Burning Daylight: Chapter 12

“Consorting with the enemy?” my mother snipes when I get back inside.

She’s lounging on my couch, all the tears from earlier magically disappeared.

I shoot her a look and drop onto the other end, sighing as the cushions absorb my weight. “What are you talking about?”

Ma just got here, and already she’s made me feel spread too thin.

“You know what I’m talking about.” She waves toward the door with a flick of her wrist. “What’s your plan there?”

“I don’t want to talk about this,” I bite out, irritation sticking to my insides like tacky glue.

She doesn’t back down though, because of course she doesn’t.

“Tell me,” she says casually. “Does Juliette Calloway know who you are?”

My jaw tightens. “Ma, I just said…”

I freeze.

Juliette Calloway.

Realization settles in like a slap to my face. She does know who my little rose is, and she just proved my suspicions right. She is Juliette Calloway.

My mother’s watching me like a cat with a caged mouse.

“Oh my God.” She leans forward with a glint in her eye. “You didn’t even know.”

I swallow, not responding. But that’s answer enough for her.

“You let her into your home and you didn’t even know?” she repeats, her voice shocked.

“This is none of your business.”

Ma hums. “Well, I sure hope that anonymity went both ways, because if she knows who you are, then believe me when I say she’s about to run home to her daddy and tell him.”

I scoff. “That’s a little dramatic.”

“She’s your enemy.”

“Not my enemy,” I snap. “Just because Marcus hates the Calloways doesn’t mean I have to. They’ve never done anything to me, and I have no loyalty to the man you used to fuck.”

Her eyes narrow, but she doesn’t react to my hurled insult. She just tilts her head and lowers her voice. “Call it whatever you want, but this is all the more reason to get in touch with your father.”

I stare at her. “What the hell does Juliette Calloway have to do with me reaching out to Marcus?”

She shrugs. “Craig’s been trying to get rid of Marcus for years.” She scrunches her nose. “He’s a nasty piece of work. If he finds out you’re alive, you better believe he’ll be here in a heartbeat making sure you don’t stay that way.”

My mouth drops open. “You’re saying Craig Calloway would what…come here to kill me?”

“Don’t be stupid,” she spits, like she’s at the end of her rope. “Why do you think we’re here with different names and living a life we were never meant to live?”

I laugh, because she’s so goddamn delusional. “You actually believe that? You think Craig Calloway orchestrated an assassination attempt on a kid?”

She doesn’t blink. “The brakes failed, Ry. On a rental that his company owned. You think that’s just bad luck?”

My head shakes slowly, but doubt starts to gnaw at my edges, her words sticking. “That’s what accidents are, Ma. That’s why they’re called accidents.”

“You’re the last Montgomery,” she says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “All of Marcus’s power and wealth… If you’re gone? There’s no legacy left. No heir. Get rid of you, then you get rid of him.”

“This isn’t some fucking mafia movie,” I mutter.

She gives me a long look. “Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.”

I study her, searching for a crack. For something that tells me this is just another one of her drug-induced conspiracies, but the only thing humming is her certainty.

“Yeah, well, there’s a flaw in your logic,” I point out. “If I’m so necessary to his legacy, how come I’m a dead guy with a fake name who he turns away every time he sees me?”

“Because you weren’t ready,” she replies. “And neither was your father. So he buried you—buried us—to keep you safe until people forgot.”

I roll my eyes, frustration bleeding into the moment. Not this again. She’s had some version of this story for years—of my dad secretly wanting me but just needing to bide his time—only, this is the first time she’s brought in things like murder and an over-the-top bad guy to sell the tale.

“Right, because Marcus Montgomery has always been such a thoughtful father.”

She tilts her head. “You want to know what I think?”

“No.”

She keeps going anyway. “I think that girl out there…Juliette.” Her mouth curls around the name like smoke. “She makes you want things again. Things for yourself. Things you haven’t even thought of because you’ve been so worried about me and Brooke.”

I tense, not wanting to talk about this with her.

Ma leans forward, her voice silkier now. “Don’t deny it, Ry. I saw it.”

My jaw tics.

“Imagine how much easier it would be to have her if you went back and played the game.”

My brows rise, incredulity racing through me. “Now you want me to go back to the town where you claim a man wants to kill me? You’ve really lost it if you think Marcus would let me come back. We’ve tried that before, remember?”

She looks at her nails like she doesn’t care one way or the other if I go. “So maybe you don’t give a choice. Force your father to pull some strings. Let him protect you properly.”

