Page 87 of Treacherous

"You and me," she mumbled, red-faced, shifting onto her knees to face me. "We just…you said you…you know I…but I don’t want any part ofthat."

Teagan didn’t deserve this.

She deserved better than me.

I needed to let her go, but I knew in my heart I wasn’t going to…

I closed my eyes and inhaled a deep breath.

"I do what I do to keep my mother in rehab. She's schizophrenic and a recovering heroin addict." The words just spilled from my mouth in a rush and I couldn’t look at Teagan to take her measure. I kept my eyes closed as I told Teagan more than I'd dared tell anyone in my life.

"My stepfather runs a disreputable business that I've been dragged into. I'm his best fighter, and if I win my fights George pays the monthly fee it costs to keep my mother facilitated." I couldn’t believe she'd managed to get me to talk. Fuck, I should know better than to tell her, but I just…I wanted to open up to her. I wanted Teagan to know I wasn’t all bad. I couldn’t tell her everything – all my reasons – but I needed her to know that I didn’t have any other choice in this. "If I don’t fight…well let's just say they have ways of making me."

I kept my eyes shut, waiting for the sound of a car door slamming to let me know Teagan had left.

It didn’t come.

Instead, I felt two small hands touch my shoulders seconds before a body landed on my lap. "Thank you, Jesus," she whispered before pressing her lips to mine and I opened my eyes in surprise.

"Thank you, Jesus?" I asked in confusion, pulling back to stare at her. Teagan was sitting on my lap with her hazel eyes wide and locked on mine.

She nodded her head and sighed in relief. "You have no choice," she said in a relieved tone. "This isn’t who you are – who you want to be."

"No, it's not," I husked, pulling her closer. "But it's my reality."

Teagan shook her head in obvious confusion. "But, Noah, I had a neighbor," she told me. "Back home in Ireland – Clare. She's schizophrenic and lives a good life with her husband Joe. She has a career and a mortgage and a…"

"A three grand a day heroin habit?" I offered dryly, knowing Teagan wasn’t getting it.

She could never get it unless she'd lived my life and witnessed what I had.

"No," Teagan mumbled, red-faced. "She doesn’t have that…" Her voice trailed off as her locked eyes on mine. "Why would he do that?"

"Why wouldwhodo that?"

"George," she told me in an impatient tone before sighing in obvious frustration. "Why would he do that to his wife – to you?"

"Because he can, Teagan," I muttered, feeling both angry and uncomfortable. Her questions were skirting dangerously close to a topic I was not willing to talk about. "Can we leave it at that?"

"But none of this makes sense, Noah." Teagan shook her head and frowned. "Why would he treat her that way?"

****

Teagan

I was trying really hard not to freak out, but the more I thought about the shitty way Noah had been treated for quite possibly the majority of his life the angrier I felt. "If you're mother's as sick as you say," I mumbled. "You know, with the drugs and stuff, then why did they get married?"

"Why do old guys marry younger women?" Noah shot back tightly. "Looks and submission, Teagan."

I'd been wrong about Noah. All this time I'd thought… when he was nothing like Ellie or her father…wait. "Is Ellie really George's daughter?" I asked him all of a sudden.

Noah brows rose in surprise. "Yes," he drawled slowly. "Why would you ask that?"

I shrugged awkwardly. "After what you've just told me, it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if she was his second wife or something screwed up like that."

Noah's eyes darkened, but when he blinked he was back to me. "That's gross, Teagan," he grumbled. "She's his youngest child – daddy's little girl – there to do her father's dirty work and get all thestaffon board…"

"He has more children than Ellie?"

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