That’s the last time I felt this level of rage.
I make myself breathe. Unclench my fists and jaw. Let my shoulders down.
“Dodo Ono pway!” Bash says, running to the back door. “Dodo Ono pway dick-dicks!”
“Yolko Ono needs to stay inside.” She’s so even-keeled, like this didn’t bother her at all.
And it probably didn’t.
To her, this is probably normal.
And that pisses me off all over again.
“Why don’t you tell Jonas all of the other chickens’ names?” she says to Bash.
“Does he do that a lot?” I ask, forcing myself to match her calm while Bash ignores the request and runs around shrieking with the chickens, scaring half of them.
“He stops by every now and again.”
“Does he leave when you tell him to?”
“He’s a sad, lonely narcissist who will never understand that he’s the problem. He’s rarely as big of a problem as he is when he thinks he has competition. And when heisa problem, I call Laney or Sabrina on speakerphone, and he tends to leave.”
There’s too much to unpack there quickly. So I hone in on the biggest lingering question that I have. “Defineevery now and again.”
“Jonas, you’ve been very kind to take care of us while we’re sick, butI can handle my life. I don’t have to answer to you about how I live and who I associate with.”
It takes me one very deep breath before I’m calm enough to answer again. “He sets off all of my alarm bells.”
“Thank you for your concern, but let me assure you, if I ever had reason to believe Bash was in danger, I’m fully capable of handling everything.”
Something new flashes in her brown eyes, and it takes a minute for her full message to penetrate the fog of my fury that people like Chandler Sullivan even get to exist.
She’d handle him.
She would.
Quickly, efficiently, and with no evidence left.
I swallow.
Swallow again.
I think I’m turned on.
Yep.
Definitely turned on.
Hard not to be at realizing what my son’s mother would do to protect him.
I’m also simultaneously feeling completely impotent.
Becausemyway of handling this, after I beat him to a pulp, would’ve been to let my security team clean it up.
Hers would likely involve calling friends with shovels and doing it herself.
“Really didn’t think I’d ever see the day chickens would scare him as much as bees do,” Lucky says off-handedly as he strolls back around the side of the house.
