Page 129 of Tormented

“I had no choice,” I seethe.

Sawyer steps toward me and places a gentle hand to the back of my neck. His fingers apply the slightest pressure, and the calming effect the ownership in his hold has takes me by surprise.

“The whole thing wouldn’t have happened if your bitch of a mother had kept her nose out of my business.” He lifts his lip in a snarl, looking off into nothing as he takes another sip of his beer.

I lunge forward and strike out, smacking the bottle upward out of his hold. He reels back as the lip of the bottle crashes into his teeth, and then spills frothy drink all down his front.

“Now look what you did!” He stands, fruitlessly brushing at his shirt.

“Perhaps you shouldn’t talk about my mother like that then.” I step back, arms folded over my chest.

Evan’s hand goes for the discarded bottle, yet Sawyer raises his gun just as fast. “Nuh-uh,” he tuts. “I might be leavin’ this up to her, but that don’t give you license to hurt her.”

“Oh, right,” Evan scoffs. “But she can hurt me, correct?”

Sawyer simply nods, lowering his weapon.

“I want to know,” I say with a stiff jaw, “did you ever feel bad about any of it? At all?” Surely, somewhere in this asshole is a flicker of someone human. Surely.

Evan grins without saying a damn word.

I shake my head at him, my gaze flicking to the bottle as I consider how easy it would be to smash it over his smug fucking face and do some real damage.

Not that he’d care, evidently.

“What happened?” I ask. “That night? What happened afterward?”

The asshole drags a hand down his face and perches on the edge of the wet seat. “She died.”

I can’t fucking breathe properly. The memories I have always led me to that conclusion, but I guess I held on to hope a little tighter than I thought all these years. “Did it . . . did she die quickly?”

He shrugs.

The motherfucker shrugs.

“You weren’t even there when she passed, were you?”

“Nope.”

“You fucking left her alone?”

“Didn’t you?” he asks, staring up at me with hardened eyes.

Maybe, but, “I was a kid, Evan. What the hell could I have done to help her?”

He hits her, and the car swerves. I hold my breath, my fingers aching on Flopsy while I wait to see if Evan can make the car go okay again.

“Stop the car,” Momma says. “We’re getting out.”

“Like fuck you are.”

“We’re not part of this, so let us go.”

“Bitch,” he says with a laugh, “the moment you decided you knew better than me and opened that mail, you made this about you.” His horrible eyes are on me as he twists in his seat. “Both of you.”

“Evan!”

“You might not have been able to save her, kid, but I’m sure she would have liked to have you with her, don’t you?”