Announcement And at long st, we find ourselves at the final (regur) chapter! Thank you for coming on this crazy journey with Rose, Kyle, and all of my other characters! Fear not: there is an epilogue chapter, but I'm saving it for the book release! I'm currently looking for an agent to try to get this one traditionally published, and if that doesn't work I'll self-publish instead.

  Additionally, if you want more of these characters and this world, the first three chapters of the sequel, "Beginner's Guide to Gold Digging" are up on my Patreon! It's a fake engagement, enemies to lovers, bi awakening story about Crispin and his workpce frenemy Lily, and I hope you love it!

  https:///c/user?u=106198315

  Briar Rose

  I found Mallory’s study how I’d st seen it a few years ago: a bnd, nondescript room with a mahogany desk and a truly staggering number of filing cabinets. The pce had been scrubbed clean of any trace of my te mother, meaning the evidence was more likely in Mallory’s office, but I still couldn’t leave without checking.

  Under the bed was the most logical pce to start, but it bore no fruit. In the closet was nothing but a row of identical gray pantsuits, in the dressers underwear and socks. A few simple items of jewelry and a vanity mirror with makeup at the ready, but nothing else to go on. No books on the shelves, no television or computers, nothing on the walls whatsoever.

  How could a woman who’d had six kids be this freaking sterile? I mean, I was literally a barren woman- what was Mallory’s excuse? Was there ever a time where she’d been anything besides… This?

  “What are you doing here?” a voice plunged into my back like a knife thrown across the room. I turned around.

  Sarah was dressed like Mallory still, even at her own party. But then, her special day had never really been about her. None of ours ever had.

  I started, “How did you know-”

  “I saw Veronica getting into an argument with Gerald and Mother. And I recognized the caterers as Kyle’s friends, and it clicked in my mind.” Sarah gently stepped inside, closing the door as quietly as possible. “Now answer the question. What are you doing here?”

  “What? A girl can’t pop in to see her own mother?” I said.

  “Stop that,” Sarah said, bridging the gap between us. I had my back quite literally to the wall, and she was still so much taller than me, but… Goddammit, I couldn’t back down here.

  “Why?”

  “You know why.”

  “No, I really don’t,” I said. “I’m lost here, Sarah. Expin it to me. In-depth.”

  “I’m not your mother,” she said.

  “You’re right, you’re not my mother. But you’re the closest thing I’ve got.”

  “Mallory-”

  “Is nobody’s mother,” I cut her off. “Our real mother is dead. Mallory killed her.”

  “No, she didn’t,” Sarah whispered, choked up and clearly fighting back tears.

  “She drove Mom to it,” I said. “You know I’m right. Mallory wouldn’t let Mom be her true self. She forced Mom to deny herself, to die a little bit more each day until it finally caught up with her. You found the body, Sarah. You know I’m right.”

  She flinched and broke off eye-contact. “You think everything is so simple, don’t you?”

  “What?”

  “Everything has always been simple for you. You haven’t had to take responsibility. You’ve never known the weight I’ve had to carry as the eldest,” she said. “Don’t you get it? If I accept what you’re saying, the weight gets even heavier. Suddenly, I’m not just the heir apparent to our family fortune, I’m not just Mallory’s successor, I’m not just the golden child anymore. Suddenly, I have to live with the fact that our family is horrible! That we’re a bunch of evil, back-biting parasites who abuse our own! Suddenly, that’s all on me! You don’t get-”

  “Oh, ENOUGH!” I bellowed. She flinched again. Good. “That’s not what our family is, Sarah. That’s just Mallory. The rest of us? We’re doing just fine. You’re the only one who’s caught up in all that. You’re the only one who’s still under her thumb. But you’re not the only one carrying the weight of everything she did. All of us are. You need to acknowledge that and let us help you.”

  “It’s not that simple!” she shouted, and this time, I flinched. “Don’t you get it?! It’s not an option for me. Everything I have- everything I am- is tied to Mallory. I only have the life that I do because of her, because I was the kid she wanted me to be! If I start going outside of that, I will lose everything!”

  “Yes, Sarah, clearly I would know nothing about that,” I monotoned, taking a step forward, watching Sarah take a step back.

  “It’s different for you! You’ve always been… You’ve always been independent. More so than you realize. You’ve always been able to do things on your own. Just look at you- look at what you’ve grown into! You’re a better person than me, a better Christian, a better businesswoman! And you’re clearly much better for Kyle than I ever could have been. And you did all that by yourself!”

