I’m reconsidering my no-murder suggestion. Right now, I want to take a baseball bat to my mother’s face and tear her limb from limb.
“You bitch,” Sydney rasps. “That baby was your grandchild.”
“I didn’t want any grandchild with Michelle’s conniving DNA,” she screeches, straining against her restraints.
The irony is astounding.
“How are you so sane?” Xavier asks, looking almost perplexed. “Be thankful you seem to have more of your father in you.”
“Which leads us nicely to the last segment of the day,” Sawyer drawls, and it’s official. My life has turned into a soap opera. “Tell Jared what you did to his father.”
“Jesus,” Syd whispers in my ear. “I don’t think I can take any more.”
I sweep hair behind her ears and kiss her quickly. “Tell me about it. I’m not sure I’ll be able to walk out of here when we’re done. My mind is reeling.”
Mum scoffs, reclaiming our attention. “I murdered your father,” she says in the same way one would comment flippantly on the weather.
I squeeze my eyes closed, and I think I may have reached my breaking point.
“What did you do to Amos?” Herman asks, disbelief threading through his tone. It’s evident from his surprise that he didn’t know about the abortion or this.
“It was his fault.” She holds her head up high. “I told him if he ever divorced me I’d kill him. He was mine, and he lost sight of it.”
“How did you do it?” I clip out, resting my face against Syd’s arm.
“I injected him with medication that created an arrhythmia, lowered his heart rate, and induced cardiac arrest.” Her evil laugh bounces off the walls. “It was so fucking easy. The coroner didn’t find the injection site between his toes. Geriatric moron.”
Slowly, I lift Sydney off my lap onto the couch and get up. No one stops me as I approach my mother and slap her across the face repeatedly. She deserves worse.
“What do you want to do?” Sawyer asks. “It’s your call. If you want her dead, we’ll make her disappear. If you want her charged for her crimes, we’ve been recording her confession, and I have an FBI contact friend on standby. He can have a team here within the hour.”
“Don’t you dare, Jared,” Gladys threatens.
“I need to think about it,” I say, reaching for Sydney.
She takes my hand, and I pull her to her feet. We are silent as I lead her out into the hallway and close the door behind us. “What do you think I should do?” I ask, leaning back against the wall and pulling her into my arms.
“The part of me that aches for our lost baby wants to gut that bitch from head to toe and feed her remains to sharks.”
“But death is an easy way out.”
“Yeah.”
I’m not surprised we’re on the same wavelength.
“But it’s more than that. I don’t want her death on your conscience, J. Although we have justifiable reasons for killing her, that’s not who we are. Who you are. We’d be no better than her if we start making life-or-death judgment calls. I say we hand her over to the FBI. Let them throw the book at her.”
“It will garner global interest because of who I am.”
“We’ll handle it. It’ll be a shit show with this and the Vittoria news, but then it will die down, and hopefully we can live out the rest of our days without drama.”
“I think we’ve used up a lifetime’s quota today.”
“I’m in complete shock and in a lot of denial,” she admits.
“I’m the same. I don’t know how I feel about most of it.”
“It’s a lot to process. I thought my dad was behind everything.”
