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“I didn’t,” I say, desperate for him to understand. “I was afraid.” I think back to the house, back to the dream. What we had, beginning to slip away.
“Of what?” he shouts again, veins pulsing on his neck. “Of me?”
“Come on.” Jamila kicks the door open. “Before that freak does something stupid. We’ve got to go.”
I hesitate as she steps out. I linger, looking back at him, feeling like I might break. His steps toward me, holding out a hand like he wants to call me back, but I’m caught in the middle. There’s my best friend Jamila, beckoning me to follow, and there’s the stranger I married, the terrifying mafia boss, the monster that came on too hard and too fast. He wants me, he wants my baby, and maybe, just maybe, it could be good like he said, maybe we could build a family together and have real love.
But it’s the rage in his face that holds me back.
It’s the pure, unbridled anger.
It’s Jamila, calling me to follow, and the story about her family—Nolan pulled the trigger himself.
I knew he had a temper, but this—it’s exactly what I was afraid of.
It’s everything wrong with the Crowley family. Controlling, possessive, insane, violent. If I go with him, I’m taking a risk not only with my own life, but with my child’s future.
I can’t let them have my baby.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and I follow Jamila out the door.
“That’s my child,” he shouts after me. “That’s mine!”
But we’re already running away, hopping into the first cab we come across, and riding to Jamila’s apartment while I cry on her shoulder and she strokes my hair.
Chapter36
Nolan
It feels like my world cracked in half.
There was the first half, the pre-baby half, when I was going along as if the world hadn’t changed yet. I fell in love with Keely. I decided to settle down, build a family, have something good.
Then there’s this new half. This post-baby world where now I know Keely’s been lying to me this whole time.
She let me embarrass myself. I told her, over and over, how badly I wanted a family with her, how I wanted children, a suburban life, the white picket fence bullshit, all that fake fucking garbage, and I really meant it. She pretended like she might want the same things, all the while laughing behind my back, knowing she was pregnant with a baby she never planned on letting me anywhere near. Five months, she probably figured. Five months, and she’d take her money, then she’d get the fuck out.
She lied to me.
And now I’m broken.
I take a long pull from a bottle of whiskey. In the pool behind the Crowley manor, a half-deflated giraffe floats through the deep end. I know this isn’t healthy—I should be doing anything but wallowing in self-pity—but I don’t know where to go.
My house reminds me of her. All her things are there, everything we shared.
This place is the only building I can think of that doesn’t have Keely’s memory imprinted on every inch.
“The staff told me you were out here wallowing.”
I turn as my mother steps out onto the balcony. She’s wearing a long, black dress, her hair tied up in a severe bun. She looks tired, but healthier than I’ve seen her in a while, her skin taking on more color, her cheeks slightly pink.
“I’m not wallowing.” I take a long drink. “I’m getting drunk.”
“Same thing.” She gestures for me to pass her the bottle. My eyebrows raise, but I do it. She takes a pull with a sigh. “You Crowley boys always had a taste for the good stuff. This bottle’s worth, what, three hundred dollars? And here you are drinking it like gutter wine.”
“Give it back if you don’t like it.”
She smirks at me before taking another pull. “Tell me what happened.”
