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“I know that, Mom.” I try to keep my voice light in front of Livie. “But we won’t stop trying, right, my lovely girl? No, we won’t.”
In the back rooms, I hear Lia gasping and cooing at how pretty the house is now. Livie has never said a word. She makes noises sometimes, especially when she cries, but even those are rare. She’s quiet. I tried not to worry at first, but when Lia started becoming a chatterbox and spilling a hundred words per second, I knew something was wrong. I hate to think of it that way. There’s nothing wrong with my daughter because we understand each other perfectly. She just doesn’t want the rest of the world to understand her.
“Mom, go back to West Virginia.” Caden’s voice is void of any emotion, not caring for even a split second what she thinks of him.
“And leave my granddaughters with a criminal? I don’t think so.”
I spin around, gritting my teeth, and yet it doesn’t stop the words from spilling. “You never minded leaving your children with a criminal and an abuser. I don’t see the problem now.”
She shakes her head, uncaring of what I have to say as she grabs a cigarette from the pack that is constantly glued to her hand.
“I did what I had to do to survive. Sacrifices had to be made. You wouldn’t understand.”
“I wouldn’t–I shot”—I mouth this word so Livie doesn’t hear—“the man I love to get back to my daughters. To protect them. What the fuck”—I forget to mouth that one—“do you know about sacrifices? You ran away, you stupid b–”
“Alright. Let’s go take a breather outside.” Caden gets between us, and I realize how close I had gotten to her. Threateningly close. I’m only realizing now my hand is fisted around her pack of cigarettes, my fingertips grazing her skin.
“You’re a coward,” I hiss low as Caden separates me from her. He walks me to the kitchen, and to the door that leads to the small porch on the side of the house.
My back is killing me. The girls are so heavy now that it’s not as easy as it used to be to carry them for as long as Livie likes to be carried. I take a step toward Caden, nudging her his way, and she lets go of me to go into his arms.
“Here we go,” he tells her. “Hey, pretty.”
She cuddles against his neck and puts her little thumb in her mouth. I stay quiet as I watch her midnight eyes close slowly. She doesn’t even try to fight it, sleeping comfortably in her uncle’s arms.
“The man you love, huh?”
I run my palms against my face and press my tear ducts with my middle fingers. “Please, Cade. Don’t.”
“He k—” He stops himself, holding himself back in front of his niece. Instead, he mouths the words “kidnapped you.”
“I know, thank you,” I answer, deadpan. “I was there.”
“Then act like it. I told you this was some sort of Stockholm syndrome shit.”
“Okay.” I shrug.
“Okay, what?”
“Okay. It’s Stockholm syndrome. There.”
“What?” he hisses. “Are you stupid? Take that shit back.”
“Why does it matter?” I rasp. “He’s d—” My own grief cuts me off, heavy in my chest, tight in my throat. “He’s dead.”
As my lower lip trembles, even the October cold wind can’t cool the waves of dread burning through my body. “I love him, and he’s dead.”
A tear rolls down my cheek, and I wipe it. I wipe the next one too, but I can’t wipe all of them. There are too many.
My brother looks at me like I’ve grown a second head. “You are Kayla King,” he says sternly. He pulls his head back, tilting it to the side to check if Livie is really sleeping. She is, so he continues without filters. “You’re independent, you’re a single mother who kills grown men who try to take her down. You owned the North Shore for years, led the Kings’ crew. This…” He points at my trembling form. “This isn’t you.”
“Or maybe it’s exactly me, Caden,” I cry. “Maybe I’m tired of being a leader and strong, and everything you all want me to be. Maybe I am this way because I was never given a choice. I was barely four when I had to grab a newborn, you, from my mother’s arms and go hide in a closet. Before ten, I had to take Dad’s hits to save you. When Mom left, I became responsible for you, and if I didn’t want to have other men besides my father hurt me, I had to show them I was just as strong as they were.”
The wind could freeze my tears if they weren’t falling so fast. I feel so depleted I can hardly take a breath without feeling pain.
“By day, I helped you with homework, and by night, I had to prove myself to Dad. And even that wasn’t enough. I killed to show that man I belonged in his crew. So I wouldn’t become one of the women he sent to the streets. And even that wasn’t enough. Nothing was enough. Not my strength, not my brains, nothing.”
Bile rises up my throat. “Do you know about the first time I spent a night with Nathan White? Because Dad sent me to broker a deal with NSC when he was in deep shit after refusing Nate’s offer. That same offer he took to NSC. I fixed his mistakes with my body and my sanity.”
