“God no, that’s not it at all,” I said as I watched the concern vanish from his eyes. “I’m glad that we waited until now because of how wonderful it was.”

He blinked. “Even though I wasn’t the first man you had?”

“I wasn’t the first woman you had either,” I reminded him. “But you told me it didn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t,” he said.

“That’s what I’m trying to say. I’m glad because that night might have just been sex, and this was so much more than that. This was making love as if our bodies were finally coming home to each other.”

Julian leaned up to my height and kissed me. “It would have always been making love, Lisette, and it always will be because I love you. It can’t be anything else for me. And regardless of Michael or Adam, I will always be the first man you’ve had.”

The look on my face let him know that I didn’t understand what he was trying to say.

“I will always be the first man that you had because you have always had me…and you always will.”

And as his words etched themselves onto my heart forever, I pressed my head forward to kiss him.

I felt home with Julian, and our bodies knew it.

28

That night, as the three of us sat and talked. We discussed where we would go after graduation. Suddenly there was a knock on the door. No one ever came to the door here, so we were all rightfully a bit startled. The guys immediately jumped into protective mode as Michael went to answer it.

There in the doorway stood Marta. Her cheekbone still looked like it was several shades of black and blue, and there were a few sharp-looking stitches poking out of it. When I saw her, I realized that I had completely forgotten to tell Michael about what had happened to her while we were in my father’s office on the day of the press event.

Michael stared at her for a minute, and a flash of concern swept his face when he saw the closed-up gash on her cheek. But the concern was quickly replaced with stringent suspicion.

“What are you doing here?” he asked her as he stood in the doorway and blocked her view from inside.

Marta held her head high. “I’ve come to give you a warning.”

“You can tell Jack that he can take his warnings and shove them right up his—”

“The warning is from me,” Marta interrupted. “And I really think you should hear it.”

Michael looked back at the three of us, and none of us knew what to make of it.

He opened the door and let her inside. “Fine. You have five minutes.”

Marta walked in and looked around at all of us. Michael waved a hand toward one of the chairs in the room for his mother to take a seat before the rest of us sat down around the room ourselves.

“How did you even get in here?” he asked her.

She didn’t answer him. Instead, she got right to the reason she had come.

“Jack is unhinged,” she said.

Adam laughed. “You think? I hope you didn’t come all this way to tell us something we already knew. It would be a shame if you risked your life for something so stupid.” He didn’t care about her life, though; none of us did. Marta was an evil woman. I doubt even Michael cared about whether she lived or died anymore.

She sighed and continued as she ignored Adam’s remark. “A long time ago, I made a terrible mistake.”

“Just one?” Michael sneered.

She knew she deserved that remark. “It was the worst of many that followed,” she said. “I was married to your father, and I had an affair.”

“Let me guess,” Michael said. “It was with Lisette’s father.”

Marta nodded.

“Is that why Jack killed my father?” he asked.

I could see the hatred boiling within him. It wasn’t necessarily just toward Marta, but more toward all of them.

Marta sighed. “In part, yes.”

“What was the other part?” Michael asked.

“The other part ties in with something that Pauline was trying to help me with.”

“What?” I asked. “My mother wouldn’t have helped you with anything.”

I was enraged that she would even dare to mention my mother’s name.

“There are still some things about your mother that you don’t know. Pauline was a good woman, even to me. And she was an even better mother, more than I could ever hope to be.”

“That’s not something I don’t know,” I hissed at her. “I know everything about her. You know nothing.”

“The affair caused something to happen, and when Jack found out about it, he was so furious that he killed my husband in order to make me obey him from then on out.”

“That’s not an excuse,” Michael said. “Lisette’s mother didn’t have a husband anymore, either. She was afraid of Jack, too, but she didn’t cower at his feet and do all his dirty work. You chose to side with him.”

“There’s more to it that you don’t know,” she said.

“Please, then, enlighten us,” Michael said as he threw both hands in the air dramatically.

“Let’s discuss this another time. That’s not why I’ve come.”

“Then why exactly did you come?” Julian asked. “What is the warning you brought us?”

“Pauline was hiding something else from him too, and Jack is getting close to finding it. When he does, he’s going to use it to solidify his legacy of crime, and he won’t stop at anything from exterminating all of you.”

“What difference does that make?” Michael asked. “He already wants to kill us all now, anyways.”

“It makes a big difference,” Marta answered. “Right now, he is working within the rules and the eye of the public. If he finds this, he won’t care about the rest of it anymore. He’ll kill everyone openly in front of everyone watching without regard to any repercussions. You aren’t safe here. You need to get as far away from this city as possible.”

“What is it that he’s close to finding?” I asked, curious about my mother’s alleged involvement in helping Marta to hide anything from my father.