Ian’s jaw clenched, staring at his mother who was just repeating the same bullshit he’d spent his years growing up in.
She lifted her face to him. There was a scratch down her cheek, and part of him wanted to run to her, demand to know who had hurt her so he could hunt the asshole down.
Fight for her and protect her.
But he was so over it. So over her promises that were nothing but lies.
His lip curled and the hurt and hatred came spilling out. “I can’t believe you. You’re into that same bullshit again?”
Rage thrummed with the heartbreak, fractures cracking through the middle of him.
It was supposed to be different.
She’d promised. She’d promised.
A soft whimper left her mouth, and she edged forward, dropping her purse directly onto the floor as she inched toward him. “I had to, Ian, you don’t understand.”
Disgust shot out of him on a hot breath. “I don’t understand? What’s not to understand, Mama?” He spat the last like it was a filthy word. “That you’re nothin’ but a junkie? That you’d rather leave me here to worry about you, worry you’re dead in a dumpster somewhere, while you go get your fix of dope and dick? Is that what I don’t understand?”
She gasped out a tortured sound, and her body bent in half as if Ian had physically injured her.
But he’d never do that. It was his mother who’d allowed it to happen to him again and again. His own body covered in scars that would never heal. The ones that couldn’t be seen only went that much deeper.
He could almost feel it, the deep grooves carved out in his back, the years of black eyes and busted lips and broken ribs.
The marks that had been written on his soul.
She took a pleading step forward, and the smell of her cheap perfume and men’s cologne slapped him in the face. He wanted to puke.
“Please, don’t say things like that to me, Ian. Not when everything I do, I do for you.”
Scornful laughter rocked from him, and he took a step her direction. “For me? That’s rich, Mama, when the only thing you’ve ever cared about was yourself. Everything you’ve ever done was for your benefit. You let me and Jace starve so you had the money to fill your worthless body with drugs, or you let men use us as punching bags just as long as they kept you supplied with that shit.”
“No,” she wheezed. “No, Ian. I never, ever wanted you to get hurt. There are some things you can’t understand.”
He gripped two handfuls of hair, tugging hard, at his end. He got in her face, spewing the words, “God, I’m so sick of your excuses. You might have kept me hooked on your every word when I was a little boy, desperate for a little love and attention, but guess what? I’m not a kid anymore, and I can see right through you.”
A sob wrenched from her. “No, Ian. Please, don’t say things like that. You’re the only thing I have left. The only reason I breathe. The only reason I have to keep going.”
He shook his head and snatched his wallet off the end table, unwilling to listen to her justification when none of this bullshit could ever be justified. He shoved it into his pocket. “Whatever. I have to go to work.”
A frown pulled across her brow. “Work?”
His smile was full of his resentment. “I got a job. So I can take care of myself. So I don’t have to sit around here praying my mom will actually give a fuck and think to feed me.”
“Where?”
“Clover’s Italian Restaurant . . . Lawrence Bennet offered me a job in the kitchen.”
She paled. “I won’t allow it.”
Sickened, disgusted laughter bounced from the walls, the anger that had been simmering in him for years rising to a boil. “You won’t allow it?” he challenged, a sneer on his face. “You won’t allow me to make a little money for myself? What are you worried about, that I won’t be around here to pick you up off the floor and clean up your puke? Or that I won’t be here for one of your Johns to beat on, and he’s going to turn that beatin’ on you?”
Her entire face went white. “No, Ian, you got to listen to me. That man is no good. He’s tryin’ to sink his claws into you.”
A scoff ripped from his tongue. “What, now you’re the authority on good character?”
He started for the door, rounding her to get to it. His mama flew around and grabbed him by the arm. “You’ve got to listen to me, Ian. Trust me.”
He ripped his arm away. “Trust you? I fucking despise you. In case you didn’t know it, trust is earned, and you’ve never done a single thing to get it from me.”
He flung open the door.
She locked herself on his arm. “Ian, please, listen to me. That man . . . he is bad.”
He shrugged her off, unable to believe that she would do this to him.
Again and again. Over and over.
Hurting him at every turn. Rage burned at the base of his throat. She’d been responsible for Jace getting sent away.
“Go to hell.”
The only thing she wanted to do was hold him back. Keep him poor and hungry and pathetic like her.
Desperation clogged her words. “Ian, oh, God, please, you’ve got to hear me. Listen to what I’m sayin’. Everything I’ve ever done was for you. Everything.”
He whirled around, voice full of spite. “And look what that got me.”
She whimpered, and his eyes fell over her.
His heart hurt.
Hurt so damned bad looking at her. Skinny as fuck, all bone, fucking spreading her legs for the bag he was sure she had tucked in her purse.
She’d promised. She promised it was going to be different this time. That they were coming back to the city so she could actually take care of him. But it never was. It was always the same. It was never going to change.
Old agony thundered in his blood. She’d let them hurt him. She’d let them. She’d let them.
