Twisted in Chains

  “And what a great job you’re doing with him. His language is fucking awful.”

  She laughed. “Seriously, you’re going to come here out of the blue, and start yelling at me? You want to judge me for what happened?”

  He turned his back toward her, and began pacing. “This is not what you were supposed to have. You were always meant to have something more. You had college, an entire life in front of you.”

  She looked around her small space, and up until he’d criticized it, she had thought that she’d been doing really well. Every spare moment she worked to give her Killian a better life.

  “I’m doing fine. You can leave, Killian. I don’t know why you’re even here, but whatever it is, I don’t need you.”

  “Don’t need me? You’re living in a shithole with my son. You think for a second this is okay? Why the fuck didn’t you reach out to me? I could have provided for you, and given you all the help you n—”

  All of her life she had been the calm person, the respectful one. She rarely raised her voice, and the cops had even told her she wasn’t hard enough on her son. Everything she had been through, from the loneliness, the hard labor, and everything in between. The men at the diner who had offered her more cash for her to suck their cock, or to let them fuck her ass. She’d had to grow up fast, and drop any notion of life being easy.

  She had turned men down politely, even as they made her skin crawl. Everything she had gone through, and Killian thought it was fixed with just a phone call.

  Picking up the nearest lamp, which had so many chips in it, she launched it at him. He didn’t have time to catch it as it slammed into his middle. Next, she grabbed a coaster and threw it at him.

  “Provided for me? Do you even know what I went through? The moment I found out, I tried to find you! But you know what, Killian? You were nowhere to be found. There was no contact information for you at your college, at your job. You completely vanished into thin air, so don’t you fucking dare for a second try to turn this on me. I tried to find you. I was eighteen, the love of my life had just left me without any reason, and then I was pregnant. I was terrified!” She yelled the last part, and tears spilled down her cheeks.

  For months, even years, she had thought about this moment so many times. In her fantasies, they had all been a lot nicer, a lot easier to deal with. They had talked, and everything had been fine.

  Wrapping her arms around herself, she stared at the man who had broken her in more ways than she had thought possible. This was the man who had changed her life in ways she hadn’t been able to comprehend at the time.

  He stared at her, and neither of them spoke. She was panting, and trying her hardest not to fall apart. Nausea filled her, and finally, she turned her back on him, needing to go and see her Killian.

  Standing in the doorway of her son’s bedroom, he was reading his book.

  “I love you, Mom,” he said.

  “Oh, honey, I love you, too.”

  So much. More than you can ever know.

  End of sample chapter

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