”
Her voice cracked. She was unravelling.
“He compared me to that b***h for twenty-three years! Twenty-three f*****g years! I wasn’t smart enough, not polished enough, no manners, no charm, nothing was ever enough!”
< 182 Unmasked
She took a shaky step forward, her breathing ragged.
“He said her name in his sleep. He calls her name when we’re together. Do you know what that feels like?”
Silence. No one answered.
“When I met Vander, I pitied him. I comforted him after Natasha. I offered to take care of Lucian because he said he needed time to plot revenge. I cared for that boy for three years, three years, hoping Vander would love me for it.”
She paused. The tears that fell now were bitter, not broken.
“But he never saw me. Only her. Always her.”
Her voice dipped to a whisper.
“He didn’t marry me out of love. He married me because I was willing to be a mother to Lucian. That was the price of my
place in his life. And that’s why I hated that boy.”
And then, the truth cut through the air like a blade.
“My whole existence in this house depended on a child who would never be mine.”
“After we got married,” Martha began, her voice hollow, “he refused to claim me. Refused to touch me. He told me my only job was to care for Lucian.”
She looked straight at Darian, mascara streaking down her cheeks. “I told him I might as well be Lucian’s nanny, because that’s what I was before he decided to marry me. And you know what he said? Lucian needs a mother. That’s all I was to
him.”
Her voice cracked.
“He’d travel and bring back gifts, for Lucian. Not me. Never me. I was an afterthought. A placeholder. So yes… I hated
Lucian.”
No one moved. No one spoke. Not even Darian.
“I couldn’t leave. I didn’t have the money. I’d betrayed Alaric to come here, and I needed protection from him. Vander and I
weren’t together then, I was just his son’s caretaker. But everyone thought we were. And Vander let them think it.”
She stared down at the table, laughing bitterly through her tears.
“He didn’t really see me for three years. Have you ever stepped inside our bedroom? Her picture is everywhere.
Twenty-three years, I’ve lived like a stranger in my own home. Like a ghost. Like a substitute for a woman no one could
replace.”
She sucked in a shaky breath.
“I tried to love him. I did. I gave up Alaric for Vander. I fell in love with your father, and he never loved me back. I had to get
him drunk to get pregnant with you, Darian. That was the only way he’d touch me.”
Gasps echoed from the table, but Martha didn’t stop. She was too far gone now.
“He didn’t start paying attention to me until fifteen years ago. And by then? It was too late. I already hated Lucian. And I hated Natasha even more.”
The words hung like smoke in the air, foul, heavy, impossible to ignore.
