Page 99 of The Locksmith's Promise

Eyes wide, he stared up at me.

And so did everybody else.

Ignoring the rest of them, I forcefully lowered my voice, but it didn’t do all that much to soften my words, “Are you fucking crazy? You could have been killed.”

“I’m a really good shot, Bax,” Mickey ventured from behind me.

I turned slowly, catching Maggie in my peripheral vision. “If you want to handle a weapon, any kind of weapon,” I bit out, my voice shaking, “you do it safely. You never fucking point a weapon at anyone, you understand me?”

He dipped his chin. “Yes, sir.”

“How did you get the bow and arrow? They were locked up after the contest.”

Mickey’s lips tightened but he refused to answer.

I blew out a breath and turned back to my own son.

Maggie stood beside him with her arm around his shoulders, murmuring softly in his ear.

But his eyes were on me.

“Sorry, Dad,” he murmured, holding out one of my lock-picking tools.

For fuck’s sake.

Apple meet tree.

Sucking in a deep breath, I practically growled on the exhale. “Never put yourself in danger like that. A bow and arrow is a weapon like any other. Would you stand in front of a loaded gun? Point a loaded gun at Mickey? At your mom?”

His eyes widened as he swallowed roughly.

“You’re scaring him, Bax,” Maggie snapped, mouth tight, grip tightening.

“Scaring him?” I asked, my eyebrows taking flight as my voice rose. “Good. He should be scared. Did you see what they were doing? He just knocked ten years off my life and could have lost his!”

Pale, eyes wide, she held her palms up as if to fend me off. “Please, just—” She shook her head. “We don’t yell at Corwin, Bax.”

My jaw dropped in the face of her calm while my face flamed at her words.

We don’t yell at Corwin.

I also heard what she didn’t say.

We don’t lock him out of the house.

We don’t pin him to a dirty carpet and burn him with a cigarette.

We don’t whip him with the buckled end of our belt.

“Of course,” I rasped, backing away just as readily. “I’m sorry.”

What the fuck did I know about raising a child?

Especially one I’d only known a handful of weeks.

Corwin looked on with eyes wide.

Mickey moved closer to him.

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