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When I look back at my mother, her eyes are brimming with tears. “After everything I’ve done for you. After how I raised you alone, with no support. With no help from anyone. This is how you repay me, Sadie? By letting a psychopath tie me to a chair and threaten me?”
I lift a shoulder and harden my heart against the guilt that wants to rear its head. She doesn’t get my guilt, not about this. “If you’d told me about Dr. Schwab when I called, you wouldn’t be here. Swift is just trying to find answers for me. Answers that you have. Now, what did you let that man do to me?”
She blinks at me, all innocence. “What man?”
“Dr. Schwab, though we know that’s not his real name.” Her teeth sink into her bottom lip and I can tell she won’t tell me. “Okay, how about I tell you what we already know and you can just fill in the blanks? If you still feel like keeping secrets, I will leave and you will be alone with Swift. I’m pretty sure he’s not going to just… calmly ask you questions.”
Her face blanches. “You’d let him torture your mother?”
“I’d let him try to figure out what was done to me,” I concede. “His methods are his own.”
I hope like hell she can’t see the lie in my face, because she needs to believe me. She needs to think I might actually leave her here alone with Swift. That I might actually let him hurt her.
“When I was eight, you took me to a doctor, not Dr. Schwab, and he told you I was sick with something and referred you to Dr. Schwab. After that, I went to him twice a month for twelve years, until I was twenty, almost to the day. During that time, a battery of tests were run on me. I was given blood transfusions and never once did you tell me what was wrong with me…” I glance at Swift again to find him staring at me, his gold eyes piercing. “It took me a while to realize why that was. Why you wouldn’t tell me what I was sick with, but now I know it’s because I was never sick to begin with.”
Swift’s brows crunch down over his eyes, and a wave of smoky, burnt coconut hits me. “What was that, Cherrybomb?”
“I was never sick,” I repeat, keeping my gaze on my mother. “I didn’t feel sick. Not before you took me to the doctor. I felt fine. Totally normal. I only started feeling ill after they gave me whatever medication they were pumping into my veins. ”
“Don’t be ridiculous Sadie. Of course you were sick.” Her blue eyes run over me. “You’re still sick, sweetheart. You should go to see Dr. Schwab. Let him check you out and make sure you presenting as an omega so late in life hasn’t brought on another round of your illness.”
Anger boils in my stomach, making my scent just as smoky and sharp as Swift’s, a cherry pie that’s bubbled over in the oven, the sugar burning. “You mean the man you told me is Dr. Schwab, but is actually someone else? Some lying asshole who spent years running experiments on me? I should go see him?”
My mother lets out a weary breath. “Such an imagination on you.”
“I’m not imagining things,” I hiss, anger swelling before it crumbles. “Please, just tell me what I need to know. Tell me so I don’t have to let him hurt you. Please.”
A warm hand settles at the base of my spine. Swift leans into me and presses a soft kiss to my temple. “She’s not going to talk to you, Cherrybomb. Let me do what I do, okay? Let me figure this out for you.”
I swallow thickly, tears in my eyes. “At least tell us where Dr. Schwab is. We can have him tell us instead.”
“You mean you’ll torture your doctor instead of me?”
“Yes,” I hiss out. “Yes, that is what I mean. Please.”
She shakes her head. “I can’t, Sadie. I can’t. They’ll… they’ll kill me. Kill you. Kill everyone we love.” Next to me, Swift tenses at her dire prediction, but a second later he’s gone liquid again, pure feral grace..
“We’re going to find out,” he assures her. “Its only a matter of time. And when we do, no one will lay a finger on Cherrybomb. You, on the other hand.” He grins at her wickedly. “You, I’ll leave to the wolves. Might as well tell us what we want to know. And maybe you’ll have a chance of surviving. Maybe we’ll find it in our hearts to protect you, too.”
I crouch down in front of her, resting my hands on her pajama cover thighs. “Please, mom.”
She looks at me, and it’s like a mask slips over her face. I always knew my mother resented me to some extent. She got pregnant with me at seventeen, had me when she was eighteen. I’m not sure how that’s my fault and not her own, but in her eyes, I fucked up her life. I’m the unwanted burden.
She’s always been good at hiding it. At pretending that she cared about me, actually gave a shit… At least in front of other people. Maybe she doesn’t feel like she needs to in front of Swift. He’s all but told her he’s going to hurt her, torture her.
But if she knew anything at all about my psycho of an alpha, it’s that hurting me is a surefire way to bring out the monster in him. I’ve seen flashes of it, even against his own pack. The knife pressed to Luca’s throat when Luca demanded I would have his babies. The low, vicious growl of his voice when he thought a member of his pack caused the bruise on my temple.
I know Swift will sink deep into his monstrous side in order to get my revenge. Even against my own mother.
“You ruined my life,” she whispers at me. “I went from being a teenager with no fucking responsibilities to a mother with one stupid mistake. I knew I should have aborted you.” Swift lets out a snarl vicious enough that my mother flinches away from him, but she keeps her steely eyes on me. “You’re such a disappointment, Sadie. Look at you. Letting this psycho tie me to a chair. Letting him threaten to torture me. I don’t know why I’d expect anything different from you.”
“Okay,” Swift says, sounding cheery as hell, and not at all like my mother just told me she wishes I’d never existed. “I think that’s enough. You’re stressing out my omega, and that’s not something I can allow.”
Swift’s fingers hook under my armpits and haul me to my feet easily. My legs dangle in the air as he turns me toward his body, hugging me into his chest. One arm hooks under my butt, holding me up and the other cups the back of my head, pressing my nose into his neck. I take a deep inhale of his boozy beach scent, letting it soothe me. My arms creep around his shoulders and my legs part around his hips as he walks me over to the table covered with… Tools. It looks like a worktable in a garage. Though everything is so clean they shine, and they’re laid out in some form of organization that I can’t quite understand, but I’m sure Swift does.
He slides me onto the only clear part of the table, staying pressed against me. “It’s okay, Cherrybomb,” he murmurs into my hair. “I promise everything’s gonna be okay.” He pulls back just enough to look down at me. “I’m gonna go to work now. Do you want to stay? Or should I call Luca and have him come down and get you?”
I swallow thickly, my eyes trying to dart over to my mother, but Swift shifts, keeping my gaze on his gold eyes, his beautiful face. “Tell me, omega.”
