Chapter 11 - MARIAN REED
Preston stared at his mother.
“You talked to Brenda about the baby?”
Marian looked almost offended.
“Of course I did.”
Audrey’s face hardened.
“How often?”
Marian ignored her.
Rocco spoke.
“She asked you.”
Marian finally looked toward Audrey.
“Several times.”
Preston stood.
“You told me you were staying out of this.”
“I said I would not interfere with your marriage.”
“That is interfering.”
Marian laughed quietly.
“You have a strange understanding of family for a man who came to me every week asking how to stop his wife from leaving.”
Audrey looked at Preston.
He went pale.
Marian had already begun dismantling him.
Good.
No one else needed to.
Preston had told his mother nearly everything.
The arguments.
The suitcase.
Audrey’s refusal to move closer to the Reed estate after birth.
Her insistence that the baby spend equal time around Morettis.
Marian interpreted all of it as Audrey weakening Preston’s place inside his own marriage.
Then she called Brenda.
Why Brenda?
Because Brenda understood what it meant when a woman removed a child from a family.
That was Marian’s language.
Brenda’s old wound became a tool.
Marian told her:
“If Audrey leaves with that girl, Preston will spend the rest of his life begging to see his own child.”
Brenda listened.
Marian continued.
“Moretti women always think their fathers can carry them out of consequences.”
Audrey stared.
“Why do you hate my family?”
Marian looked toward Rocco.
“I don’t.”
Rocco almost smiled.
“Bad lie.”
Marian’s expression hardened.
Then she told the truth.
She hated Elena.
Not because Elena helped Brenda escape.
Because Elena refused to feel ashamed about it.
After the side-gate incident, Marian met Elena privately.
She expected an apology for interfering.
Elena gave none.
Instead she told Marian:
“You are teaching your daughter that motherhood is something she gets to keep only if she obeys you.”
Marian never forgot.
Years later, Brenda became harder.
Angrier.
More dependent on the Reed family.
Marian interpreted that as proof Elena had been wrong.
Then Audrey married Preston.
Elena was already ill.
Marian watched another Moretti daughter enter the family.
Confident.
Close to her father.
Unashamed of saying no.
Everything Marian had spent decades suppressing in Brenda.
Preston whispered:
“You used Brenda.”
Marian looked at him.
“So did you.”
He went silent.
Correct.
Then Audrey asked the question that mattered.
“Did you tell Brenda my baby should not be born?”
Marian’s face changed slightly.
Preston looked toward her.
Rocco stepped closer.
“Answer.”
Marian did.
“I said some children arrive carrying more division than blessing.”
Audrey went cold.
“That’s not an answer.”
Marian sighed.
Then repeated the conversation.
Brenda had asked:
“What if Audrey has the baby and leaves?”
Marian replied:
“Then perhaps it would be better if there were no child to fight over.”
Silence.
Preston stared at his mother.
“You said that?”
Marian defended herself immediately.
“I did not tell her to attack anyone.”
Rocco’s voice turned quiet.
“You handed a match to someone standing in gasoline and now you’re proud you didn’t light it yourself.”
Marian looked away.
Then Gary entered with Brenda.
Nobody had expected her.
Lily was not with them.
Brenda walked directly toward her mother.
The bodyguards watched.
Brenda stopped several feet away.
“Did you mean it?”
Marian stared.
“What?”
“When you told me Audrey’s baby might be better off never being born.”
Marian’s voice softened.
“Brenda—”
“Did you mean it?”
Marian finally answered.
“I meant the situation would be easier.”
Brenda laughed.
Then cried at the same time.
“My daughter disappeared because you wanted an easier situation.”
Marian’s face broke.
That sentence found the center.
Brenda continued.
“And yesterday I almost made Audrey lose hers because you taught me easy was more important than human.”
Marian stepped toward her.
Brenda moved back.
Then Gary spoke.
“There’s something else.”
Everyone turned.
Gary looked toward Marian.
“I found Rachel.”
Marian went pale.
Brenda stared.
Gary continued.
“Rachel told me why she agreed to take Lily.”
Brenda waited.
Gary looked directly at their mother.
“She wasn’t helping you.”
Marian closed her eyes.
May you like
Gary delivered the twist.
“She thought she was saving Lily from you.”
