A Kiss of Color: The Complete 3 Book Collection (43 page)

“Calm down, girl.” Janette snapped, clearly irritated. “You can have another one later.”

Helena felt as if her heart were being ripped from her chest. As bad as the trial might have been, this was worse.
Much
worse.

“You, Danny honey, just get ready to get the hell out. Nobody can find out we were here.”

Helena couldn’t remember being this terrified in her entire life. Somehow, her mother always found a way to control her – to manipulate her. While she and Xavier thought they’d been gaining their freedom for the past few years, they’d really been playing directly into her hands.

“Momma?” Helena’s anguished tone drew Janette’s gaze. “I just have to ask you a question.”

“What is it?” Her mother replied, clearly on edge.

“Did you…” Helena swallowed thickly, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Did you ever really love me?”

Janette’s expression twisted into one of exasperation. “Honey, let’s not start this shit. We can discuss it after.” With those words, her gaze dropped to Xavier once more. The dark-haired man’s eyes were resolute and Helena knew she would have to watch him be killed right in front of her.

That Brandy would have to see her brother murdered before her eyes.

Sneering, Janette put pressure on the gun’s trigger.

And fired.

The sound was deafening, and, closing her eyes, Helena screamed, unable to watch. Then, all at once, there came two more shots, and Brandy’s harsh gasp came from beside her. Helena opened her eyes just in time to see Daniel crumple to the ground, two bullets in his right shoulder.

“Helena, get down.” Brandy’s cry was all the warning the young woman got before Janette was screaming in rage. The blonde tugged Helena along with her and they tumbled onto the floor as the manic woman fired desperately over their heads.

A bevvy of shots returned her assault, and there was a low grunting noise as one stuck her in the leg and another in the stomach. The gun clattered from her hands and Janette collapsed to the ground, clutching her bleeding midsection as crimson began to soak into the carpet.

A low, familiar voice suddenly broke the silence. “Xavier, are you alright?”

It was Hank.

Before Helena could even straighten, Brandy was up and over the couch with a tortured sound of relief. Helena heard the impact as she collided with Hank, beginning to sob, and her husband murmured soothing words to her.

Two seconds later, the dirty blonde head of Susan’s nephew, Riley, peeked around the couch. He was in uniform, his gun still clutched tightly in one hand. “Helena, are you and the baby OK?”

Helena tried to speak, but she couldn’t. The only thing that emitted from her mouth was a soft cry as she clutched her son to her. Her body was wracked with gut-wrenching sobs as she broke apart. She couldn’t even look.

Xavier. They had killed her
Xavier
.

Every breath felt as if it burned her chest – like she was gasping for air. How the hell was she supposed to go on? How was she supposed to look at her son every day without seeing the man she loved in his tiny features?

It would be impossible.

“Helena, honey.”

The words stopped her mid-sob. Disbelieving, Helena turned to see a set of deep blue eyes gazing down on her and a soft, worried expression.

“Are you OK, sweetheart?”

She launched herself into his arms, clinging to him, mindless of how her son squealed at being trapped between his mother and father. Xavier was shaking too, holding her so tight she could hardly breathe and she never wanted it to end.

The sound of sirens started in the distance, and she dimly realized that Riley had
shot
her mother and Daniel. Actually
shot
them.

She glanced back to see the man checking both of them over, his mouth a thin line of disgust. When he found Helena observing him, his lips curved into a small smile. “An ambulance is coming. They’ll live.”

And somehow, Helena found herself relieved. After
all
her mother had done to her, she still didn’t want her dead. Something might be wrong with her, but she couldn’t condone that thought.

“Helena.” Brandy returned to her side, this time with Hank in tow. “You and the baby are OK, right?”

“We’re fine.” Helena smiled through her tears, hugging Brandy to her before looking to Hank in surprise. “Hank, how did you know to come here? Now?”

“I didn’t.” Hank returned simply, his blue eyes gleaming. “I only knew that I wanted to see Brandy before the trial…to give her my love and support. But when I got here with Riley, I saw these two with guns through the front windows.” He frowned deeply. “We snuck around the back to surprise them.”

