Dead Man Walking (The Fallen Men #6) - Giana Darling Page 0,132
to the group that wasn’t even pretending not to watch us. “Well, I figured it was time.”
“Past time,” I scolded, which was about as strongly worded as I got despite my best efforts. Frustrated with myself, I forced my face into a fiercer glower. “You disappoint me, Mum. After all these years with The Fallen, the way they took us in and made us family when we used to stand against everything they were, when dad actively tried to take them down… I just don’t understand how you could not only stand by while someone talked badly about them, let alone seek out advice on how not to be…what? Corrupted by them?”
“Don’t judge me,” she whispered harshly. “You girls had it so easy because of your father and me. We looked after you, made sure you had everything a little girl could need!”
“We had nothing,” I shouted, eyes wide with shock as all the toxicity of my youth cracked through the surface of my gut and surged up my throat, hot and chemical on my tongue. “Loulou and I didn’t give a crap about diamond tennis bracelets and our wedding cake topper of a house. We wanted parents who kissed our skinned knees and held us close as we watched movies as a family on a Friday night. We needed quality time and affection, Mum, not just gifts and bragging rights. We needed parents, not society figures. If you don’t understand that after all this, after watching and feeling the way these heathens love each other and have loved us, then I’m sorry, but you don’t deserve them. Maybe you don’t even deserve Loulou and me.”
Phillipa blinked at me, huge tears rolling down her skin, crumpled softly with the years and sorrow like creased silk. To be so beautiful on the outside and so woefully weak, so ugly inside was such a tragedy.
Something tickled my cheek, and when I lifted my fingertips to my skin, they came away wet. Of course, I had to cry when I was angry. I couldn’t even be badass like my sister in anger.
Still, I tilted my chin and stared my mother down, refusing to feel guilty for speaking my truth even though it hurt us both to hear it.
“I love you,” I told her honestly, voice so soft and flailing I wondered if she could even hear it. “I love you, Mum, but I love you because you’re my blood. I love them”—I gestured to the family at my back—“because they earned it. I hope one day, you can earn it too.”
A sob exploded from her throat and burst against her hands as she tried to catch it in her palms.
I forced myself to walk away, to channel my inner Priest and remain unmoved by her tears. For too long, I’d capitulated to Phillipa. Because she was weaker, she needed my love and patience, but it was long past time she stood up for her daughters and, honestly, for herself.
So I turned on my heel and moved over to the couch where my sister sat dumbfounded. I offered her my hand with a little smile. “Come get ready for the party with me, big sister? I think I left an old Cosmo here somewhere. We can take a quiz to see what kind of man you’ll end up with while you do my hair.”
Loulou looked up at me with glistening eyes just a shade darker than my own, eyes that were velvet with tenders and wet with pride. I knew she remembered that night so many years ago when I’d read that silly quiz, the last night we’d lived under the same roof before Dad hit her and kicked her out for dating Zeus.
“You know I love you, right?” she whispered through the lump in her throat I felt mimicked in mine. “You know I’m so fucking proud of who you’ve become, right?”
Hot tears pooled on my lower lids. I struggled not to blink so they wouldn’t fall. I’d just been as emotionally badass as I’d ever been, and I wanted to maintain that for at least as long as it took to walk back to Z and Lou’s room in the clubhouse.
“Yeah,” I breathed. “No matter how lonely I’ve ever felt, I always knew I had you.”
“Jesus,” Nova interjected with a little cough. “You tryna make grown men cry?”
We both laughed wetly at him as Lila punched him playfully in the shoulder, but it was a good way to break the tension. Maja