“You make them sound like comic book villains.”

“You play his game, so you can get her.”

I scoff. “You want me to use her.”

“No,” she says quickly. “I want you to stop pretending that you don’t already care. I want you to have something yourself, after all these years of living for me.” Her eyes well up with tears and it digs into my chest and spreads outward in a toxic type of hope. “You don’t think I realize all that you’ve given up?”

I stare at her, the air tense and silent.

“I’m not going back,” I say, a finality to my tone. “Last time I listened when you told me to do that, it didn’t end well for me.”

Her face tightens and she sits back, nodding like it doesn’t matter. “Whatever, I’m just trying to help.”

Does she not even realize how wishy-washy she sounds? She wants me to get his money, now all of a sudden I’m supposed to go to Rosebrook Falls?

Delusional. Like always.

I drum my fingers on the back of the couch, my pulse ticking up. “Well, you’re not. How do you even know all these things?”

“Believe it or not, your father loved me. He used to talk to me about things. I was a safe place for him, and he leaned on me.”

Doubtful. I’m not convinced my father has the propensity to love anyone.

I must make a noise, because her eyes soften. “I wasn’t always like this, you know?”

My jaw clenches. “Yeah, I know.” I remember.

She scratches at her arm absentmindedly.

“She doesn’t know who I am,” I say, although at this point it sounds like I’m trying to convince myself more than her.

Ma tsks. “If you say so.”

“I know so.”

Her lips twitch like she’s holding something back. “Then you’d better hope it stays that way, because if she finds out, and she’s loyal to her father…” She doesn’t finish, letting the implication hang in the air.

I shift, and she keeps going. “Of course, if you do want to keep seeing her, you might actually consider what I’m telling you to do. Call your father and maybe you can use what’s rightfully yours to get the girl.”

I throw my head back and groan. “Here we go.”

There’s no way in hell I’m having any more of this conversation with her. Not when I’m still reeling from the reality of who Juliette is, and the insinuation of how dangerous her family could be.

I had my hand around her throat, and my fingers in her cunt, and her sweet fucking ambrosia on my tongue, and ignorance really had been bliss.

Now the knowledge feels like a ticking bomb.

“Which is it, Ma? You want his money or you want me to go there and get the girl? Pick a lane.”

She lifts a shoulder. “I’m just saying…you’ve got options.”

It’s surprising to see her so calm, considering what she just walked in on. But when her head lolls a bit to the side and she sighs, closing her eyes and reopening them slowly, I remember why she doesn’t care.

Oxy does that to a person. And so does heroin.

“Tell me why you’re here.” I change the subject. “Or why you stood me up at the coffee shop.”

Sighing, she leans back. “I already told you. I’m here to pick up the money for Brooke’s seizure medicine.”

My chest burns at the reminder of Brooklynn.

“And why was the original money gone, Ma?” I ask, my voice hardening. “Matter of fact, why the fuck is Brooke paying for her own meds in the first place? She’s seventeen.”

Mom straightens on the couch and blinks at me, but she doesn’t have an answer. Or maybe she does but stays silent because she knows I won’t like whatever it is.

I smile tightly. “Nothing to say now?”

Her chin lifts, and for just a moment there’s guilt floating through her gaze.

And there she is.

Heather Argent.

The mom I used to have.

The one who’d count my teeth while I brushed, and let me stay up late to watch her favorite Disney movies. The one who spun me around until we collapsed into piles of laughter, and who blew bubbles in the living room just to make Brooklynn and me smile, even though the soap soaked into the carpet and made the floor slick for days.

For just a split second, she’s real. Like I could reach out and grab her.

And then…gone.

Snapped back into the woman in front of me, the one who got hooked on pain pills and never climbed back out of the hole they threw her in. The one whose eyes are half closed, whose words come a second too late, and who knows how to manipulate silence with the emotions that she caused me to feel.

Or maybe that flicker of guilt was never there at all, and it’s just the homesick kid desperate to see a mother who no longer exists.

That seems more likely.

My gut cramps at the thought, and I push it down, down, down.

“You’re not insinuating that I⁠—”

I smack my hand on the coffee table, and it rattles the few odds and ends on the top.

Ma jumps.

“Don’t bullshit me,” I bite out. “I’m begging you to be honest. To dig down somewhere deep and show that you still have a shred of decency left. Brooke is your daughter, not some bartering tool. That money was for her to have a good life without depending on anyone other than herself. To be able to survive away from all this.”

“Away from me, you mean.”

