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“Maybe you should come stay with me again. Get away from that… heathen—” I snort, which then turns into a full-out laugh. Something about my mother calling Zade a heathen is just… well, funny. True, but funny.
My mother is gaping at me as if I’ve told her I’m shaving my head bald and going to live the rest of my life in a van and smoking hookah.
Doesn’t sound so bad, actually. Except maybe the going bald part.
I bite my lip to hold in the laughter, grinning while she only grows more ruffled.
“I don’t see how shacking up with a criminal is funny,” she mutters, turning away with an affronted look on her face.
“What if I’m the criminal?” I question.
She sighs. “Adeline, if he has coerced you to do something…”
I roll my eyes. “He hasn’t made me do anything, Mother, chill. And I’m fine. Really. I went through something traumatic—obviously—and sleeping doesn’t always come easy to me.”
She shifts on the leather couch, gearing up to say something else, but I cut her off. “And I’m good here. In Parsons Manor.”
Her mouth shuts, a frown tugging down her pink-painted lips. I sigh, a stab of guilt hitting me in the chest.
“Mom, I appreciate your concern, I do. But it’s going to take me a while to get readjusted and back to normal.” Normal. Saying the word feels like swallowing a handful of rusty nails. I’ll never be normal. I don’t think I ever was.
And if anyone could attest to that, it would be my mother—the woman who’s called me a freak most of my life.
She’s quiet for a moment, staring down at the checkered tile and lost in whatever hurricane is sifting through her skull and ready to come out of her mouth. I’ve always felt like storms rage through her head since her words were always so fucking destructive.
“Why didn’t
you tell me about him?” she asks quietly. She lifts her head to look up at me, her crystal blue eyes swirling with hurt. I can’t decide if the sight of it twists the guilt deeper or if it makes me angry.
“Because you’ve never made me feel safe enough to tell you anything,” I answer bluntly.
Her throat works, swallowing that bitter pill.
“Why… why did you need to feel safe to tell me about him, Addie?” she asks, her sculpted brows pinching. “I mean, if he were… normal, it shouldn’t have been a big deal. If he were someone you met in a bookstore, or at one of your events, or even in a grocery store.” She pauses. “Why did you need to feel safe?”
I roll my lips and turn back towards the window.
“Addie, does he hurt you?”
My neck nearly snaps from how quickly I turn back to her. “No,” I say sternly, though that’s not entirely true.
Did he hurt me? Yes, but not how she’s thinking. He would never lay a finger on me out of anger. The type of pain Zade delivers is unorthodox, and while there’s always been a part of me that enjoys it—it still hurts.
Yet, I crave it anyway.
“Then why?”
I sigh, debating on how much I should say. He kills people for a living? Too much. He stalked me? Would never live that one down, no matter how guilty she feels.
So, I just settle with the truth. The part that doesn’t announce him as a psychopath with a bit of an attachment issue.
“He saves women and children from human trafficking, Mom. He’s very deeply involved in that dark corner of the world.”
She sucks in a sharp breath, her spine snapping straight and her eyes widening with outrage. “Is he the reason you were kidnapped?”
“No,” I snap. “He is not why, and you need to remember that he saved me. I would not be here—be alive—if it wasn’t for him.”
She shakes her head in confusion, and asks, “Then why were you? If he’s involved with the same people?”
