Now is the moment of truth.
No matter how fast or how hard I run, it will always come back.
I can no longer hide. Can no longer escape. Can no longer hope for a happy ending.
Who I was is catching up to me and there’s nothing I can do.
“No more secrets…” Gunner’s words resonate in my mind.
I lead the way into my living room, tears silently flowing down my cheeks. I cry for my daughter. I cry for Gunner. I cry for the future we will never have. Gunner will never be able to forgive me.
Ignoring the couch, I make my way to the piano bench where I sit. My fingers caress the keys, and I try to find the comfort this instrument used to bring me. Head bent down, my thumb start at C and chromatic up to the fifth finger.
“Heidi,” Gunner says my name, and my fingers freeze. Reluctantly, I turn to him and meet his gaze. I try to smile but everything feels heavy, and I have no strength.
“My name isn’t Heidi.” Dread fills my voice. “My real name is Vanessa.” I pause and gauge his reaction. His face remains blank. There’s no sign of recognition, so I continue. “My birth name is… Vanessa Lucia Cantarelli.” Gunner steps back as he recognizes my name. “I’m—”
“General Cantarelli’s daughter,” Gunner harshly spits out, finishing my sentence.
“Yes,” I answer. My eyes start to burn, and I swallow the knot in my throat. “I’m his daughter, and I-I’m also Rylee’s biological mother. Jake and I—” My eyes close, refusing to see the betrayal in his eyes.
Silence engulfs us.
Then he whispers, “Jake’s the reason Cantarelli came after me.” There is no question to his tone but a firm statement.
Surprised, my eyes open, and I look up at him. His jaw is locked, his hands fisted, and his face is red—furious and betrayed.
“Yes.” The heartbroken whisper falls from my lips.
“You knew?” he hisses out incredulously.
Nodding, I recall my last meeting with Jake. “The last time I tried to make contact with Rylee, Jake told me if I helped you, he would consider letting me see her. That I needed to convince my father to drop whatever he had going against you.”
“Did you?”
A dry, humorless chuckle bubbles through my lips. “There was nothing I could do, Gunner. I had no say in what my father did against anyone, especially against his own daughter. I was supposed to follow orders just like one of his soldiers. And my mother, I tried to have as little contact with her as possible.”
“You said you spoke to Jake.”
“Yes.”
You’re no woman in my eyes, Jake’s words go through my mind. Faith is her mother, not you. Those words have haunted me for years.
“I tried to see Rylee twice; once when she was a baby and Jake’s parents were taking care of her while he was at training. The second, when she got older. I figured she was old enough to decide if she wanted to have a relationship with me. Instead of going behind Jake’s back, I went to his office while my father had business in Germany, that way I wouldn’t raise suspicions because it was forbidden for me to see her. But Jake threw me out. The boy, that once had shown me warmth and the closest thing I ever knew to love, hated me.”
My vision goes blurry with the rising tears.
“I wanted—needed—to see my daughter. To know her. To hug her. Not a day has gone by that my decision to let her go doesn’t haunt me. I was a terrible person—weak to allow my parents to influence me.” With a deep breath, I try to settle my emotions. “You know I was set to marry a man of my father’s choosing, hoping to redeem myself in his eyes because that was the plan for me all along.” My eyes meet his. “Our marriage would have set my parents up politically, since my father had had a falling out with his parents when he married my mother. Why he married her, I’ll never understand. My mother is a cold, unfeeling, and very controlling woman. She ran my life according to her desires and was marrying me off to a mon—”
“Stop.” Gunner holds up his hand. “Hei—I mean, Vanessa.”
“I prefer Heidi,” I correct him.
“Heidi, just give me a minute. This”—he waves his hand around—“is a lot to process. It’s like a damn telenovelas my mother watches. You sleeping with my best friend, my goddaughter’s biological mother, the villain in your story. How the hell am I supposed to believe all this? Accept it?”
Nodding, knowing that my story is unconventional, I remain seated, my hands folded in my lap.
After a minute, his jaw clenches and his eyes narrow on me. “What role did I play in all of this?” he asks, surprising me with that unexpected question.
“What do you mean, your role?”
“Yes, what was my role? Why me? Did you use me like your father uses everyone around him? Was I a means to an end for you to get closer to Rylee? Because I know damn well Faith would never have allowed you near her. Did you ever care about me? Love me? Did I mean anything to you? Was I fuckin’ second best? A damn consolation prize because Jake chose Faith?” He shoots every question out like a bullet.
My mouth drops open in surprise. Does he really believe that? That I didn’t care for him? That I would use him?
“Excuse me?”
“Answer the damn question. Did you ever care about me?” he repeats.
My heart pounds in anger, disbelief, heartbreak.
“Answer my fuckin’ question, Heidi.” His tone is no longer warm and loving. Instead, it’s harsh, cold.
“Yes!” I jump up from my seat and throw my arms in the air. “Yes, I care for you, Gunner. How can you even ask that?”
“Because you’ve lied to me from the beginning!” By the time he finishes his statement, he’s yelling.
“I didn’t lie to you.”
“Bullshit, Heidi. You fuckin’ lied from the first. You withheld facts and only gave me enough to keep me interested.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is. You could have told me who you were, what you really wanted, what you were doing here.”
“And you would have accepted me?” My high-pitched question is full of disbelief because I know the truth, even if he doesn’t.
“Yes.”
“Now who’s bullshitting who, Gunner?” Though I chuckle, it is dry and humorless. “If I had mentioned who I was, you would have been the first to send me packing. You, Jake’s best friend, the man who loved Faith, and Rylee’s godfather would have sent me away in the blink of an eye.”
