Jaden (Jaded #3)(86)

She narrowed her eyes, but as he saw me, her arm started to swing around—she was going for him. I tried to sit up. My hand reached out, but it was happening too fast. I couldn’t stop it.

And then someone else shot through the door. A firm hand gripped Mena’s wrist, but it happened too fast for her to stop. She was lunging at Bryce with her arm, using the weight of her body to help with her force.

That hand flicked her wrist around so the knife was pointed to her.

Mena impaled herself on the knife. She choked out, and her eyes trailed upward, then widened as she saw Corrigan scowling back down at her. “You,” she breathed out. “You love her, too. I know—”

He punched her, and her body crumbled to the floor.

“Down, bitch.” Then Corrigan turned to me. “You okay?”

And I passed out, for the umpteenth time.

EPILOGUE

My call to my mother had gone to her voicemail. It was her assistant that heard the alert from her phone and listened to the message. When she heard enough, she made two calls immediately. The first was to Daughter’s bf in my mom’s phone. That call went to Bryce and the other call was to 911.

Bryce was with Corrigan and Denton. All three of them got to the hotel first. I was told later that the guys carried us to the elevator. They were in the lobby when the police arrived. Paramedics weren’t far behind them. Corrigan had been carrying me. Denton carried his sister and Bryce helped Carolina, who had gone into shock when she realized what had happened.

Mena survived her own stabbing and charges were brought against her. She was sentenced to life in prison. It never went to jury so some information was never leaked, like that she was my sister. My father never found out, and everyone who did know had sworn to secrecy. It would only hurt him, and he seemed happy with Beth. Even though my own relationship would never be repaired with him, this was one way I was helping him, in my own way.

It was exactly one year ago that I found Grace’s killer. This was the first day I would speak to her again.

The visiting area was cold and impersonal.

Sitting in that seat, waiting for the guard to let Mena through, was surreal. Sitting here now, waiting to talk to her through a wall of glass and a phone between us for our conversation, I couldn’t help but ask myself why I was there. She took away so many people in my life. During the trial, I listened to every detail and every day, I got sick afterwards.

She had sought Marcus out. They bonded over their love for me and she was the one who molded him into a killer. She insisted they had to protect me. Everything was because of her. Marcus, though he had his own share of crazy, had been swept up in her delusional world.

I killed him, and I couldn’t help to think if I ever would’ve done that if she hadn’t entered his life? His blood was on my hands. Thinking about it now, I stared straight ahead and my hands curled into my lap, tugging on my sleeves. I gritted my teeth. It was her fault. All of it.

Then I heard a buzzing sound and a far door opened.

Mena was led inside wearing a bright orange jumper. The guard undid her chains and she walked to me, smiling.

I tugged harder on my sleeves. Damn. Even now, even after I had testified against her and shared everything she told me, everything she had done to me, she didn’t hate me. There was love shining back from her eyes.

As she took her seat, she placed a hand to the glass wall and spread her fingers.

The usual response would be to place mine on the other side.

I still didn’t even know if I wanted to talk to her, much less that response.

Coming to see her had been my only thought process. I wasn’t sure how I would react when I actually did see her, but she was here and she was reaching out for me.

My stomach turned over on itself again.

She frowned, pulling her hand away, and indicated to the phone. She picked hers up and waited, still frowning at me, her flawless skin marred from the lines in her forehead.

“What are you going to say to her?” Denton had asked when I told him I was coming here. He was wrecked by everything. Learning all she had done and the trial had been brutal on him. His career had taken a hit. Movies dumped him, but his agent spun it. Denton was urged to do a one-on-one interview with a primetime news channel. It worked. Some people cried out that he knew what she had been doing. They didn’t believe his tears. He was playing the sympathy card. But everyone else, like me, had been moved by his interview. He had been one hundred percent honest.

He loved his sister. She had been unloved by one parent and ignored by the other. He tried to protect her, and he knew she had problems, but this—everything—had been unprecedented.

Denton welled up then, and he fought to keep the tears from falling.

The image of one of their A-list actors so raw and so exposed had swept through the nation. There was renewed Denton love, and it created pandemonium. All his old roles came back, and he had offers like he had never had before.

Everyone loved Denton.

Everyone hated Mena.

But the two of us, Denton and myself, we were in the middle.

He asked one time in the courtroom, we had both remained seated as everyone left so the entire room was empty except for us two, “How can I still love her? After the destruction she caused?”

I had no answer. I only said, feeling the same dazed and numb sensation I heard in his voice, “How can I when I just found out?”

“Do you?”