Chapter 130
I found Ginger in the guest room sitting cross-legged on the bed, her gray-streaked red hair braided over one shoulder while she folded laundry like she hadn’t spent the last decade traveling the country with Burdock. She looked up the second I stepped into the doorway. Her eyes, warm and sharp all at once, softened in a way that made something inside me loosen.
“Come on in, baby,” she said, patting the bed beside her. “You look like someone carrying something heavy.”
I sat beside her slowly. The sketchbook trembled just enough in my hands that she noticed. Ginger always noticed.
“What’s in there?” she asked gently.
I opened it without answering. The photo slid out first—my mother with two toddlers who looked eerily like mirror halves of each other. Me and Rook. The note followed, old and creased and written in handwriting I didn’t recognize.
Ginger inhaled sharply the moment she saw it.
“You know it,” I whispered.
She nodded once. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “I do.”
I swallowed hard. “Jess slipped it into my sketchbook, didn’t he?”
Her expression didn’t waver. “He did. He found it about three weeks ago. An old steel lockbox that Skye kept hidden in the rafters of the old clubhouse. The demolitions crew uncovered it when they were clearing the last of the foundation.”
I blinked. “A lockbox?”
“Half rusted out,” she said. “Most of it was water-damaged. But this… this survived.”
My fingers tightened around the edges of the photo. “Why was my picture in there? Why did Skye have it?”
Ginger hesitated before she answered. Not because she wanted to lie—Ginger didn’t know how to lie—but because she wanted to say it right.
“Because your mama left it for you,” she said softly. “She left it with him.”
A rush of cold swept through me. “She left it… with Skye?”
“She didn’t have a whole lot of choice,” Ginger murmured. “She wasn’t allowed to take you. And she was scared. Hell, everybody was scared of Skye back then. But she left you this. Told him to give it to you when you were old enough.”
My throat tightened. “But he didn’t.”
“No.” Ginger’s voice grew hard. “Of course he didn’t. He hid it. Just like he hid every other truth that didn’t serve him.”
I stared at the picture again. My mother’s smile was soft, warm. A little sad. But she was holding us like we mattered. Like she loved us.
“She looks…” My voice cracked. “She looks kind.”
“She was,” Ginger said. “Your mama had a softness the club didn’t deserve. She made mistakes, baby. Too many of them. But she loved you and Rook. Wanted both of you far away from that life.”
“Then why did she leave without me?” I whispered.
Ginger reached out and cupped the back of my head gently. “Because he made her,” she whispered. “Because Skye threatened her. Because he wanted control. And because she thought staying alive was the only way she could ever protect you.”
A tear slipped down my cheek. I didn’t wipe it away.
“She didn’t abandon you, Marlowe,” Ginger said, voice steady but thick. “She was pushed out. And she did what she could from the outside.”
I closed my eyes. The ache inside me, the one I had carried since childhood, shifted shape. It didn’t vanish. But it loosened.
“She wanted you to know the truth,” Ginger added. “That Skye wasn’t the only one trying to keep you apart. The council wanted you for themselves. Wanted to groom you. Claim you. Skye using you as leverage only made you a bigger prize.”
Bile rose in my throat. “They saw me as property.”
“Yes,” Ginger said. “And your mama saw it happening. She tried to get you out before they could get their claws into you.”
“Did she know Torin was trying to protect me too?” I whispered.
“Oh, baby.” Ginger smiled sadly. “Everybody knew. Watching him push back at the council every time they circled you was the only entertainment we had back then.”
A shaky laugh slipped out of me.
Ginger squeezed my hand. “Your mama didn’t die hating you. She died trying to save you. And she meant for you to have this someday.”
I touched the edge of the note. “Why now?” I asked. “Why did the universe wait until after everything with Lucien? After Skye died? After the council fell apart?”
Ginger’s thumb brushed my knuckles. “Because now you’re safe enough to hear it.”
That did it. Tears spilled over, hot and silent. Ginger pulled me into her arms without hesitation. She smelled like lavender and leather and old memories. Like comfort. Like love.
I had not had a mother to cry into since I was a baby. I didn’t know how much I needed it until I collapsed into her shoulder and let myself break.
She held me until the tears ran out, rubbing my back in slow circles. “You’re not alone anymore,” she whispered. “And you were never unloved. Not by her. Not by any of us who saw you for who you really were.”
When I finally sat up again, eyes swollen, Ginger brushed my hair back. “You ready to tell Torin?” she asked.
I looked toward the hallway where he was laughing at something Rook said. His voice drifted to me warm and sure and steady.
“I think I need him,” I whispered.
Ginger smiled. “Then go get him.”
So I stood, clutching the photo gently, and walked out of the room carrying new truth, old pain, and the beginning of something that finally...finally...felt like healing.
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