“Is that why you let me come after you like a lovesick teenager? For Rylee?”
“No.”
“You pushed me away at first but then changed your mind. Easily, I might add.”
“Go to hell, Gunner. Don’t put this—us—on me. You didn’t let me go when I asked. You crashed into my life, even after I told you to go.” Anger takes over—at him but mainly myself for being so naïve for having the slightest bit of hope there would actually be a happily ever after. “If you honestly believe I would use you, you along with my father can go to the last corners of hell together. I didn’t need you then, and I don’t need you now!”
My words hit him, causing him to step back. He remains quiet, his jaw clenched, and his lips in a flat line. Immediately, I regret my emotional outburst.
After a few seconds of heavy silence, he whispers, “If that’s what you believe… fine.”
“Gunner!” I call out in remorse.
He ignores me as he walks out the front door. Not even Thor running alongside him keeps him from leaving. The door clicking shut sounds like a tomb closing forever.
I finally get what I deserve. I’m left alone, and have nothing left in me. Though I knew there could be nothing permanent between us, watching him make those final steps out of my life kills me.
With no strength, I fall in a heap of tears on the floor. Finally, I can let go of all the desperation, the fear, the anger, the love.
There is nothing left to do but cry.
What I felt for Jake is nothing compared to what I feel for Gunner. But everything has and will always go back to that one moment. The moment I gave myself to a boy and a life was created.
I’m Rylee’s mother… Jake and I…
Those words are like a broken record, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t get them out of my mind.
Jake. Jake. Jake! It all comes back to Jake.
From the moment I met him, I couldn’t help but feel I was less than him. Selfishly, I can’t help but feel envious that he lived the dream I wanted to live. The military career, the woman, the family, everything. And I was left behind.
Now, to find out I was revenge against Jake, and he didn’t have the decency to tell me.
It fucking burns.
Years I lived with the pain of not knowing why. Why me? Why was my conduct taken under review when so many had done the same or worse? I couldn’t understand, so my feelings turned to hate. I hated Cantarelli and everything he stood for. I hated that he came after me, that he was relentless until I had no other choice but to leave with only a small shred of dignity. Even that, I had to fight for.
Now to find out that the woman I have fallen in love with was Jake’s first. Fuck, it burns! It hurts because for once, I thought I was someone’s first. That they were actually happy and content with just me.
How am I not to think I’m her second choice? Especially after seeing the hurt in her eyes when she spoke of Jake’s hatred. Of Jake and Faith.
“Fuuuuccccckkkk!” My fist meets my office wall, yet I don’t feel the pain that is surely radiating throughout my hand and up my arm. The resulting hole gives me no satisfaction.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Zane throws open the door.
“Don’t you goddamn knock?” With my fist in my hand, I grunt out to him.
“Why should I when you are being a jackass and decorating the wall with holes. Faith is going to flip her shit when she sees it.”
“Fuck what she wants,” I toss out.
“You better watch that damn mouth, Gunner,” Zane warns. “Whatever is going through that thick head of yours, it gives you no right to be a douche.”
“Get the fuck out of here, Zane. I’m in no mood.”
“Why? So you can mope and cry? Feel sorry for yourself? Nah, brother.” He ignores my dark mood, takes a seat on the other side of the desk, and stares at me. He decides to wait me out.
I sit, knowing the fucker has the patience of a saint.
“I’m not your brother.”
“Now, that’s where you’re wrong, dipshit.” He leans back in the chair and crosses his ankle over his knee. “I’m your friend, your brother, your worst nightmare. I’m fuckin’ everything you can imagine, Gunner. Make sure you know that and understand. Now, talk to me.”
“You know damn well what the fuck is wrong with me. You were there with Faith.”
“And…?”
The way he says it, so casually, as if it’s an everyday thing, has me straightening in my chair. Did he—
“You knew?” I ask in disbelief.
Zane smiles, and it does nothing to put me at ease.
“You—” I jump to my feet.
“I’d watch what I say if I were you,” he warns, raising an eyebrow. So cocky, so superior, so fucking irritating, I itch to plant my fist in his face. “I know many things, Gunner.”
“And you kept it a secret? From me, from Faith?” Those times I saw Zane and Heidi speaking in private, how Zane watched her, and made her nervous, come back to me.
“There was nothing to tell.”
“There was plenty to tell.”
“No, Gunner.” He sits up in his seat. “There wasn’t. If I had an inkling Heidi was here to make trouble or that Rylee would be hurt, I’d have stepped in. She wasn’t going to say anything. She couldn’t.”
“Then…?”
“Faith,” he answers. “My wife is very persistent. If I had tried to throw her off, she would have become even more tenacious. I held her off as much as I could.”
“But why?”
“Because Heidi made a bad choice when she was young. Then she was placed in a bad situation that someone got her out of. That’s all I can say.”
“Why can’t you just answer my fuckin’ question, Zane? You always do this—give just enough but not everything.”
“There are things I can tell you and there are things I can’t. There’s nothing I can do about it. What I used to do… not even Faith knows everything. Though I’m ‘out,’ I’m still dragged back into that world.”
“Zane—”
“I’m done here,” he states, rising from the chair. “What happened to you was not Heidi’s fault. She was caught between two men struggling for power and so were you. A favor was called in, and I made it happen. Those men, who easily play with lives, will one day realize they’ve lost their way. Don’t make a mistake, Gunner, because I’ll make sure she disappears and not even Phoenix’s resources will be able to find her.”
“Who the hell do you think you are.”
“Let’s just say, I’m just a person looking out for a… friend.” He gives me one final grin, then walks out the door.