Page 78 of Inked in Devotion

“I’m not sure…”

I glanced at Dora while I spoke, “If she’s on anything that endangers Sebastian, I have the right to know.”

Lucy gasped and, like Sorcha, didn’t ask needless questions. “Got it.”

Dora thinned her lips before offering a brief nod.

I ended the call just as Sorcha arrived.

“Where’s Sebastian?” she asked, worry etched on her face.

“In the nursery.”

By this time, my heart and lungs were competing for space. “Look, I’m not defending how I blew up on Chloe,” I told Dora. “I should have heard her out...but I was trying to calm down.” Before I said words I couldn’t take back. I’d already done enough damage. Damage I wasn’t sure I could fix. My brain couldn’t even process what I’d said.

I dug the heel of my hand into an eye socket, trying to erase the vision of Sebastian choking. “I was trying to calm down,” I repeated. My nostrils flared. Then images of Chloe’s stricken face sent several stabbing sensations through my chest. “And…” I dragged in an almighty breath because the unfamiliar anxiety pulsing inside me was making it difficult to breathe. “I’m going after her.”

The mother of my son.

Chapter

Eighteen

Chloe

You’re a bad mother.

You’re endangering your son.

Finish it. Go away.

“You go away,” I sobbed. The windshield wipers were at maximum speed while the Ford sedan plowed through the sheets of rain. I jumped every time a skeleton of lightning split the sky. The pounding in my chest competed with the voices in my head.

They started a few days ago.

A whisper of doubt here.

A chiding voice of my shortcomings as Sebastian’s mother there.

A mocking laugh.

Therapy didn’t do shit. My desperate thoughts worsened. Finding out Kolya might have been promised to another, unmoored my growing attachment to him and left me floundering. Everything I’d built myself up to be so I didn’t suffer the same fate as Renée, crashed and burned. I ended up in the same place. I thought I could move past being an illegitimate daughter.

My son almost died.

Because I was his mother.

I was unworthy.

And I didn’t even know what happened. Did I black out? I was eating dinner. I had never eaten grapes in front of Sebastian.

You shouldn’t have bought them in the first place. They’re choking hazards.

I was losing my damned mind, wasn’t I? Rain lashed down around me, imprisoning me with condemning voices.

Maybe you’re in a dream? the voice taunted.

How sure are you this is real? You’re scared of storms. Why are you in it?