All Chapters of Tangled With The Other Brother: Chapter 321 - Chapter 330

Elena's Point Of View"You want to see your mother?" Jaxx asked softly, his fingers gently smoothing over the small of my back. My frown deepened, the delicate warmth in my chest instantly souring into a cold, jagged knot. "Do not call her that," I snapped, the words tumbling out sharper and harsher than I intended. "That woman is not my mother. She's no mother to me, nor to Heather, nor to Dave. I was just too blind and stupid to see it for all these years!" Jaxx's dark eyes softened with deep concern. He shifted beneath me, cupping my cheek in his large, warm palm. "Elena... don't go too hard on yourself, sweet face." "No, Jaxx, stop! It's something I need to hear and say to myself!" I shook my head violently, tears hot and bitter springing into my eyes as my chest heaved with a violent, ragged breath. The words had been trapped inside me for years, festering, and now that the dam had cracked, I couldn't stop them from pouring out. "How on earth could I have been so foolish?! Ho

Elena's Point Of View"How dare you say that to me?!" Cynthia shrieked, her voice cracking into a raw, nails-on-a-chalkboard rasp that bounced off the cold concrete walls of the warehouse. She thrashed against the heavy tactical ropes binding her wrists, her greasy, tangled hair flying into her face, strands sticking to the sweat on her forehead. The ropes bit deeper into her skin with every violent jerk, leaving angry red welts, but she seemed not to notice or care, as if decades of denial had numbed her to pain long before tonight."I am your mother, Elena! I carried you for nine agonizing months! I went through blood and sweat to bring you into this world! I made you! I gave birth to you! I gave you life, and you dare stand there with that arrogant, ungrateful look on your face and treat me like trash?!" She spat onto the dusty floor near my sneakers, her face twisting into an ugly, venomous mask, years of resentment carved into every line of it. The fluorescent light above flicke

Elena's Point Of View"You heard me, Cynthia," I said, my voice cutting through the thick, stifling air of the basement like a freshly sharpened blade. "Or do you need me to write it out in clear, simple letters so your liquor-soaked brain can actually digest it?" Cynthia's jaw worked silently for a moment before her pale, sunken face twisted into a grotesque, hysterical sneer. She shook her head violently, straining against the tactical ropes until the wood of the chair groaned beneath her. Something feral flickered behind her bloodshot eyes, the look of a cornered animal that had never once considered surrender. I almost didn't recognize her anymore, this shrunken, venomous creature wearing my mother's face. "He has brainwashed you!" she shrieked, her voice rising to a sharp, grating pitch that echoed off the cold concrete walls. "Look at you! Standing there defending a mobster, speaking to your own mother like I'm dirt under your shoe! He's turned you completely against your own

Jaxx's Point Of ViewI stood up from the plush leather couch as slowly as my ribs would allow, keeping my arms locked securely around her. My side gave a sharp, familiar jab of pain, but I barely registered it. The only thing that mattered was the woman cradled against my chest, her head resting heavy right over my pounding heart, her breath coming out in long, soft, exhausted hitches. She had earned this stillness, this rest, after everything the day had thrown at her. God knew she'd fought harder today than most men I'd put in the ground ever had. Most of those men had begged, had broken, had folded the second things turned ugly. Elena hadn't folded once.I looked down at her face in the warm, dim light of the holding room. Her eyelashes were still clumped together from tears, her lower lip slightly swollen where I had bit it earlier, and her skin looked paler than usual against my dark shirt. A strange, heavy ache twisted right in the center of my chest....not from the bullet wou

Jaxx's Point Of ViewEvery single word she spoke felt like a jagged blade being driven directly into my heart, twisting deeper and deeper until I couldn't breathe. I wanted to stop her, to tell her she didn't have to relive any of it, but some part of me knew she needed to let it out, that the poison had been sitting inside her for far too long, festering in silence while she pretended it didn't exist.I didn't say a word. I couldn't. My throat had closed up somewhere between her second sentence and her third, and all I could do was reach forward, grab her by the waist, and pull her violently into my chest, wrapping my arms around her so tightly she was pressed flush against my heart. I buried my face in the crook of her neck, holding her as she completely fell apart in my arms, her body shaking with loud, agonizing, earth-shattering sobs that echoed through the quiet garden. The sound of her crying was unlike anything I had ever heard before, raw and unfiltered, like something that