  “No, I didn’t,” I said, taking another step. “This is me. This has always been me. But the person I am today, she only exists how she does because of everyone who’s helped me. Kyle. Rachel and Lisa. Ruth and Nathan. Juniper and Goliath. Violetta and Carlos. Veronica. Hell, even Crispin came in clutch a few minutes ago.”

  “Wait, Winfield is here?” she said, shame and panic devouring her face like a wildfire.

  “Yes, and we’re gonna talk about THAT at a ter date,” I said pointedly. “But you know who helped me figure out who I am well before any of them did?”

  Sarah raked a hand through her hair and breathed in through her nose, then sat down on Mallory’s bed, shoulders slumped and pupils dited.

  I sat next to her on the mattress and folded my hands on my p. “Come on. You know who I’m talking about.”

  “Mom,” Sarah whispered. “I mean… Caleb.”

  “Our te mother,” I nodded.

  “She didn’t even leave a note,” Sarah said. “And I guess she didn’t need to. It was obvious why she did it.”

  “It wasn’t just her, though,” I said. “You helped me too. You were the first person who offered me a chance to let me be me. The first person who saw what I could be. The first person to call me-”

  “Rose,” she gulped. “Mom said it’s what we would have called you if… And you loved Sleeping Beauty so much, it just made sense to call you… Briar Rose.”

  I nodded again. “You don’t have to do this alone, Sarah. You’ve helped me. Let me help you. Let all of us help you.”

  “What if it’s too te for me?” Sarah whispered. “Everything Mallory and Sam made into… I could’ve stopped them, but I didn’t. Now I’m a cheater and a liar and a bckmailer. And it’s all I’ve got. If I turn away, I have nothing. Mallory will take my job and all my money, Sam will take the house and the kids… God, my kids. I haven’t talked to them in… I don’t even remember. Sam wanted to send them off to boarding school in Europe and I… God, I let him do that. I let him take my babies from me. They hate me for that. And they should. I’m a monster.”

  “You’re not a monster,” I said. “You’ve made mistakes, bad ones, but you’re not a monster. And it’s not too te to change. To be who you want to be.”

  “Oh God,” she choked, the tears finally coming out. “Oh God, Rose, I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry for everything.”

  I wrapped my arms around her. “It’s okay. I… I’ll be able to forgive you. It’ll take time, but… I really do love you, Mom. Also, I won’t call you that if you don’t want me to.”

  “I think… I think maybe when I’ve earned it, I’d like you to call me that,” Sarah sobbed, hugging me back.

  “Okay,” I smiled, my heart singing. She was back. I finally had my sister back.

  “And when, pray tell, will she have earned it, Brian?”

  My eyes tore open and my head whipped around. Mallory loomed in the doorway, Gerald behind her. Fuck, no, this was bad, this was very bad-

  “I’ll take it from here, Gerald,” Mallory said.

  “And my bonus, ma’am?”

  “Waiting for you in the basement,” Mallory said, shutting the door behind her.

  “This isn’t what it looks like,” I said.

  Mallory ignored me. “Answer the question, Brian. When will it be enough? How many people will you have to twist around with your lies? How many more people need to cosign your madness before you’re happy? Destroying yourself like this is bad enough, not to mention that idiot yokel you have wrapped around your finger. And now I find you here, breaking into my house, trying to tear apart my family. You’ve corrupted Ruth and Juniper and now Veronica and Sarah too. For shame. Setting them all against me, your own mother-”

  “You’re not my mother,” I stood up. The fire inside me burned hotter than ever. I couldn’t afford to lose my cool, but right now… Right now, I needed to protect Sarah. And Kyle. And myself. “Caleb O’Neil was my mother. You? You’re just the woman who killed her.”

  “Don’t be melodramatic. Your father was weak. He-”

  “Don’t you dare,” I growled.

  “I will ‘dare’ all I want,” Mallory sneered. “And I’ll say the same thing to you that I did to him when he first confessed to his perversion a few months into our marriage: you will never be a real woman. All you will ever be is a sad little boy in a dress. And moreover, the kind of woman you want to be… That’s not a real woman either. Not a serious woman. Not a woman who can survive in our world. Caleb wanted to be… Soft and colorful and frilly. The kind of woman who belongs in the past, locked in a kitchen by evil men and forced to py house while they get to do all the important work themselves. A fantasy. A caricature of a woman. And you want to be the same thing, which is how I know you’ll never be a real woman, because no real woman wants to be any of that.”