His face twisted in hatred. “Why don’t you do us a favor and end it. Because I’m finished with this.”
He turned around and started out the door of the crummy apartment.
Home-fucking-sweet-home.
Repulsion shivered across his skin when she reached out again and grabbed his hand, yanking him back. “Please, Ian, don’t go, don’t go.”
“Let me go.”
“No,” she whispered. “I won’t let you go. I love you.”
He tugged his arm, hard enough that she stumbled forward. “Yeah, well I wish you were dead.”
Stricken, her shoulders sagged and tears ran down her face.
Guilt streaked through Ian.
Just like it always did.
Every time she cried, he’d feel guilty, like it was his responsibility for the choices she’d made.
He was finished being responsible for her.
It was time he took responsibility for himself.
He turned his back on her, storming away to her whimpers and cries that started to jut from her mouth. “I’m sorry, Ian. I’m so sorry. I tried to be a good mama. I tried, but I failed, but I will always love you. Forever and ever.”
Her words impaled him the whole way, and he hurried to outrun them, banging through the stairwell door, like he could stop himself from hearing what she’s said.
Because Ian . . . Ian couldn’t take one more lie.
* * *
Ian finished running the last of the dishes through the industrial dishwasher. He was drying his hands when his new boss walked by, pausing to squeeze him on the shoulder. “Good job tonight, kid. Keep working hard like this, and you’re going to do big, big things.”
“Thank you, sir,” Ian told Mr. Bennet, dipping his head, trying not to grovel like a pathetic fuck when the man handed him a folded hundred.
His mouth watered, thinking about the food he could buy with it. That he was finally gonna be able to stand up and be the man Jace had always told him he’d be.
Maybe his mama wouldn’t change, but maybe he could be the one to make a change for them.
So
when he left, he swung by the fast food restaurant, and instead of ordering one meal, he ordered two.
He’d feed her.
Care for her.
Make her see they could have a better life.
He was going to make sure of it.
He bounded up the stairwell of the noisy apartment complex, ignoring the fights and the wails and the loud music that beat through the space. The only thing he was thinking about was how he was going to apologize for what he said. Explain how he felt.
That he was mad. Disappointed. That it hurt so much when she let him down.
That he was gonna help her.
Help her get clean.
Whatever it took.
He rushed the rest of the way to the fifth floor and hit the hall, smiling with the smell of the french fries rising up from the bag.
His mama was gonna be happy. Proud. She’d see this was a good thing.
He went for his keys in his pocket, frowning when he realized the door was already unlocked. He pushed it open.
His heart seized, and he could feel the blood drain from his head as a roll of dizziness nearly knocked him from his feet. He dropped the bags of food, rushed across the room, and fell to his knees where his mama was passed out in the middle of the floor.
His hands reached out, shaking her. “Mama, Mama, wake up.”
There was no movement. No response.
He shook her harder. Her head lolled back. “Mama, please, wake up!”
Tears blurred his eyes, and he started to scream. “Mama, please. Please! Wake up!”
Hands shaking, he pleaded with her, prayed, shook her harder. “Oh, God, Mama. Wake up. Please, wake up!”
Nausea swirled, and he gathered her up in his arms, hugged her limp body against his chest.
He wailed.
“Mama, don’t leave me.”
Please, please don’t leave me.
But his Mama . . . she was gone.
Gone.
A needle still in her arm.
Ian’s body wrenched, and he scrambled back, unable to see through the violent stream of tears that ran hot down his face. His body recoiled, and he vomited on the floor, the memory of the last thing he’d told her forever emblazoned in his head.
I wish you were dead.
Thirty-Six
Grace
A thousand pounds of panic weighed down my chest as I shot up in bed.
Dread spiraling all around me.
I could feel it.
The riot of turbulence that roiled in the stagnant morning air.
Without giving myself time to clear my head, I fumbled out of bed and struggled to get my legs into my pants and my shirt over my head.
All the while, the disorder that had shaken through my sleep continued to echo from downstairs.
Shouting and clamoring that broke through the hint of morning that peeked through the window.
An upheaval that I could feel bone deep.
Anxiety blazed through my body, and my pulse was a jackhammer of nerves galloping at breakneck speed.
I scrambled out the door, tripping around the corner as I tried to hurry.
Manic, I started to fly downstairs.
It only took two seconds for my heart that had felt as if it had finally been made whole last night to go crumbling to the ground.
The scene in front of me one of my worst nightmares.
“No,” I begged, my hand on the railing to try to keep myself standing as I raced faster for the bottom floor. “No.”
Mallory was wailing, my sweet, happy girl nothing but a ball of fear and screams. “Please, Mommy, I don’t want to go. I want to stay here. Tell them I don’t have to go anywhere because I want to stay with you and Ian!”
She tried to jerk her arm away from a man. He was wearing a suit, not even giving her any comfort when he struggled with her flailing arms and legs to pick her up.
To restrain her.
To take her.
Oh my God.
My spirit roared.
A mother’s cry.
