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“Who’s the source?” I finally manage to grit out.
“Who do you think?” Bitterness and helpless anger are woven into my friend’s voice. “Frank Donavon.”
16
Eve
The roaring in my ears won’t stop as I stare at the woman standing in the living room. Tall, thin, and imposing, she watches me like a hawk. The two police officers next to her make me tighten my hands on Mila’s shoulders.
“You can’t be serious?” I say hoarsely, staring at the child social worker.
Zayn is on the phone with somebody, and I am flanked by three women, one of them Agatha.
Sarah, Fergus’s wife, is a short woman with long brown hair that is tied in a messy bun on top of her head and mesmerizing green eyes that glint fiercely at the moment. Charlotte is a lovely, tall brunette who stands next to Agatha. Her husband, Philip, along with Fergus and Ian, are in the other room. One of them is attempting to calm Zayn down, who looks ready to rip apart these strangers who have, in the span of a few hours, turned our life upside down.
The social worker, Bertha, frowns. “We have no choice here.”
“It’s gossip, tabloid trash!” I hiss.
“Mama?” Mila holds on to me, scared, and I clench my fingers helplessly in her shirt.
“It’s fine,” I try to reassure her, my tone unsteady. “It’s going to be okay. Nobody is taking you from me.”
One of the policeman sighs. “We have photographic evidence of your daughter in the company of two males—”
“Yes, my roommate and his boyfriend. Ron raised her!”
Agatha puts a hand over my shoulder, and I fall silent. She takes a step forward. “You can’t expect me to believe that an anonymous complaint and tabloid articles can be used as a legitimate reason to separate a child from her mother.”
The other policeman’s jaw hardens. “With the incidents taking place, it is also in the girl’s best interest to be placed—”
“That’s not your fucking call to make!” I snarl.
The room falls silent till Bertha interjects with what she probably supposes is a soothing voice. “Miss Taylor, we didn’t just get up and come here. We did our own investigating before we decided on this step. We spoke to your family lawyer. He made some claim—”
My face turns ashen at hearing that.
“You talked to who?” My legs turn to jelly.
“Your family lawyer,” the woman says again, speaking slowly. “As well as your parents. They, too, felt—”
“My parents cut ties with me five years ago!” My voice is loud, a note of hysteria creeping in. “And Thomas is a manipulative bastard! Everything he says is a lie.”
The words have just left my mouth when a movement in my peripheral vision has me looking over to see Zayn staring at me, digesting this piece of knowledge that I just declared to the room.
“You were labeled as slightly unstable with—”
I take a step back and feel Charlotte, this unknown woman, put her hand on my arm, a steely grip. My body feels numb. “My parents said I was unstable?”
“Mr. Richards did,” the social worker corrects. “He mentioned that he feared for your daughter’s life.”
Anger rushes through me, hot and cold, fury so deep that I can’t calm it down.
“Did he also tell you he threatened my daughter’s life?” I bare my teeth at the woman who looks startled. “Or did he very conveniently leave that out?”
Bertha exchanges an uneasy look with the police officers that accompanied her to remove Mila from my care.
I hear a rumble in the air, wretched in its fury, but I don’t look back at Zayn.