  “That’s not true,” Sarah said, tone ft but high.

  Mallory’s face contorted. “Sarah, go downstairs while I-”

  “No,” Sarah said. “No, I won’t. What you’re saying isn’t true. Maybe you don’t want all that, and nobody should be forced into it, but… I want it. I’ve always wanted it. I miss it. Being soft and frilly and wearing bright colors and having long hair. You took all that away from me. Maybe not the same way you did to Rose, but you still ruined it for me. Just like you ruin everything for me, for all of us. And for your wife.”

  “I. Did. Not. Have. A. Wife!” Mallory spat.

  “Only because you wouldn’t let her be herself,” I said.

  “I gave him a very simple choice: either be a man or lose everything. He chose wrong because he was weak, it’s as simple as that,” Mallory said.

  “Mallory-”

  “I AM YOUR MOTHER AND YOU WILL OBEY ME!” Mallory shrieked. “Sarah, you will go back downstairs and network like you’re supposed to. Brian, you will stop this ridiculous charade right this second or I will personally see to it that you lose everything! Do I make myself clear?!”

  That was when the door burst open, and I do mean burst. In a hail of wooden shrapnel, both Kyle and Sam came exploding through the wreckage. Locked into melee, they were bloodying each other with their fists.

  Kyle was winning. He’d clearly taken a few hits, but he wasn’t the one on the ground.

  “Get out!” Mallory screeched.

  “Yeah, good pn,” Kyle said. “Rose. I got what I came for.”

  “And so did I,” I nodded. Then I looked to Sarah. “Right?”

  She stood up, and this time, her back was against the wall. Her eyes flickered between me, Kyle, Mallory, and Sam. “I…”

  “Sarah,” Sam said, growling as he rose to his feet. “Don’t do anything stupid. I know that’s difficult for you, but now is not the time for one of your moments of weakness. That’s all this is- your weakness eating you alive. Your brother and his sodomizer are preying on it. They’ve called the police.”

  “We did?” I said.

  Kyle nodded.

  “Oh damn,” I said.

  “What?!” Mallory said.

  Sam continued, “Do not get emotional like you always do. Be a good asset for once and expin to the police officers when they get here that these two pnted evidence of corporate sabotage and bckmail in Mallory’s office, that this unwashed barbarian assaulted me when I caught him in the act. Do the right thing, Sarah.”

  Sarah’s tears kept coming, her hands trembling, her lips quivering. And she looked to me.

  I drew a deep breath before I said, “If you want to earn it, now’s the time.”

  She gulped again, and nodded.

  Sam moved towards her with a predatory glint in his eyes, hand extending… And Sarah swatted them away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I invited Rose and Kyle here. I showed them into Mallory’s office and bedroom.”

  “That’s still breaking and entering!” Mallory said.

  “Not when I have my own keys,” Sarah said.

  “You’re making a mistake,” Sam hissed.

  “No, I’m finally doing the right thing,” she replied. “And when the cops get here, I think they’ll be very interested to hear about all the times you put hands on me. I’ll tell them all about the bruise my makeup is covering.”

  “No!” Sam screamed.

  “You little shit,” Mallory said, filing an open-palm towards Sarah’s face.

  I caught it by the wrist before it could connect. And as the sounds of police sirens came into earshot outside, I smirked. “Just like I said. You’re nobody’s mother.”

  ***

  We sat on the front steps as the cops finished talking to people inside. I leaned on Kyle, and his arm was around me as we watched Mallory and Sam get hauled away. Between Sam’s accidental confession to spousal abuse and the cavalcade of evidence in Mallory’s office and Sarah’s promise of a testimony against the both of them, there wasn’t much in the way of resistance. Crispin and Veronica both supported Sarah’s story about inviting us and giving us the keys to those rooms, and the cops seemed to believe what we told them about looking for an old family photo. I mean, hey, it was basically the truth.

  Our mystery art thieves were nowhere in sight, but Gerald had been caught in the library with his fingerprints all over the forged paintings that had been taken off of the walls. Along with a suitcase filled with very real diamonds he’d taken out of the safe in the basement- the little ringworm was trying to cut and run with a fortune. Guess he really was only as loyal as he was paid to be, and either way it meant that any cims he made against Kyle and I wouldn’t carry much weight in a court of w. He’d be fine: he could cut a deal to testify against Mallory and probably not even see the inside of a jail cell.

