Chapter 151

Chapter 151
Linnet's POV


"A long time ago, we were lovers. But then, something happened, and I chose to leave him. Then your father came into my world. Then he knew that I chose your father instead of him—" She shook her head. "He never forgave me for that. Never let it go. And now, seeing you with his son, I think in his twisted mind he sees it as history repeating itself. As another chance to prove he should have won the first time."

My stomach turned over. "So he's going to try to break us up. He's going to do whatever it takes to make sure Bryson and I don't end up together."

"Probably," Mom said, and the resignation in her voice was heartbreaking. "But Linnet, that doesn't mean you have to let him win. It doesn't mean you have to give up on Bryson if that's not what you want. It just means you have to go into this with your eyes open, knowing what you're up against."

I nodded slowly, trying to process everything she'd told me and everything she'd carefully not told me. There were gaps in her story, things she was still holding back, and I knew that whatever the full truth was about her history with Cole, it was worse than what she was willing to admit right now. But I also knew that pushing her for more details wouldn't get me anywhere, that she'd only share what she was ready to share.

"Mom," I said carefully, "if I told you I wanted to stay with Bryson anyway, even knowing all this—would you support me? Or would you try to make me break up with him?"

She was quiet for a moment, and I could see the conflict playing out across her face—the protective instinct warring with the desire to trust me, to let me make my own choices even if they scared her. Finally, she squeezed my hands one more time and then let go.

"If you still want to be with him after everything I've told you," she said slowly, "after understanding what it might mean to have Cole Doyle as an enemy—then yes. I'll support you. I trust you to know what you want, Linnet. I trust you to be smart about this. And if things get bad, if Cole starts to—" She swallowed hard. "If things get bad, you come to me. You tell me everything. We face it together. Okay?"

"Okay," I whispered, and the relief that washed over me was so intense it made me dizzy. I'd been so afraid that Mom would forbid me from seeing Bryson, would use her authority as my parent to try to separate us, and instead she was telling me she trusted me. She was telling me we were in this together.

We sat there for a while longer, neither of us quite ready to move, to break the fragile understanding we'd reached. But eventually Mom stood, smoothing down her work uniform with hands that still trembled slightly.

"I'm going to make us some dinner," she announced, her voice determinedly normal. "And then I think—" She paused, looking back at me with an expression that was equal parts fear and resolve. "Then I think I need to tell you the whole story. About me and Cole. About what really happened between us, and why I'm so afraid of what he might do now. Because you're right, honey. You deserve to know the truth. All of it."

My heart started pounding, a mixture of dread and desperate curiosity flooding through me. "Are you sure?"

"No," she admitted. "I'm not sure at all. This isn't a story I ever wanted to tell you. But if you're going to be involved with Bryson, if you're going to have Cole Doyle in your life whether we like it or not—then you need to understand what you're dealing with. You need to know exactly what kind of man he is."

She turned back toward the kitchen, and I watched her pull ingredients from the refrigerator with mechanical efficiency, watched her try to impose order and normalcy on a situation that was anything but. And as I sat there on our worn couch in our cramped apartment, waiting for my mother to tell me the story she'd kept hidden for my entire life, I felt something shift inside me—a recognition that whatever came next would change everything, that there was no going back to the comfortable ignorance I'd been living in just hours ago.

But I also felt, for the first time since Cole had walked into Bryson's bedroom yesterday, like I wasn't completely alone in this. Like maybe, just maybe, knowing the truth—no matter how ugly it was—would give me the tools I needed to fight back.

"Okay, Mom," I said quietly. "I'm ready. Tell me everything."

She looked back at me from the kitchen, and I saw tears gathering in her eyes again, but also something that might have been relief. "Okay," she echoed. "But first, I need you to promise me something."

"Anything."

"When I tell you what happened—what Cole did, what I let happen—I need you to remember that I was young. And I need you to promise that you won't judge me too harshly for the choices I made, for how long it took me to get away from him."

My throat tightened. "Mom, I could never—"

"Just promise me," she interrupted, her voice breaking. "Please, Linnet. Promise me you'll try to understand."

"I promise," I said, and I meant it with everything in me.

She nodded, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, and turned back to the stove. "Then let me make us some food, and we'll sit down, and I'll tell you everything. About Cole. About your father. About all the things I should have told you a long time ago."

I settled back against the couch cushions, my heart racing, my mind already spinning with possibilities and fears about what I was about to learn. But underneath the anxiety was something else—a strange, fierce gratitude that Mom was finally trusting me with the truth, that she was treating me like an adult capable of handling difficult realities instead of a child who needed to be sheltered from them.

Whatever she was about to tell me, whatever ugly truths about Cole Doyle and their shared past were about to come to light—I was ready. Or at least, I was as ready as I was ever going to be.

And maybe that would have to be enough.