Outrage and hate and fear.
The cruelty that was being imposed.
The vile selfishness that would drive a man to do something like this. To his own children.
Appearance so much more meaningful and important than their happiness.
Used as bargaining chips.
No. I wouldn’t let this happen.
But that dread was spiraling through the middle of me when I met the malice in Reed’s eyes.
He stood firm in the middle of the porch with his arms crossed over his chest.
Smug.
A bastard with the upper hand.
Callous and inhumane and merciless.
As if he’d just executed a hostile takeover.
That was exactly what this was.
Hostile.
A hot frenzy burned through my blood.
Desperation took over. Mind racing frantically, searching for anything to say or do.
For my own weapon against the atrocity.
But my own fear only grew greater when I realized what Jace was trying to do. Getting in the man’s face who was tussling with Mallory in a bid to intercede. “You can’t just show up here like this. This is private property.”
An officer stepped between them and pushed Jace back by the chest. “Sir, we have a warrant and orders to remove these children from this premises. If you interfere, I’ll be forced to put you in cuffs. I hope you don’t make me do that.”
He gestured to the infant Faith was rocking where she stood appearing frazzled and shocked to the side of him.
Wanting to do something but utterly helpless.
I refused to be.
I hit the ground floor, my bare feet pounding on the worn wooden planks as I threw myself toward the double doors.
“Mommy!” Mallory screamed, one arm reaching out for me as her small body thrashed.
Sophie was already outside with another officer, her blue eyes wary as she sucked her thumb.
Confused and scared.
My pulse careened, hatred howling through my senses, the need to get to her—to them—more than I could bear.
“No, let them go. You can’t take them. I won’t let you.”
A gasp of pain shocked through me when I saw Thomas on the porch, too. Standing beside them with his face turned toward the ground as if he somehow thought this could be his fault.
“No,” I cried again. The same officer who’d pushed back Jace stepped in my way when I went for Mallory, my arms flying and hot tears streaking down my face as he pushed me back.
A barricade between me and the reason for my life.
“Ma’am, you need to stay right there.”
“No . . . these are my children. You can’t just come here and take them.”
Sympathy flashed through his expression, but still, he lifted his chin. “An emergency injunction was signed this morning by Judge Hirrod. These children are to be placed in the care of their father.”
Judge Hirrod.
Jonathan Hirrod.
One of Reed’s oldest friends.
Oh God.
Reed’s expression filled with cruel satisfaction. “Don’t stand there and act like I didn’t warn you, Grace.”
“You.” I started for him, hands balled into fists, only for Jace to reach out and snag me from around the waist. “Don’t do it, Grace. I know you want to fight, but you need to fight this in a different way.”
Pounding rattled the stairs behind us. I didn’t have to look to know that it was Ian.
That powerful presence surged from behind.
Anger and ire and barely contained rage.
He immediately was in attorney mode. “Under what order?”
“Parental abduction,” the officer replied.
“Bullshit,” Ian spat, reaching his hand out for the piece of paper. He snatched it out of his hand, his eyes roving over the document.
Hostility came off him in agitated waves, growing stronger
as his attention darted over the words.
Mallory was still screaming, begging for me. My heart shattering and shaking.
How could I just stand there?
I had to do something.
Something.
Oh God, please, please help us.
In all his arrogance, Reed moved forward. “I went to pick my children up for their visit yesterday, and they were gone. Nowhere to be found. What else could I do?”
Ian was right.
Bullshit.
It oozed off Reed in nauseating pulses.
I wanted to puke.
Or fight.
Fighting seemed like a much better option. When he let my babies cry and wail and beg, and didn’t give what they were going through a thought.
Twisting out of Jace’s arm, I pushed around the officer and got in Reed’s face. “How could you do this? To your own children? This is ridiculous. We can . . . we can work out something.”
I was frantically scrambling to come up with a plan to waylay him. To assuage the situation.
I just . . . I just had to make him think he was getting his way.
“It’s too late for that, don’t you think, Grace? Considering the whole world knows my ex-wife is fucking her attorney?” He tsked. “Such an abuse of power, wouldn’t you think? Or is it you who was buying him off with the money you stole from me?”
Dizziness spun my heart, that nausea pushing at my throat.
This couldn’t be happening.
He had no proof. No proof.
I battled with my faltering spirit to regroup, to fight this man.
“You’re being absurd. I’m only here with him for safety. For the safety of my children. To protect them from you.”
His cold smirk only grew. “Huh, that’s not what the news is reporting right now.”
No.
No, no, no.
Dread dripped like ice into my veins.
Sickness clawed at my flesh.
The room spun, and my hand darted out to the doorframe to keep myself standing. “What did you do?”
“What I had to. You should do the same, Grace. Stop being a fool and get in my car with our children.”
Ian stepped in front of me. He pushed a hand behind him to keep me back, a physical shield. “She’s not going anywhere with you.”
All of Me: A Confessions of the Heart Stand-Alone Novel Page 33