  Mallory gred through the backseat window as she was driven away. I offered a smug smile and waved good-bye.

  “So what happens now?” Kyle asked.

  “Uh, realistically?” I said. “All of Mallory’s assets get seized, including this house and everything in it. She gets tied up in court for the next several years before either cutting a deal and walking away with nothing but the clothes on her back, or she winds up in one of those country-club white colr prisons in Florida for the rest of her natural life. But either way, her company is definitely cutting her off, and given how much dirt she had in that office, I don’t think anyone in the corporate sector will want anything to do with her again.”

  “Not bad,” Kyle said. “I mean, she deserves way worse, but still. It’s something.”

  “Indeed it is.”

  “And Sam?”

  “Case against him is airtight,” I said. “He confessed. He’ll get his divorce, and he’ll probably get to keep everything he owns because of the pre-nup. But Sarah’s going to drag this out as long as possible, make sure he has to sink as much money as possible into some very good wyers. Honestly, I have no idea if he’ll actually get jail time for this, but… She’s free now. And we got to spit in his face. So that’s something as well.”

  “I just feel sorry for their kids,” Kyle said.

  “Oh God, same,” I said. “I haven’t seen them since they were knee-height. Both boys, at least for the time being. They definitely wouldn’t recognize me.”

  “Veronica did,” Kyle pointed out.

  “That’s true,” I said. “And hey, she might very well get custody.”

  “Fingers crossed,” Kyle said. “And what about us? What do we do now?”

  “Well, there was something I was wondering. Could you… Could you show me her?”

  It took him a second, but he registered what I meant and fished his phone out of his pocket. He pulled up a photo, and I gasped. “That’s her,” I whispered. “That’s my mother. She… God, I really do look just like her.”

  “I couldn’t find if she had a preferred name-”

  “Leah,” I said. “She always… She always liked that name.”

  “Leah O’Neil it is, then,” Kyle nodded as he put his phone away. “It’s a good name.”

  “It is,” I said. “You know what else is a good name?”

  “What?”

  “Rose Duggan,” I said, kissing his cheek.

  He blinked, and his jaw dropped, but then… Then he smiled. “It is an excellent name, in my opinion. Briar Rose Duggan.”

  Before I could respond to that, footsteps began to approach us from behind. “Hey,” Rachel said, “Is it safe for us to leave yet?”

  Lisa was at her side, and Veronica and Crispin were approaching as well. Cris had his shirt untucked and looked like he’d dumped a cooler full of booze over himself at some point; good to know some things were constant.

  “Yeah, Rache, it’s all good,” Kyle said.

  “Good, good, because we’ve gotten like… A hundred texts from Ruth in the st twenty minutes. Apparently this is making the news.”

  “At st, a headline worthy of the front page,” I ughed. “I’ll text her and Juniper and Violetta, give them an update.”

  “Juniper is in town?” Veronica asked.

  “Yup!” I chirped. “Her and her husband both. Wanna go see them with us?”

  “If I’m allowed. I don’t want to intrude,” Veronica said, formal as always.

  “Naw, I wanna get to know as many of my future in-ws as possible,” Kyle said. “And I for one am itching for an after-party.”

  “Bar Here is still open for another few hours,” Lisa pointed out. “We could text everyone, have them meet us there.”

  “I like this pn,” I said, standing up and offering Kyle my hand.

  “Then let’s go for it,” he said, taking it and joining me.

  “Am I invited?” Cris asked.

  “Fuck yeah, you are,” I said. “You’ll need to get in good with Violetta if we’re gonna sell her on hiring you.”

  “Will she care that I smell like a frat party?”

  “Pfft, no. She’ll find it funny.”

  “Dope,” he smirked. “I’ll bring the car around. Veronica, you can ride with me as well if you want.”

  “I will, but don’t get any funny ideas, Winfield,” Veronica said. “I’m a married woman.”

  “Oh, rex, I have some scruples,” he chuckled as the two of them walked off.

  Kyle looked at Lisa and Rachel. “You got everything packed up?”

  “Yes indeedy,” Rachel said.

  “Let’s get going,” Lisa said. “We’ll see you guys over there.”

  And for a moment, that left just Kyle and I. Fitting- it had always been like that.

  “Ready for what comes next?” Kyle asked.

  “With you at my side, Kyle Duggan? I think I’m game.”

  He kissed me, gently and passionately, raking a hand through my hair and using his other one to cup the small of my back. “Good. Game on, Briar Rose. Game on.”