“You are nothing like your mother, fucking nothing like her. You’re my light, do you understand me? You’re the only thing that can show me the way when my own head tells me I’m not good enough, if you were anything like her, then you’d be dancing with the demons too.”
His intense stare strips me down, it bares every invisible scar and deep wound.
“That baby in your womb right now is going to be the most loved, cherished, protected child there is. Not because of me, or Malakai or Killian and Dean, notbecause of Olivia and Savannah, but because of you. Because of their mother.”
My sob splits the air, and my heart picks up a notch, thumping hard inside my chest.
“I’ve watched you, Willow. I’ve seen.”
“What do you mean?” I sniff.
“You don’t even know you do it, but the way you’re fiercely protective over that tiny bump shows. You watch always, protect yourself, not for you, but for them.” He reaches over and places his large hand over my stomach, “You love this baby more than you love yourself, you love them, and you don’t even know them yet. That to me tells me you’re nothing like the monster that raised you, you’re the very opposite.”
My eyes drop from his, “I killed her.” My secret spills free because the way he’s speaking… it’s ripping me apart. I trust him with this secret, but I wouldn’t blame him if his view of me changed.
“Good. If I could have done it, I would have.”
“What!?”
“You heard me, Willow, if I had been around and I had known what she was doing to you, I would have ripped her apart, whether she was your mother or not. No one touches you, hurts you, physically or verbally.”
“That’s it, that’s all you’ve got to say?”
“What do you want me to say?” He shrugs, “You want me to ask how you did it? Please tell me it was slow and painful because that’s all I really want to know. She deserved it.”
My lips part in shock, “It wasn’t quite like that.”
One blond brow quirks, “Then tell me, Wills, how exactly did you kill your mother?”
Chapter Thirty-three
Iwait for her answer, her wide blue stare, so open, so raw, stripping me to the bone. Anger vibrates through my body with no fucking way out. I can’t exactly resurrect her mother but if I could, I would make it a slow, painful death. I’d listen to her beg for mercy, but she’d find none with me.
I’m waiting on damned bated breath to hear the details about how she killed her. I want to know if she twisted the knife or pulled the trigger. I want to know if she fucking suffered.
“She had a heart attack.”
My eyes widen, “Sorry, what?”
Willow shivers in the passenger seat and while I know it isn’t from the cold, I start the engine anyway and blast the heat. It’s still warm from the journey here so it takes no time at all to start heating up the space around us.
“We were at home, she’d just forced me to take a shower,” She blinks slowly, “My skin was still bleeding from how hard she scrubbed me.”
My nails bite into my palms, fuck I needed to get this anger out. Soon.
“And after she made me go into the kitchen and get the vodka, she wanted me to drink it as a punishment but before she could force it down my throat she clutched her chest. I watched it happen, one minute she was fine and then next she was on her hands and knees…”
Willow blows out a breath, “She was reaching for me, she was so close too but I stepped back so she couldn’t touch me. She asked me to call an ambulance, but I didn’t. I just watched. It took no time at all really, she was alive and then she just wasn’t, but her eyes never left me, even after her heart stopped, she was staring at me, and I left her there. I was still in my towel, so I just went upstairs, and I got changed, I blow dried my hair and put on some makeup and then I went out, I met up with Olivia for dinner and I laughed. I laughed like nothing had happened.”
I reach for her hand, wrapping it in my much bigger one, finding it cold.
“And then I went home, and I don’t know if I expected it all to be a dream, but I was shocked to find her still on the kitchen floor. Her skin was grey, almost translucent and she was still staring at the spot where I had been standing. I’d never seen a dead body before, but I did expect to feel somethingmore, and yet I didn’t. I felt nothing.”
“And then what happened, Wills?”
“I phoned an ambulance, and I pretended to be hysterical. I was never questioned, and she just ceased to exist. ButIwas free. And that’s all I cared about.”
“Why do you thinkyoukilled her?” I question.
