Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 77415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
My brows rose. I was surprised that Ellen remembered that. The very next day was the day that I’d left. I would’ve thought she’d have blocked that out purely to protect herself. That day was one of the best days of my life, and it was a precursor for what happened after it.
“Do you think Dad’ll be mad about my mom?” Linc sobered.
And that was when I realized that my woman hadn’t let my underage kid drink without reason.
I’d noticed that there’d been something off with the both of them today, but with the winning of the game, as well as the fucked up winter weather, I’d not gotten a chance to ask either one of them what was wrong.
Now, well now was a different story.
“Why do you think I’d be mad about your mom?” I asked my son.
Linc lifted his head and let out one of those exaggerated, teenaged boy groans. The kind that clearly said to anyone who heard it that life as that teenager had known it had just ended right before their eyes.
He dropped his head back to the carpet, and I barely resisted the urge to laugh.
“Son of a bitch.”
“Language, boy!” Ellen sat up and glared at me.
“Why are you lurking there like a weirdo in the doorway?” she snapped. “Go get changed so I can tell you about what new fucked up low your baby mama stooped to now.”
My brows rose.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Ten minutes later, dressed and finally warm in a pair of sweatpants and nothing else, I walked out to see Ellen working on a new beer—her third if the bottles on the table next to her were any indication—and my son nowhere to be found.
“Where’d he go?” I asked.
“He took the dog out,” she answered as she got up. “Do you want a beer or some coffee?”
She eyed me warily, studying me from head to toe as if to ascertain that I was okay.
“I’ll have some coffee,” I said. “Then I’ll have a beer.”
She walked to the kitchen and got started on that without me even having to ask her, and she was placing the steaming mug in my hands thirty seconds later.
“Now sit, so I can tell you.”
I hesitated, rethinking my decision to not have a beer.
“Is this bad?”
She nodded without saying a word.
I detoured to my cabinet where I kept the liquor, and splashed some Bailey’s into my coffee.
She didn’t say a word as I returned to my seat on the couch and sank down into the comfortable cushions.
“Go ahead and lay it on me,” I ordered warily.
She sat down on the coffee table directly in front of me and placed her beer down next to her thigh before returning her gaze to me.
“I ran into Margot at the game in the bathroom.” She bit her lip. “She was rude, like always, but this time, she also made a comment that caught my attention.”
“What kind of comment?” I was almost scared to ask.
“She made it sound like she asked your son to throw the game today. And by asking him, I mean she actually did tell him to do it.”
Anger started to churn in my gut.
“So, I asked your son, and he told me that that wasn’t the first fucked up thing she’s done.”
“You mean other than overdosing on the way to going to the movies with him?” I snarled, standing up and starting to pace.
She caught the coffee that I’d forgotten was resting on the arm of the couch and placed it on the table next to her other thigh.
“She’s been blackmailing him,” she started. “Forcing him to see her even when he doesn’t want to.”
“How?” I ran my hands through my hair.
“By telling him things that a mother shouldn’t be telling her son,” she muttered under her breath. “She’s pretty much used you against him. Telling him things that she would do to you if he didn’t comply with her wishes.”
I snorted, unsurprised that she would sink to such low levels.
“She threatened to take you to court and have her rights given back to her,” Ellen continued. “Then, when that was no longer working, she forced him to go with her places, to act the devoted son, all so she could use him later on as a pawn in some new betting scheme she had going on with her dealer.”
“How did she do that?” I asked. “By forcing him? He’s not a small kid. He didn’t have to do any of this. He could’ve come to me at any time.”
“When he started to, she threatened to plant drugs and a gun in his car while he was at school, and then turn him in the authorities.”
The words were said, but I couldn’t fucking believe them.
“That fucking bitch.” I turned around and headed in the direction of my room. My destination was my closet so I could get dressed, and then go find this bitch and let her know what she’d done to fuck up.