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.”