Page 187 of Knot Their Starlet

I drop to my knees beside her.

“Mom—” I reach out.

She smacks my hand away. Hard. Like it disgusts her.

“Stuart,” she says, lifting her tear-streaked face.

For the first time since I’ve gotten here, her eyes are clear.

“File the paperwork.”

Stuart nods once. He already has his phone out.

I sit back on my heels on the floor of my mother’s house—a house that has never felt like my own home—and I watch Stuart’s thumbs move across the screen. My mind reels, and somewhere in my chest, something pulls taut.

Maybe it’s the leash my mom has spent years cultivating. Whatever it is, in that moment, it snaps.

CHAPTER 38

Cameron

I’m still staring at the draft I’ve been trying to finish up for the better part of three hours when my phone lights up.

It’s John, my boss. A single text message, which is strange because he never texts me.

It’s a link to an article published two minutes ago.

John

Thought you might want to see this.

It takes a second to load, but when it does, something hot and ugly works its way up my throat. It’s a deep, suffocating sense of horror.

I read it once. Fast, the way you read something when you don’t quite believe what you’re seeing.

And then I read it again.

Andromeda Sterling Placed Under Emergency Conservatorship Following Violent Attack on Mother, Gina Sterling

I don’t even bother reading the content of the article.

My knuckles are white around my phone as I press it to my ear. It rings twice.

“Everett, we have a problem,” I bite out.

A big one.

The end… for now