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I wiggle, sitting up higher and flexing my wrists in an attempt to loosen the ropes. Bree slowly leans back in her seat. As her eyes meet mine, she notices me watching her and shakes her head.

“Don’t look at me like that. Don’t pretend that you’re better than me. As if you wouldn’t do the same thing for one of your mates!” she snaps.

I both understand her and don’t at the same time. I know I would do anything for my mates, that’s just a fact, but I never asked her to justify her actions. All I can do is look at the woman who kidnapped me and claims to be my sister. There is no way I would hurt a sister like this, even one I just learned about.

“I’m not claiming I’m better, but I would never do this,” I shake my head to emphasize my words. “I would find another way to help them,” I tell her, certain I would never stoop so low.

Bree presses her lips in a thin line and focuses her gaze out the window. As much as I want this conversation to end, I need to know more.

“What did you mean when you said that thing back at the house?” I ask her, letting my gaze focus on my own window as I try to figure out where we are. To my great disappointment, I don’t recognize my surroundings at all.

“‘I can’t help but wonder… I wonder if our mother felt any guilt when she set me in that basket and left me on Dad’s doorstep. How could she walk away from her own child like that?’” I repeat Bree’s words. I don’t struggle to quote them because they are burned into my memory. Without thinking, I turn my head to look at her right as she purses her lips.

“I never understood why my father never spoke of her,” Bree says. I tilt my head to the side, watching as her strange statement slowly sinks in. “She left me in a basket on his doorstep and walked away. But she kept both of you,” Bree adds, and my brows furrow. I squint my eyes as I try to read her facial expression, but she doesn’t give anything away.

“That makes no sense. Thane told me you are Curtis Black’s daughter, but I don’t remember ever seeing you at his facility,” I hum once the words leave my mouth, still raking through my memories, just in case I had seen someone resembling Bree.

She rolls her eyes at me and scoffs, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

“Yeah, that’s because I was sent away to boarding school. Besides, I’m five years older than you,” she pauses. “Our mother told me she couldn’t bear to look at me. Her own daughter. Her flesh and blood. All because I resemble my father. Her rapist,” Bree says, gazing out of the window. Her last words come out as just a whisper, and I barely catch them.

I suck in a breath. “Harper?”

Bree closes her eyes and exhales. “Yes Harper. Your mother … She was supposed to be mine, but instead, she abandoned me … Not you two, though. She loved both of you. More than you could ever imagine … But she couldn’t love me. She couldn’t even look at me.”

A lone tear rolls down her cheek, and all I can do is stare at her. I don’t know what to say, but Bree doesn’t need my words as she keeps talking. “I just wanted to know her … To get to know both of you.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Harlow

A lump forms in my throat, and a jolt of pain hits my chest as I watch and listen to Bree lay out her pain for me.

I hold my breath as I notice her bottom lip start to quiver.

“It took me weeks to track her down, and I had to steal Mrs. Yates's car. Boy, did I get my ass beat for that. I watched you all for days before I finally caught her alone. You were all at some fair, and I followed her into the bathrooms. But she told me to go home… I didn’t ask for much. Just a chance to get to know my mother and my little sisters, but she told me to leave.” Bree looks over at me, focusing her gaze on mine.

I feel like she’s staring straight into my soul; as if she’s trying to show me a glimpse of the pain she experienced when she was younger, and how it felt when our mother rejected her. I can only imagine how heartbreaking it was.

“You know, when she told me to leave, she also said that I wasn’t her daughter, only his. That she wanted nothing to do with me. I followed all of you for four weeks. Four weeks. Only for her to tell me to go home because she couldn’t stand to look at me.”

I understand why our mom did it. Bree is the product of her rape. All Bree wanted was to be loved and accepted by our mother, but not every woman can love the physical representation of the trauma they went through. In this case, they are both victims.

I don’t understand what’s happening now, though. Bree sounds devastated, and her eyes are filled with tears. She looks sad, but the corners of her lips keep twitching, as if she is barely holding back a grin.

“You were there that day, weren’t you? The day of the accident?” My eyes widen as the realization hits me. Was it even an accident? Bree has already crossed a line by stealing me away from my mates, but who knows how far she was willing to go back then, after our mother hurt her so badly.

Bree nods her head. “Not my proudest moment, but I had watched for weeks as she doted over the two of you. I watched her act like the mother I always wanted, the mother I wished she would have been to me…” She stops and looks down at her hands.

For some reason, it feels like she is checking her hands to see if they are covered in blood. Is she about to confess that she had something to do with our mother’s death?

“After the months I spent pestering her, Mrs. Yates finally told me who my mother was. Dad had always refused. He said I was better off not knowing. And he was right.” Bree pauses, sucking in a deep breath. “Mrs. Yates gave me her name and an old picture of her, so I slept with the Dean's son at my school to use their photo recognition program to track her down. Her face popped up on a security camera at some hotel, and it wasn’t hard to find her from there. I knocked on some doors, and a woman told me she saw her car at a camp ground. So, I went there, watched you all leave, and I followed you.”

“Is that why you’re doing this?” I question Bree, unsure if I even want to know. I’m terrified of what else she might have in store for me.

“What?” Her eyes snap up to me. “No, I just want Talon back. He’s the only person who has ever wanted me. Ever loved me. I was just too blind to see it.”

No matter how much Bree denies it, I don’t think I can believe her. Her actions don’t align with her words.