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“Izzy doesn’t have any grandparents,” I insist.
If that hurts, it doesn’t register on her face. “The Callaghans have a lot of money,” she continues, “and they want to give her some of it. As they should. I was helping. I knew you’d be too stubborn to hear them out, so I did what I had to do for my granddaughter.”
“What is it they want in return for all of this money, Mother?” I ask tightly.
“Shared custody.” She waves toward the main part of the diner. “You’re busy with all of this. It would be a relief for you. And much better for her. Think of that place you live in.”
“What? So the person the Callaghans paid to break in didn’t think much of it? Excuse me if I’m not impressed.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” she insists with flat lips. “But I’m guessing you don’t live anywhere nice. You’ve been working at this place for years. It would be better for her if she spent half her time with them. If you had the support to find a better situation.”
“And I’m guessing it would also be better for you?”
“I wanted to help them because Isabella’s my grandbaby,” she insists. “They’re going to let me see her too. We all want to help you, Ruthie, but you’re too stubborn to accept help from anyone.
“How much money did they pay you?”
“It’s not about the money,” she lies.
“So, what? They paid you to help them make sure Izzy was their granddaughter instead of, I don’t know, fucking asking me?”
“You’re crude and stubborn,” she says, her lips trembling. It’s not from sadness, though. She looks angry, like I’m fucking up this awesome situation she wandered into. “They made the right choice. You never would have listened to reason.”
“And you’re going to jail. Maybe they’ll only keep you for a few days. Maybe longer. But you’re going, and I’m not going to do anything to save you. Them either. I’m going to see to it that they’re prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Izzy is their granddaughter, but they’ll never know her.”
“You’re a fool,” she seethes, gripping my arm so tightly I can feel the bones in her fingers. Edging closer, she floods me with the scent of alcohol barely covered by cheap perfume. Her eyes are shrewd and cruel, her grip punishing. “You’re nothing but a stupid little whore. The only thing you ever had talent at was spreading your legs.”
I feel him coming before his hand descends on my arm, plucking hers away as if it’s nothing, as if it didn’t feel like a shackle made of bone seconds before.
I glance over to see Shane and Danny beside me. For a second I’m worried about Izzy—the Callaghans are after her, and they might know by now that she’s related to them—but my fear settles because Shane and Danny value her safety as much as I do. They would never let harm come to her. Never.
Shane is giving my mother a look that rains fire. “You’d better watch how you to speak to my wife.”
My heart leaps in my throat and lodges there, growing so large that it threatens to choke the life out of me. Because he said that like it meant something to him.
“Your wife?” she asks, incredulous.
“My wife,” he repeats, with a possessiveness that instantly makes me want to back him into a wall. “And neither of us will allow you speak to her so disrespectfully again.”
Her gaze shifts to me, shrewd. “Well-played, Ruthie. You know how to marry men who are better than you. Let’s see if you can keep this one.”
“I won’t warn you again,” Shane says in a growl. “You mess with her or Izzy, and I will make you suffer for it. I don’t care why you’re doing it, or what made you the way you are, or why you feel it’s okay to torment the people you should value above anyone else. I will make you pay. And I will make you keep paying. I will destroy you.”
“Stay away from all of us,” Danny adds. “This is your last warning.”
“I don’t want anything to do with you,” our mother tells him. “I’m here for—”
“You’re here for no one but yourself,” Danny says, his hand rubbing the edge of his pocket, “and this is us telling you that we know it. Now, leave. If you don’t feel like you can manage the twenty steps that will take you out the door, there are half a dozen people here who would be happy to carry you out. I’m just one of them.”
It goes without saying Shane is another. But instead of piling on, he wraps his arm around me, and three of us walk away.
That slender flame inside of me has been fed kerosene.
I know I’ll be replaying this moment in my head for a long time to come, maybe for the rest of my life. The first time when Shane called me my wife and meant it.
I hope to God it isn’t the last.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
