Chapter 156

Chapter 156
Linnet's POV



Hearing that, Mom's face crumpled slightly, and I saw her struggling to maintain her composure, to keep delivering the facts in that clinical, detached tone that was the only thing allowing her to get through this at all. "A few weeks," she said finally. "Maybe a month. Long enough that I'd almost managed to convince myself it really had been a one-time thing, that we'd moved past it and everything was fine."

She paused, gathering herself, and I waited in tense silence while the kitchen clock ticked away seconds that felt like hours, while my mother prepared to tell me about the second time the man I was now tangled up with through his son had hurt her.

"It was raining," Mom said finally, her voice taking on that distant quality again. "One of those sudden downpours that comes out of nowhere. I was walking home from campus and my umbrella had blown inside out, completely useless, and I was getting soaked. This guy—a stranger—saw me struggling and offered to share his umbrella. I was hesitant at first, but he seemed harmless, and the rain was coming down so hard I could barely see, so I accepted."

She paused, and I saw her throat work as she swallowed hard. "We walked together to the apartment building, just making small talk about the weather, nothing more than that. He was being kind, that's all. When we got to the entrance, I thanked him and he went on his way, and that's when I saw Cole's car pulling into the parking lot. He'd been out somewhere and was just getting home at the same time I was arriving."

The dread in my stomach intensified, because I could already see where this was going, could already imagine the twisted logic that would turn an innocent act of kindness into something Cole would use as an excuse for violence.

"Cole got out of his car and saw me standing there under the awning, still dripping wet," Mom continued, her voice growing tighter with each word. "Asked who that man was. I explained that he'd just shared his umbrella with me because of the rain, that I didn't even know his name, that it was nothing. And Cole—" She took a shaky breath. "Cole didn't say anything. Just looked at me with this expression I couldn't read, then headed toward the building. I followed him upstairs, and the whole time I could feel the tension radiating off him, but I told myself I was imagining it, that there was no reason for him to be upset because nothing had happened."

She fell silent again, and I found myself holding my breath, dreading what came next but needing to hear it, needing to understand the full scope of what Cole Doyle was capable of so I could protect myself and Bryson from whatever revenge he was planning now.

"That night," Mom said, and her voice had dropped so low I had to lean forward to catch the words, "Cole wanted to have sex. And I said I was tired, that I just wanted to sleep. But he didn't—" She broke off, and I saw her struggling with the words, saw her hands trembling where they gripped mine. "He didn't accept that. Started asking me if I was thinking about that man, if that's why I didn't want him. I told him I didn't even know the man's name, that we'd just walked a few blocks together and nothing more, but Cole—"

Her voice cracked completely then, and I watched in horror as tears began streaming down her face, as her whole body started to shake with the force of suppressed sobs. "He didn't believe me," she whispered. "Kept saying I must have done something, must have encouraged the man somehow, that nice guys don't just offer umbrellas to strange women unless they think they might get something out of it. And I kept saying no, that wasn't what happened, that I'd just been a girl in the rain who needed help, but Cole wouldn't listen, wouldn't stop—"

She broke off completely then, and I felt my own tears starting to fall as I realized what she was telling me, what she was trying to find the words to say. "Mom," I said, my voice shaking. "Did he—"

"He forced himself on me," she said flatly, the clinical detachment back in her voice but so brittle I could hear it cracking at the edges. "Kept saying he loved me while he did it, kept telling me this was how I proved I loved him back, that if I really hadn't done anything with that man then I shouldn't mind showing Cole that I belonged to him. And I—" Her voice broke again. "I fought at first. Tried to push him away, tried to make him stop, but he was so much stronger, and I realized that if I fought too hard he might really hurt me, might do more than just—"

She couldn't finish the sentence, couldn't say the word that would make it real, and I found myself pulling my hand free from hers so I could wrap my arms around her, pulling her against me while she sobbed into my shoulder and I cried with her, both of us shaking with the weight of a truth that couldn't be taken back, couldn't be softened or explained away.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered fiercely, my voice breaking as I held her tighter. "Mom, I'm so sorry you went through that. I'm so sorry he did that to you—"

"It's in the past, sweetheart," she said quietly, her voice muffled against my shoulder but steadier now, as if saying the worst of it out loud had somehow lessened its power over her. "It's over. I got away, and I built a life without him, and I have you. That's what matters now."