My spirit thrashed. “What are you saying?”
“Your mother belonged to me. She was mine. The first one. The only one I cared to love. Big mistake.”
Sorrow pinched my eyes. I tried to fight it. Not to show any weakness in front of this disgusting man.
“I found her, homeless, living like gutter trash with a baby pressed to her tit. Wasn’t all that hard to get her under my roof and into my bed. Only mistake I made was not treating her like the rest. Treating her like she was special. But that’s what happens when you let someone get under your skin.”
Everything drew tight, the air thin, the world spinning. “How?”
Brilliant.
But I couldn’t get anything else out.
Everything crashing. I was struck with the realization that I’d known nothing, and it’d been right there under my nose all along.
Bitterness twisted up his face. “She took off with you and your whiny brother when you were just two weeks old. I’d hunt her down, drag her home, and then she’d do it all over again. Refusing the life I offered, instead thinking she was giving you a better one. What bullshit. She was a junkie, just like the rest. A whore. She never changed.”
Rage coiled. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He shrugged a shoulder. “After your brother got arrested, she came crawling back. It’d been twelve fucking years since I’d seen her, and there she was, begging at my door, willing to do anything to put a roof over your head. I put her back to work, not because I gave a fuck about her any longer, but because my son was finally home.”
Grief creaked through my bones.
Forever and ever.
“You were responsible from the get go? Got her hooked on drugs?” My face pinched. “Fucking pimped her out?”
My mind was adding up the fucked puzzle faster than my spirit could tolerate it.
Could feel it, splitting me in two.
Gutting.
Gutting.
I struggled to breathe.
“A woman’s a lot easier to control when you’re the one holding that control. Don’t you get that? Which is why that bitch you’ve taken up with has got to go. I won’t let her destroy what I’ve built. What I’ve built for you.”
Disgust boiled in the pit of my stomach. “I want nothing to do with you.”
A scoff bled from him. “Don’t be dramatic, Ian. I’ve been shaping you into who you were supposed to be for years. You weren’t ready to hear it. Not until now. Now it’s time to take your place. Reed and his ex-wife have become an issue. Now you’re going to fix it—end it—sweep it under a rug and make sure it disappears, and then you’re going to take your place at my side.”
“You’re delusional.”
Bile swam on my tongue, and I sucked the bitter taste down. “My mother—”
“Was in my way.”
Wrong. Not delusional. He was just a monster.
“She came to me, begging for help like the pathetic piece of garbage she’d always been, and then turned around and actually thought she was in control. Making demands of me. Ordering me to stay away from you.”
Ruthlessness oozed from his pores.
He lifted his chin and uttered the words like a slogan, “Bitches who don’t obey need to bleed.”
Agony sheared through my chest. Splitting me in two. Taking up the empty space was a horror and a rage unlike anything I’d ever known.
“What did you just say?”
His laughter was hatred. “Your mother would have done anything for you. Including fight me. That was her first mistake.”
My head shook. “You’re a liar.”
“And you’ve always been a fool.”
My mama’s voice flooded my mind. “Ian, you stay away from that man, do you hear me? He’s not good.”
Anguish.
It constricted and mashed.
Tightening around my ribs.
No air found.
Suffocating.
“You killed her.”
He shrugged like it didn’t matter. “Well, I ordered it. Reed did the job. The first I gave him. I needed to make sure he understood he worked for me. That I would ruin him and his family. He had a thing for my women, you see, and I had a need for him. It was a win-win.”
The pictures on the computer.
That’s all it’d been.
Years of twisted blackmail.
My knees weakened, and I stumbled, the voice coming off my tongue a pained groan. “Mama.”
Oh god.
My mother.
Forever and ever.
Savage words impaled my ears. “She was stupid enough to threaten me, saying she was going to go to the police with what was happening at the apartments if I didn’t stay away from you. Problem was, you’d always belonged to me, Ian. I had no choice but to take matters into my own hands.”
His head slowly shook. “It’s time you stop pretending that you’re different than me. That you’re better. Stop pretending you have morals when we both know your hands are just as dirty as mine.”
He took another step closer, his voice dropping. “You’re just like me. My blood runs through your veins. My heart is yours. I gave it to you. I shaped you. Now it’s time to accept who you are.”