“I’ll say you did.” Xavier returned his voice fraught with relief. He reached out to clasp Hank’s shoulder tightly. “You saved my
neck
, man.
Literally
.”

“Well, then, maybe you’ll allow me the honor of remarrying your sister, as a reward.” Hank winked at him, making Xavier chuckle for a moment before his smile faded.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to make that festive occasion, Hank.”

Helena’s attention turned from trying to hush her son to apprehension once more. They still had the trial…and now, this gun fight? How the hell was that supposed to reflect?

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that.” Brandy’s grin was cat-like as she lifted a hand to reveal her phone clutched in it. “I left my phone on the couch, and when Janette brought us out, I sat on it. It was easy enough to fiddle around and get it to start recording audio.” She played back a brief clip containing Janette’s ugly words about wanting to whore her daughter out for profit. “I think this little snippet will turn the tides pretty profoundly in our favor.”

Helena could have collapsed at the profound relief that flooded her. They had her mother’s confession on tape. Which meant that Daniel would almost certainly be questioned. Atop that, they had both Hank’s and Riley’s testimonies.

That meant that they suddenly had an overwhelmingly good chance of winning the trial they’d dreaded for months.

“You are
brilliant
, Brandy.” Helena managed hoarsely, reaching out to tug Brandy to her again. “Absolutely
brilliant
.”

At that point, a loud knocking came on the door as red and white lights filled the front entryway. The authorities had arrived.

And for the first time in a long time, Helena was looking forward to speaking with them.

Things moved rather quickly after that.

Daniel Hayes and Janette Freeman were admitted to the hospital, and with the chief stockholder indisposed, the case was put on hold. Daniel, they were told, would recover just fine, but Helena’s mother would be on dialysis for the rest of her life, as her insurance didn’t cover a kidney transplant to replace the one she’d lost.

However, neither she nor her lover would remain free for very much longer.

Brandy wasted absolutely no time. She quickly reorganized the case she had built to include the audio she had recorded. The trial that had been planned quickly fell apart. Janette was facing life in prison without the possibility of parole for attempted murder, and confronted with the choice of going down with her, or confessing how he had turned XTech into his own private playground, Daniel chose to confess.

He spilled the details of how he’d orchestrated his elaborate scheme, from persuading Xavier to put company funds in his and Helena’s personal account to getting the financial team to turn against the CEO with bribes and blackmail. He wrote down his entire confession, which all but exonerated Xavier from every charge that had been filed against him and Helena.

Bank accounts were unfrozen, funds reallocated, and what had been stolen was returned. All seven members of the board – including the newly reinstated Leonard Harvey – visited Xavier and his family at their home to personally apologize.

Helena’s fiancé had told her what happened that morning in the board room, and she could see how hard it was for him to speak to the men who had betrayed him. They came to him with stories of how their families and livelihoods had been endangered, and while both Xavier and Helena knew some of them were being truthful, half of them were incriminated by lies going against Daniel Hayes’ confession.

Half of the board was replaced, and for his forthrightness, Hayes’ sentence was reduced from life to forty years.

Xavier went back to the office, much more wary than he had been before. Some of the employees that had been let go came back. Others didn’t. For weeks, Helena had to watch her lover battle his conscience as he came to grips with the enormity of the treachery XTech had undergone. He had been hurt deeply, and Helena knew that he would never trust quite the same way again.

Janette Freeman, of course, received life in prison. She had only been paroled with some unlawful finagling of Hayes’ and so in reality, she had two sentences to serve. Helena saw her one last time before she was put away.

She went alone, handing Isaiah off to his father for the afternoon.

Her mother was handcuffed to an aluminum table in a small, white interrogation room. That table, in turn, was bolted into the cement floor. In the weeks since she’d seen her, Helena’s mother had aged. She had traded in her smart violet two piece suit for an orange jumpsuit and it was obvious she’d somehow gotten her hands on drugs again and was using hard. The lines on her face had returned and her voice had the telltale rasp of the crack pipe. Nonetheless, Janette perked up when she saw her daughter.