I blow out an aggravated sigh.

“Yeah,” I admit, the word scraping out of me. “Away from you.”

The admission hangs there in the space between us. This ugly, heavy, true thing that neither of us wants to look at.

But it’s real, and it’s there. And at the end of the day, it is what it fucking is.

“If she leaves, then she’ll have no one to take care of her.”

That breaks the dam inside me, and I narrow my eyes, heat flooding my chest. “Because you’re doing such a bang-up job of it now?”

My voice cracks, and I hate how it betrays what I’m feeling.

She’s not wrong, though. Brooklynn doesn’t know who her dad is. I don’t think my mom even knows. The two of us are all she has in the world, and most of the time, she barely has that.

My mom’s cloudy eyes meet mine. “That’s not fair.”

“Life’s not fair.” I shrug. “Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

“Why are you being so mean?” she chokes out, big fat tears rolling down her face.

It hits me right in the fucking heart, but I let the resentment swell. Let it ice over the part of me that still wants to fix her.

“Ry, I’m sorry.” She drops her head into her hands, her chipped pink nails clawing at her skin like she’s trying to tear herself open. “You know that, don’t you? I don’t want to be like this.”

“If you were sorry, you’d get some help.” The words catch on my throat like splinters.

“They won’t help me!” she shrieks, her eyes wild. “If I don’t take something, I can’t move. And if I go somewhere, they won’t let me have what I need. Is that what you want? You want your mother in pain?” A sob escapes her, and she slaps her bony hand over her mouth, trying and failing to hold it in. “You think I want to be this way?”

I drop back against the couch cushions and pinch the bridge of my nose. It’s always the same conversation. Her guilt-tripping me, then me begging her to get help, followed closely by her claiming injuries from the accident almost a decade ago make it impossible.

We’re at an impasse, and I’m sick to death of being on this never-ending carousel. I give everything I make to her because of Brooklynn, but the byproduct of that is enabling this lifestyle. Enabling her to keep killing herself and destroying everything around her in the process. It’s a ride I’m desperate to get off of but not sure how to stop.

“I can’t do this anymore, Ma. I’m so tired. Aren’t you tired?”

She sniffs, shaking her head. “Just give me the money for Brooke’s meds and I’ll get out of your hair, since I’m such a goddamn inconvenience.”

I blink through the sting building behind my eyes. “I’m not giving you any more money. I’ll go with Brooke to get what she needs.”

The tears evaporate from my mom’s face like she turned off a faucet, a sneer pulling down her lips. “Good luck picking it up from the pharmacy without her legal guardian. I’ve already called and let them know to withhold it unless I’m there.”

What she’s saying slams into me like an uppercut to the jaw, and I rear back.

She’s playing me.

Holding my little sister’s health over my head.

I assumed my mother took the money to buy her next fix, but now I’m seeing this for what it is. This is deliberate. Premeditated. If there’s one thing my mom knows about me, it’s that I would do anything for my little sister.

My stomach sinks, and I let out a slow breath. “You did this on purpose.”

She sniffs again and scratches at her arm, leaning her head back on the couch like she’s about to pass out. “Like I said, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Fury ripples up my spine, and for the first time in my life, I think I truly hate her.

I shoot to a stand and slam my foot into the coffee table, sending it skidding.

“Don’t fucking lie to me, Ma.”

She jumps, her head snapping up, but then it lolls again. She blinks slowly, and then she smiles. Smiles.

“Oh, Roman,” she says, her voice syrupy sweet. “Calm down. It’s not the end of the world. You could fix all this in a snap…if you’d just listen to your mother.”

The name Roman grates across my skin, but I don’t correct her. She’s doing it to get a rise out of me.

“Did you spend it all?” I ask.

She lifts a shoulder and then looks down at her nails like we’re talking about the weather.

Betrayal sinks its dagger through my chest, and I swallow the pain.

“I’ll make you a deal,” she continues, like we’re negotiating a car and not my little sister’s survival. “You call your father, and I’ll make sure Brooklynn never goes without again.”

I throw both my hands on my head as I stare at her. “Jesus Christ. Are you blackmailing me?”

She grins like it’s the most reasonable thing in the world. Like she isn’t breaking apart the very foundation of our relationship by forcing my hand.

“I’m protecting us,” she corrects. “This family—your sister—deserves better. And he owes us at least that.”

“And if I don’t?”

She leans in, her eyes sparking. “Then you let him know we’ll stop playing dead. And we both know how much your father values his spotless reputation.”