Page 34 of The Last Promise You Made

Ryder’s face turned dark with an anger I’d seen when he’d caught me in the ranch office. Except, this time, the fury wasn’t directed at me. It was directed at the woman who’d promised him everything before ripping it away.

While I couldn’t put myself in his shoes enough to empathize with him, I could sympathize. I’d had my blind love ripped away once by someone. No matter how much I’d insisted earlier that moving around could build resilience and independence, it had been cruel of Ravyn to do this. To make her daughter live this kind of life and to deny Ryder a child he would have showered with even more love than I’d seen him shower on his niece.

I lived in a world of grays, where black and white didn’t have a place, but even if Ravyn had lived, there would have been nothing she could have told me that would have justified this. It was just wrong.

Chapter Eleven

Ryder

WEIGHT OF YOUR WORLD

Performed by Chris Stapleton

When Ravyn had left, I’d been devastated. Sorrow deeper than anything I’d ever experienced in my life had filled my soul. And then, when I’d realized she’d stolen money from the ranch and taken our great-grandmother’s ring, I’d been furious, both at myself for trusting her and at her for using me. I’d felt duped. I’d felt like the biggest idiot to have ever been conned. Because that was what I’d seen it as—a con.

That fury was nothing compared to what raged through me at finding Addy asleep on a shelf behind the bar. It felt like a tornado was going to spin out of my chest, whip everything in the room up, and tear out of the house, through the fields, and into the sky.

I wanted to punish Ravyn. I wanted to inflict some kind of injury on her.

And yet, she was already dead.

My jaw worked overtime as I fought back frustration and rage and sadness so deep it felt like it had taken root in my soul.

I squatted, taking in the closed eyes of the little girl in front of me. Dark lashes against cheeks just shy of too thin. Soft pink lips barely parted. Hands clenched tight around her knees. She looked so sweet and so goddamn tormented.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

I went to pick her up, to move her, to carry her up to the blue-cloud room Mila loved, but Gia stopped me with a hand on my arm.

“You’ll scare her,” she whispered.

She motioned for me to come out from behind the bar. I looked from Addy to her and then rose, stepping away and saying, “I can’t leave her like that.”

“I can guarantee you she’s used to sleeping in worse places.”

“Worse? Than a fucking shelf?”

“I think it was Ravyn’s way of keeping her safe in case something happened while Ravyn was sleeping.”

“Don’t even try to justify this with damn talk of resilience.”

Gia shook her head violently. “I’m not agreeing with what she did. But what I am saying is, given the circumstances they were in, at least she was concerned enough to teach her how to stay alive.”

Noise behind me had me turning my head to find Addy standing at the edge of the bar, rubbing tired eyes. She couldn’t have slept for longer than a handful of minutes. Her eyes were so shadowed they looked bruised. When was the last time she’d had a full night’s sleep? Had she ever had one?

Maddox had found Mila at one year old, in a dirty diaper, filth all around her, and yet finding Addy like this somehow felt worse. I wasn’t sure how my brother had ever dealt with Mila’s biological mom face-to-face after that without wanting to kill her.

As much as I’d hated Ravyn for what she’d done to me, I hadn’t put her in the same category as Mila’s mom. Maybe I’d loved Ravyn too much to call her what she actually was. Maybe I’d wanted to justify my love. Maybe I hadn’t wanted to believe I could love evil.

But God…what I felt right now…

I stepped toward Addy, lowering myself on my haunches to meet her gaze straight on.

“I want you to know…you never have to sleep like that again.” I tilted my head toward the bar. “Ever.” My voice shook, and the emotion in it seemed to cause her to retreat into herself. I forced myself to stay calm. “The bed in the room I showed you? That’s yours. I promise you you’ll always be safe there. Always.”

---