“Sir,” my father says, stepping in front of me. “I don’t know who you are, but….”
“She knows me.” He turns to look at my mother, who has tears falling down her face. “Isn’t that right, Angelica?”
“Don’t do this,” my mother pleads. “Not now.”
He shrugs. “A debt is owed.”
“Angie,” my father shouts. “What the fuck is this about? What debt?”
Mother takes a step closer, but stops as sobs shake her shoulders. “I did it for us. You were going to leave. I had to save my baby.”
I am even more confused.
“What baby, Mama? What are you talking about?”
Her sad gaze lands on me. “I had you too soon. No matter what the doctors did, they couldn’t save you. You were going to die.” I knew a little about this. I’d seen the pictures of me in the incubator. My mother often referred to me as her miracle baby. Hell, even my name means miracle.
“I knew that if you died,” mother explains. “Your father would leave me. I couldn’t let him go. There was no other option. I had to ring the bell.”
She still wasn’t making sense. What the hell did a bell have to do with anything?
“What bell?” I ask.
“She made a deal with me.” The handsome stranger waves his hand through the air, and a single piece of paper appears out of the blue. A few gasps go up around the room. The man takes the paper out of the air and hands it to my father.
“The agreement,” he goes on to say. “Was, if I saved your life and kept your father in hers, she would give me whatever I wanted. And now, I’m finally here to collect my debt.”
“Is this legit?” Jamieson asks my father.
Daddy doesn’t respond, instead, he hands the paper over to Jamieson with a frown on his face.
Daddy looks over at my mother. “How could you?”
Mumbles fill the air. Words like shady and manipulative float around the room. I felt sick to my stomach.
“You trifling, bitch,” Vanessa shouts. “You sold your soul to the devil to keep a man that was never yours.”
The stranger chuckles. “Don’t call me the devil. That pussy could never be me.”
My mother sobs as she reaches for my father. He takes a step back out of her reach. The devastation in her gaze almost makes me feel bad for her.
“I did it for us,” she tries to explain to him again.
Jamieson balls the paper up and tosses it at the stranger’s feet.
Father shakes his head as he gives the man his attention. “What do you want? What does she owe you? If it’s money, I’m here to tell you—”
The guy waves away my father’s words. “I don’t want your money.”
“Then what do you want?” Jamieson snarls.
Those dark brown, intense eyes turn to me. My heart races, and those stupid butterflies flutter.
“No,” my father shouts. “You’re not taking my baby.”
The man snarls, his once normal eyes turn pitch black. There is no longer any white. Plumes of black smoke rise from his head.
“You think you can deny me what is rightfully mine.”
