Page 19 of Lies He Told Me (Bratva Crime Syndicate 1)

The door bursts open. So much for the lock.

“I’m gonna …” Damon stops, trails off, seeing Mom half up.

I find my voice. “He tried to rape me.”

Mom’s face looks ghostly, her eyes half lidded. Is she even actually awake?

“Mom? Did you hear me?” Her glassy gaze slides over to Damon, then back to me.

I get on my feet. “Mom? I mean it this time. I can’t take this anymore. I can’t. It’s either him or me. Either he goes, or I do.”

I can’t believe my eyes. She sits there, staring out at the wall.

Like she can see everything and nothing all at once in the peels of paint. I stand there, gape at her, wait for her to respond.

A moment, an eternity passes. Outside, something wails, long and high.

I grab her, shake her harder than I expected, so hard I’m surprised I can’t hear the rattling of her bones, though I can feel them under my clenched fingertips.

Still, she doesn’t move.

I jolt away, horrified. With her, with myself, with this whole insane situation.

But Mom just sits there.

All I can do is stand and wait, as if she’s an eight-ball that still might give me another answer, the one I’m hoping for instead of the harsh, ugly reality that’s demanding that I look it in the eye. But I can’t do that, not yet. Not while there’s still hope for my mom to snap to her senses.

So I wait.

Wait for those dull eyes to brighten, that vacant look to sharpen.

For my fucking mother to see me—see the daughter she cooked a birthday cake we can’t afford, who’s been through it all with her, who she could never, ever,evereven thinking of losing. What does she always say—that nothing in this big, stupid world is more important than her little girl? I’ve heard it countless times. I always believed her.

But right now, when it matters most?

Nothing.

The creak of our floor is the only change. Damon’s stepped forward, Damon who—just,ugh. Mom stays catatonic. Practically lifeless. I’ve seen statues more lively and dynamic than her right now.

She isn’t gonna move. So I realize, with Damon’s next step, that there’s only one thing for me to do.

So I do it.

I leave the way I came in:run, run, run, run. As fast as I can, don’t stop, don’t even think of stopping.

Just run. I grab my Kodiak backpack, the one I’ve had half stuffed with clothes for years, almost like I knew this moment was going to come and that it was going to go exactly like this.

Just run—out the door, down the hall. Someone’s barking, something near? Doesn’t matter. Run, around the corner, past open apartments that never sleep.

Run, run, run.

Outside, fresh air swipes me in the face as the front door groans closed behind me. My legs jar to a stop. I take another breath of fresh air. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Run, go, now!

But I stand there for another few seconds, as the realization of what I’ve done smacks around the inside of my head. I’ve left my money. Left my home.

It doesn’t matter. I can’t go back.

---