Page 47 of Volatile Waters

I stormed her, concerned that hotel patrons would overhear the conversation. “Shut your mouth.”

“Is she?” Her pupils were small, informing me of drugs in her system.

The nape of her neck was in my grip as I growled in her face. “What are you on?” She had lost weight and had dark circles under her eyes. The last time I had seen her, pain killers were her drug of choice. I quickly pulled out my key while telling Kirill and Adrian, “I’ll handle this. Go to your rooms.”

Kirill quickly opened his hotel room door and scooted his little stripper inside, but Adrian shook his head as he approached. “Must check for knives.”

Mrs. Thompson’s worried stare held me as she was patted down. Kirill held out one of her arms for me to see needle tracks. “Shit,” I swore.

Heroine.

Her runny nose was possibly not from tears.

Once proved weaponless, Adrian went to his own room as I shoved Mrs. Thompson into mine. “Not planning on stabbing me again?”

She stumbled on her high heels. “Why? So, you can steal away another child of mine, then return him coldhearted?”

“You have none left.” I closed the door behind me. “Besides, it is not as if the life you’ve offered him is so much more appealing.”

“Fuck. You.”

Grinning, I said, “Now, that is an appealing offer.”

As if preparing for me to attack her, Mrs. Thompson bent her knees, slightly crouching. “Never again are we having sex.”

“No?” My dick hardened at the challenge.

She rushed for the door.

She didn’t make it.

Wrapping an arm around her midsection, I had her fancy shoes off the ground in no time and was headed for the bed. She fought me, which I took as foreplay until I threw her down to the mattress to be met with angry swinging fists. Capturing her wrists, I forced them above her head, then asked, “What the fuck is wrong with you? Is this the heroine talking?”

“Whatever it takes to forget you!”

Exasperated, I winced. “Last time I saw you, you stabbed me. I should be pissed at you, not the other way around.”

From under me, her body arched and struggled to be set free, all the while, she screamed, “That was after you drugged and raped me!”

I laid my weight on her to subdue her efforts. “It’s not rape if she’s begging for it.”

“You are worse than your father.”

My chest rumbled anger. My voice instantly became a grave warning. “Then why are you here?”

“To save what’s left of my son.”

I didn’t want to hear her affections for Crash because I was in denial that I too cared for the kid. I got off her and turned away. “Then go home and try to be a better mother.”

Instead of noticing how my last words triggered quite the reaction, I assumed the drugs in her system simply took control. She slowly stood from the bed, appearing dazed and confused. “Yes, I need to be a better mother.” Then she clumsily walked toward the door.

In need of rest, all I wanted was to sleep, but I feared Mrs. Thompson was too inebriated to find her way home, so I watched her stumble into the hallway. Without her knowing, I followed to see if she was going to try to drive. Her long dress flowed against her legs as her hand lazily touched the wall all the way to the elevator, never glancing back to see if she were alone. She didn’t react to the moans of pleasure already coming from Kirill’s room.

My concern grew as she kept mumbling about needing to be a better mother as if slipping into a trance. I asked, “Are you all right?”

Mrs. Thompson didn’t respond. She didn’t even notice when I entered the elevator with her. She leaned against the mirror to her right and closed her eyes, repeating, “Let me be a better mother,” as if praying.

When the elevator dinged and the doors slid open, she numbly exited and headed straight for the hotel entrance. There were cabs parked under the overhang. I was only going to make sure she got in one safely, but then she told a hotel doorman, “I need to go find him.”

“Who, ma’am?” he asked in return. When she stared at the doorman, clearly intoxicated, he asked, “Would you like a cab?”

Her head bobbed yes in reply. The doorman guided her to a waiting cab.

I slid into the next waiting cab and directed the driver to follow her. Something told me she was not going home. As we pulled up to a house in an unfamiliar neighborhood, I knew I was right. It was approximately 3 a.m., but that did not stop Mrs. Thompson from walking up the manicured walkway and through a picture-perfect, low, white picket fence. I stayed in the cab as she banged on the door, claiming to want to see “him.”

A porchlight turned on. I couldn’t hear the conversation when a woman answered the door in her robe, but her body language appeared sympathetic and not judging the lost and confused woman at her door. Gently, the kind older woman guided the now crying Mrs. Thompson back to her cab. Mrs. Thompson nodded the whole way as the woman spoke to her. She even held her hand as she slipped back into the cab.

The cab’s taillights lit up, and then he pulled away. As instructed, my cab followed until I saw Mrs. Thompson had finally made her way home.

Rubbing the bridge of my nose, I told my driver, “Back to the hotel, please.”

I had no idea what had just occurred, nor did I care. A decision I would one day regret, in the worst way possible.