Wicked Games

33 - Eliana

Chapter Thirty-Three | Eliana

The moment we pull up outside the huge villa that looks over the blue, twinkling Caribbean Sea, I want to run over to it and drown. The gates we drive past are golden and it screams the opposite of a retired couple who are grieving the loss of their child. No this, this screams money and power.

And I'm beginning to wonder, if they had so much money and power, why did they not try to find and save me?

Driving up this path with Reid right beside me makes me feel like we are going into unknown territory and being fed to the lions.

"Baby?" I turn my head to gaze at my whole entire soul and smile, grabbing a hold of his hand. "Don't be nervous."

I scoff. "I'm not." I am.

I am absolutely shitting myself.

"If you want to leave, you say the word. Don't feel you owe your parents anything. We've come here for answers, and if that's all you want then that's okay, remember that." Reid tells me, lifting my hand to place a kiss on the back of it.

The car comes to a slow stop in front of a set of stairs that leads up to two huge, white double doors. One figure stands in front of those doors, and my breath hitches. The woman is most certainly my mother. We are the spitting image of one another. It's like I'm staring at myself in the future.

Reid climbs out of the car and makes his way around to open the door for me. I thank him with a small smile and go back to clutching at his hand. He leans down, his lips brushing softly against the shell of my ear. "I've got you." Nobody can bring comfort to me through words like he does. Only he can say something like that and put my mind at ease. "And I love you, no matter what."

My mother makes the first move, moving elegantly down the steps. She's dressed in a black two-piece suit that fits her curves perfectly. Her brown, curly hair with streaks of grey is slicked back into a bun and what has me freezing is the intense look in her eyes. I can't tell whether she is happy to see me or not.

My hand tightens around Reid's, and a quiet whimper escapes my mouth because I feel like this should be a dream. She stops right in front of me, her perfectly groomed brows turning down.

"Eliana." She whispers, so quietly I almost don't hear her. "Eliana." Her brown eyes water and she pulls me into a tight hug, inhaling my hair, and pressing my head further into her shoulder.

The words that want to come out of my mouth get stuck in my throat and I almost can't breathe with how tightly she is hugging me.

"My baby." She whimpers, her body shaking as she cries. "I am so, sorry!" She pulls back and grasps a hold of my face, her eyes eating up every single feature of me.

"Mum," I whisper.

"You're so beautiful. I-I can't believe you are standing here in front of me." She steps back again, keeping a hold of my hands and smiles before looking at the tall man beside me. Her smile drops for a minuscule moment before she covers it up again. "Who is this?"

"I'm Reid, Mrs Monroe." She nods sternly at Reid's introduction and makes no room to hug him, or even shake his hand. "I'm her boyfriend."

"Boyfriend?" She smiles tightly and I snuggle closer to Reid to confirm. She ignores the affection between us and turns her back to walk back up the steps. "Come in, I've made food!"

...

The only sound in this dining room is the clinking of cutlery as we eat the lunch my mother made us. Reid scoffs the food beside me like an animal, but I can't find it in me to even touch any of it, suddenly losing my appetite.