Page 59 of Severed Rivalry
“Why would he scare us?”
She uses her whole hand to wash air around her face. “It’s bad. He’s bad off.” Her face falls. “It’s my fault. Well, no. It’s my prick of a father’s fault. But Cian came because I needed him.” Her words spill from her lips as if she’s spent days holding them behind the dam of her lips. “Plastic surgery to his eye first, then the implants.”
At my questioning look, she continues, “He needs four teeth implanted, but the jaw bone has to be stabilized first. They think the measures they’ve taken are enough they won’t have to break and set his jaw. That’s supposed to be terribly painful. Not that it’s not right now. I’m not medical, so take this with a grain of salt.”
She paces and talks with her hands as the words continue to flow. “He’s struggling. And he misses you. And he’d thump me for saying that, but it’s Ci. You know how he is. He’s all in with his people. And he’s all in with you.” She looks over my shoulder down the hall. It doesn’t take much as she’s got several inches on me. “And he’s impressed with her.”
Her smile matches my own when I say, “She’s impressive.”
“She is. When I got here, she was freaked.” She extends her hands as if I need to be calmed, and in part, I do. “Sorry. But she was. She refused to let Liam in.”
I am proud and disturbed at this. Proud that she stood up for herself and held that boundary. Sad that she knew he was safe and still couldn’t relax.
Ayla continues, “By the time I got here, he was cold from sitting on the stoop and mumbling about teenage girls and hormones. Little does he know, right?” She continues before I can answer. “She let us both in when the pizza got here, which is to say, when she was comfortable we were who we said we were and that we wouldn’t hurt her. Liam spent most of the time trying to find your mom but didn’t have any luck. He took off after he knew Sherman had found you.”
I open my mouth but my stomach growls in the silence of the kitchen.
“Pizza in the fridge. Three different kinds. My husband doesn’t know how to do normal. And there are cookies in the microwave.”
I scrunch my face in question. “Microwave?”
She shrugs. “It’s just what we’ve always done. I don’t know why.”
I open the door to the unit and grab the pink box and flip the lid. Breaking one in half, I inhale the iced sugar cookie and almost moan. It’s so sweet it shouldn’t be good, but lunch was a day ago or so my stomach thinks. “Damn that’s good.”
“Ci doesn’t do normal either.”
“Mom?” My girl comes in, fully showered with wet hair, in long pajamas. She burrows into my side and wraps both arms around my waist.
“I see why my brother is smitten,” Ayla says.
“He told me he never fell out of love with my mom,” Renée offers the woman before me.
I go perfectly still. He did say that, but I don’t think it was supposed to get back to him via his sister.
Her face goes from shocked to beaming. “I love that. Your mom and my brother… That sounds weird to say. But they were great together. I hope they find their way back to each other.”
“Me too,” says the voice at my side.
Me three.
But it’s way too early to think that.
18
helium and concrete
Cian
The thing about the drugs dulling my senses is they also dulled the pain. And they let me—or forced me to—sleep.
The thing about not taking them is I hurt like a motherfucker. My face feels like it was pumped full of helium and concrete. It keeps getting bigger and bigger on my neck, but heavier and heavier at the same time. It’s fucking miserable.
Even the slightest movement means pain rips through me, sizzling along nerve endings.
Sleep eludes me.
Sariah called after Ayla left. We ended up texting because talking hurt so damn bad. She spit angry words about the arrest, was horrified that she’d been taken into custody, much less when her daughter and mom needed her most, and cried over feeling so powerless with everything surrounding her.