Even as Helena’s stomach turned.

“Hey, baby!”

How on earth could she act as if nothing had ever happened between them? As if she hadn’t tried to kill the man her daughter loved and the father of her grandchild. “Hi, Momma.” Helena sat on the other side of the table, a safe five feet away from Janette.

The elder woman held out her hands, her expression hurt. “You’re not going to give your mother a hug?”

For a long beat, Helena stared at her. She knew that she should feel hate, revulsion, and rage when she gazed upon this woman, but all she could think of was how much she pitied her. What must have happened to her as a child that she could be the woman she was?

“No, momma. I’m not going to hug you. I’m never going to hug you again.”

Janette’s expression sobered, and she had the decency to look ashamed. “Helena”, she began hesitantly, her eyes on her hands as she fidgeted in discomfort. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and I have an answer. To that question you asked.”

Helena waited, silent. When Janette’s dark eyes met hers again, they were filed with tears. “I have
always
loved you, baby. Just never more than I loved myself.”

Helena felt the pain of decades lifting from her chest. As she watched moisture stain her mother’s cheeks, she realized that Janette would have the rest of her life to come to terms with her mistakes. They would be the only thing keeping her warm, every night, for the rest of her life.

When she spoke, her voice was soft, but unwavering. “I can’t forgive you, momma. You would have
killed
him…and this…this would have continued until one of us ended up dead.” She exhaled a long, shuddering breath. “It’s better this way.”

Helena stood in a smooth motion, taking her coat from the back of the chair. She left the visiting room with no regrets, and vowed that she would never let her mother keep her from doing anything ever again.

2 years later

“I hate it.”

From her place upon a suede covered pedestal where she was profoundly uncomfortable, Helena frowned. It looked like she was dressed in something Lisa Frank had thrown up at a stationery store. Honestly, teal and yellow?

“I think it looks very flattering on you, honestly.” Brandy was trying to hide her smile as she looked on primly from her seat below. She bounced a babbling baby girl with hair as blonde as her mother’s on her knee. “And Lucy does too. Don’t you Lucy?”

Helena’s niece blew bubbles primary concocted of saliva and mucus in Helena’s direction and she managed to make a face for a brief moment before she burst out laughing. “So I’m going to buy an expensive ball gown based on the opinion of a one-and-a-half year old?”

Brandy nodded solemnly, and Helena merely rolled her eyes, shaking her head. She liked this dress no more than she had the last three, and she was of half a mind to start picking the damn things herself. Brandy had horrible, frilly, super-girly tastes.

She didn’t want to show up to a Time Magazine Event looking a full two decades younger than her actual age.

Just the thought of the celebration later on that week made her tingle in excitement. When she and Xavier had graduated from Antioch all those years ago, and she’d been the first person to help him build his company, she’d never imagined it would grow to this extent.

She’d come home from a long day at the office a month ago to find Isaiah toddling right into her arms. At just over two, he was running all over the house and both his parents were exhausted just trying to keep up with him. She’d laughed at her little man’s antics and prepared to greet her husband, only to have him sweep both she and Isaiah into his arms, his expression radiating excitement.

“Honey, you won’t believe what came in the mail today!” The man looked as if he could fly.

“What?” She inquired breathlessly, vainly trying to keep Isaiah from yanking one of her earrings out. In reply, Xavier had merely handed her a letter addressed from Time Magazine naming him man of the year, and XTech one of the most prolific companies in the world.

Helena had to read the letter several times before she all but shrieked in excitement. She and Xavier proceeded to make fools of their very adult selves and jump all over their house with the two year old in sheer joy.

Ever since XTech had been restructured, Xavier had put his heart and soul into making sure that what had happened once never occurred again. He rigorously screened all of his employees and spent hours putting systems in place to protect both them and himself from any fraud that might occur. This obsession had led to him creating several new, top-of-the-line computer security systems. When he’d happened to show one to Hank, the man had demanded that he produce it for the general public.