Our lines had been drawn.
Boundaries made.
“And how do you feel when you have to visit your father’s house?”
Thomas scowled and crossed his arms over his thin chest, which I was sure one day would be massive. My little boy who I knew would become a good, good man. “I hate it. I mean . . . I don’t get why he even wants us over there. He’s always busy and working and we don’t even see him. Eva takes care of us the whole time.”
Ian jotted something on the pink pad. “Who’s Eva?”
“Our nanny.”
Ian glanced at me. I paced a little more, hugging myself, trying not to get too excited, too hopeful, because I knew what Ian had said was true.
This wasn’t going to be an easy win.
But we were going to fight it. Win it. I knew it.
Could feel relief spinning through the air, getting caught up in the power of that energy.
“How does that make you feel . . . that the nanny takes care of you?”
Thomas shrugged. “Like it’s a waste of time. And when we do see our dad, he’s always asking questions. Wanting to know what our mom is doing. Telling us to tell her that we want to go home. And then other times, he says mean things about her. It makes me . . .”
Thomas glanced over at me, his lips collapsing in a grim line. I got the distinct impression he didn’t want to admit it in front of me.
As if he were trying to protect me.
My big, brave, little man.
He turned back to Ian and lowered his voice. “It makes me angry and mad and worried. I don’t like it.”
Ian shifted the pad, his question carefully constructed. “What is it about what he says that makes you worry, Thomas? Can you remember anything specific that he has said?”
Thomas worked his jaw, hesitating, the words cracking when he finally forced them out. “He said she was going to regret it. That she was never going to get away with blackmailing him.”
That word pierced me like an arrow.
It wasn’t what it was supposed to come to. Wasn’t what I wanted. But I had been left without a choice.
I also knew Reed would make good on that threat.
He wanted to make me regret it.
He thought I’d made him look bad.
Put him in this position.
Left him.
He should have known there was no chance I’d stay.
Ian looked down and fidgeted with the pen before he looked back at my son. “Have you ever heard him say anything . . . specific. About how he might make your mom regret the choice she made? Any sort of threat? Anything about hurting her physically?”
Every cell in Thomas’s body froze, and I swore I could see it.
A cold dread that visibly shook down his spine.
In pain, he looked back at me, and I saw the hint of tears brim in his eyes, as if maybe my child thought he was the one who was hurting me.
It’s okay, I mouthed.
I could almost hear his back creaking as he turned to lean toward Ian. He whispered so low I wasn’t certain I’d heard him right. “Not my dad . . . but . . . but his friend.”
Horror raced through my being, my mouth going dry when I realized this was no longer intimidation thrown around by Reed.
I could feel the blast of fury that shivered through the air. This protective anger unlike anything I’d experienced before.
It came from Ian in violent waves.
He edged forward, clearly trying to keep his cool when it was completely fading. “What friend?”
Thomas shook his head with unfound guilt. “I . . . I don’t know. I didn’t see him. They were in Dad’s office. The man . . . he said . . . he said bitches who don’t obey need to bleed.”
Shock jetted from my mouth, and I tried not to show my fear.
The way chills skated my flesh and nausea roiled in my stomach.
Ian’s eyes squeezed closed, and he clutched the pen, seeming to have to brace himself.
Remorsefully, Thomas looked back at me, his voice half apology, half defense. “I’m sorry for saying a bad word, Mom, but he asked.”
“You aren’t in trouble, Thomas. Not at all.”
Ian shocked me when he reached out and touched Thomas’s arm. Thomas jerked his attention that way. “You’re not in trouble. I promise. You can tell me anything, and you won’t get in trouble. You can trust me. Do you understand?”
Thomas gave a shaky nod.
“Can you remember anything else?” Ian prodded.
Shame drooped Thomas’s shoulders. “No . . . I . . . I should have gone right in there and punched that guy in the face. But I was too much of a coward, like my dad told me I am. God . . . I . . . sometimes I hate myself.”
Anger and sorrow.
They surged.
Washing me through.
Tears sprang to my eyes.
That bastard Reed.
I hated him.
Hated that he was manipulating our children every bit as much as he had manipulated me.
“You aren’t a coward, Thomas.” Ian’s voice resembled a growl, his words muttered as he inched closer to Thomas, as if he wanted them to sink inside. “Not even close. Don’t let anyone tell you that. Don’t let anyone make you think you’re less than you are. You’re showing how brave you are, right now, telling us all of this.”
Hesitation rolled from Ian, the man clearly trying to find his words, his tongue swiping across his bottom lip before he started to speak again. “The only thing confronting your father or his friend would accomplish would have been you getting hurt. Our main concern is your safety. The safety of your sisters. Okay? So, if you hear anything, you pretend like you didn’t, and then you come to me. Do you understand?”
Thomas nodded again. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Ian agreed, and I could sense the urgency that rattled him to the bones.
The man so powerful.
So fierce.
The intensity of it ricocheted from the walls.
It made me both afraid and comforted.
“I think that’s it for now. But if you think of anything else, need anything else, or are ever in trouble, I want you to call me. Can you memorize this number?”
Ian shifted forward, took out his wallet, and pulled out a business card. He handed it to my son.
Thomas stared at it, his mouth silently repeating the numbers over and over as he committed them to memory. “Got it.”
“Good boy.”
Thomas grinned in pride.
My heart almost shattered.
Thomas pushed to his feet and glanced over at me. “Can I have my tablet now?”
“Yes, just be ready for dinner in an hour.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He lumbered out the archway.
There was my grumbling boy.
I watched him until he disappeared, my eyes pinned on that spot, unable to look back at Ian who I knew was watching me.
I could feel it.
The heat searing across my flesh.
The way my heart tumbled and thrashed and sped.
Finally, the lure of it was too strong, and I looked his way.
Ian held me in the grips of his gaze. There was something so hard and angry there. Something so volatile and explosive. All of it for me. For my children.
Ian blinked as if he had to break himself from the trance we were under, and he pushed to his feet and flipped the cover of the notebook closed. He lifted it in the air. “Let’s hope Mack doesn’t see me with this.”
A giggle burst free, coming from the depths of the strain and butting against the absurdity of it all.
How had we ended up here?
“Don’t laugh,” he said, but there was something playing at the corner of his mouth.
“How can I not?”
He waved it around. “I better get out of here before she draws me into your story with a tiara and a pink cape.”
“No capes. Don’t you know anything?”
A twitch of a smile danced around his gorgeous mouth before he staunched it and tucked the notepad under his arm.
There he was.
So good under all that brash.
I followed him out of the kitchen and into the small foyer. Voices drifted in from the living room, my grandmother keeping the girls busy while Ian had asked Thomas questions.
Ian opened the door and stepped out into the cool, late afternoon, fall approaching quickly, the leaves on the trees spinning from green into gold.