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She pursed her lips, a flash of irritation darkening her eyes.
“Well, you didn’t make a stop at the police station I’m guessing so never mind.”
“Is there a reason I would need to do that?” I stared, practically glowering. Speak. tell me all the messed-up shit you’ve done! My mind screamed at her.
She frowned and rearranged her features into a façade of concern. “You look exhausted, sweetie. You should try and get some sleep.”
Was she fucking serious? She knew damn well she didn’t care about how tired I was. What a piss poor attempt to deflect. I found it sad that I had never realized her habit of pretending with me until almost this very moment.
If I were to reach out right now, I would feel the contempt saturating the air between us. It ruined the aroma of a cake I’d loved half of my life, turning what should’ve been sapid to nauseatingly unpalatable.
To think I’d just considered the reason for her harrowing state was because I’d been gone all weekend. How naive of me to question if she was stressed or worried about my wellbeing when her livelihood was potentially at risk and more important.
Mom’s maternal and sentimental side had always been a bit lacking. She fluctuated between being a strict parental figure and treating me like a bestie that often annoyed her. Despite that, I’d always believed she and Dad loved me unconditionally? No one’s parents were perfect, but was it too much to ask for her to genuinely care?
Daddy did.
I knew that to be true as sure as I was the sky was blue, the grass was green, and Judas was an asshole. He was who I wanted to see right now, not her.
“Where’s my dad?”
“Working. Where else would he be?” she questioned sardonically, throwing my words back at me.
Knowing what she was doing, I turned and continued up the stairs before I wound up doing something I couldn’t undo, leaving her to worry about what I knew and didn’t know.
That would make two of us.
CHAPTER SIX
She never looked back. I couldn’t decide if that pissed me off or made me proud. It was better for both of us that she hadn’t because I wouldn’t have let her walk into that deteriorating shithole if I would have seen her teary-eyed face again.
I’d watched as she disappeared inside and now twenty minutes into my solo ride, as illogical as it was, I regretted that I didn’t make her stay by my side.
When I confessed that I was obsessed with her it wasn’t true. Obsessed was too weak of a word to describe whatever the fuck it was she’d enthralled me with.
I had been girls half my life but none of them were like her. It had nothing to do with fucking. Anyone who knew me could tell you that I didn’t go around sticking my dick in every piece of ass that came to me practically begging for it. My parents instilled more value in me than that.
I was a Barron. The name alone held power, commanded respect, and boasted wealth. To use it for something so easy to obtain would be a severe form of disrespect. My famiglia had sacrificed too much to make it what it was. Years before my time, the Barrons were almost wiped from the core families entirely. It was my zio, padre, and two of their only remaining friends that built it back up. Lots of blood was spilled and many lives were broken or lost.
Padre obtained his nickname the same way he earned his revered reputation that was still a fable on the streets he’d risen from.
Merciless and bloodthirsty, he was rumored to be a shadow you could never outrun while my beautiful madre was his little death. When you saw her, you saw him even if he wasn’t visible. He watched over her exactly as his name would allude.
If there was one person on this earth that could relate to what I was feeling right now it would be him. He’d quite brutally stolen the love of his life and warped her into the woman that to this day stood proudly at his side. She’d given him the children he adored—me and my sister.
There was a drastic difference between my madre and Rhiannon, though. One had been born and raised in our world and the other was torn from it. She didn’t remember anything or anyone.
I brought the car to a crawl and used my steering wheel to open my call log. Owen’s number sat right at the top.
I connected to his mobile, turning into the busy shopping plaza we’d agreed to meet in.
“Boss-man,” he answered on the third ring.
“Stop calling me that. Where are you?”
“Come towards the shoe store. I’m in row four. Big silver van by the cart rack.”
I braked to let a mother and her daughter cross. “You rented a fucking minivan?”
