Page 51 of Forced Proximity
“Don’t call me that,” he snapped.
My hand spasmed in his, and he must’ve realized how hard he was squeezing because he let my hand go.
I felt the loss like a blow.
Her eyes once again came to me, and I smiled, even though I wanted to scowl. How dare this woman file for divorce.
Did she not know the kind of person she left behind?
From what little time I’d spent with the man, I knew him to be so honest, caring, and compassionate.
Sure, he was a Truth Teller, and that was something I wasn’t willing to study too long at that moment in time, but he was a great man other than the obvious. And I didn’t like that he was looking so…wrong.
I liked the man that I’d met on the plane.
I liked the man that led me confidently through the woods with a baby strapped to his chest.
I liked the man that broke into a locked iPad and then found us a way home.
I liked the man that’d fought fiercely for a kid that wasn’t his, to make sure that that child would have a chance at a life without his abusive father in it.
What I didn’t like was the way he looked so…broken.
I stepped into him, my side brushing his, and he loosened his rigid stance slightly.
Her eyes came back to me once again, and her face fell slightly.
“What’s wrong with your dad?” Finnian asked.
“He…” She cleared her throat. “He’s having surgery this morning. Heart surgery. He has an almost ninety percent blockage, and they’re going to go fix that for him.”
Finnian nodded. “Hope the surgery goes well.”
She sucked in a breath and turned to leave, but stopped and turned back around and said, “I’m sorry I missed the funeral.”
“Why would you be sorry that you missed the funeral of your own son, Aurora?” he asked.
She crossed her arms over her chest and said, “I wasn’t trying to miss that. You know I loved Tavi. I’m sorry that I ignored all your calls, though. If I’d known…”
“If you’d known, you would’ve not turned a blind eye to what your mother had been doing to our son?” he rasped.
Whoa.
What was going on here?
“I had nothing to do with that, Apollo. I swear.” She drew in a deep breath. “I had no idea that she was hurting him. I thought that she was watching over him. She was supposed to call you to come pick him up. I turned off my phone for six months to try to heal from what you said.” She fisted her hands at her sides. “I would’ve never done that if I’d thought for even a second that she would mistreat him.”
“I told you for years that she was a fuckin’ batty bitch. Yet you only saw the good in your mother, even though both Bryson and I told you she was bad. You wouldn’t even listen to your own father. Then you dropped our son off with her.” He shook his head. “And our son was tortured at the hands of your mother. Can you honestly believe that I’d be nice to you after you came back and explained where you’d been? That you’d been taking a ‘mental health break’ and living in Costa Rica with absolutely no contact with the outside world? How could you think that that was okay? And the least you could’ve done was tell me where you’d dropped him off in your haste to get out of the country.”
My head felt dizzy at hearing Finnian’s words.
Tortured?
His son was tortured?
“But let’s just act like none of that happened. Let’s skip forward to when I did let you know how she acted, and you said, ‘my mother wouldn’t do that’ even when I gave you undeniable proof. Then you asked to spend time with our son even though he was absolutely terrified of women. Then when I wouldn’t give you that, you forced my hand and made me give you access to our son. So I had to comply, and when I did, he died because he was on the way to see you for the first time, terrified as hell because he didn’t want to be away from me.”
The woman had nothing to say to that.
