Drowning to Breathe (13 page)

Or rather, the judge had made one, because it was clear she’d only been doing what she’d been commissioned to do. The lines marring the woman’s face obviously told of the countless hours she devoted to her job with very little thanks, but rather case after case of heartache and abuse and broken homes.

I twisted my hands as I glanced at the house, making a vain attempt at controlling the moisture clouding my eyes. “I’m just thankful this transition is taking place.”

Her smile turned knowing, and she gestured with her head toward the house. “If you’ll just wait here, I’ll go inside and get your daughter and bring her out to you.”

She looked to the Suburban. “And with Mr. Jennings’s and Mr. Stone’s history, I’d like to ask he remain in the truck.”

Apparently Sebastian wasn’t the only one who viewed himself as a danger.

“Of course, thank you,” I rushed.

“You’re welcome.”

She took the walkway to the front door and rang the doorbell. An older woman I’d never seen before opened the door.

Not Martin.

I stuttered over my heightened defenses, a second’s ease in knowing I wouldn’t have to face him. I absolutely hated the power he still held over me. The utter fear I felt at just the mention of his name.

Although it was no longer just for myself, but for my daughter.

Nodding, the older woman extended the door open and welcomed Claribel inside. Then it closed.

I stood there with my heart in my throat. Restless, I tried to force myself to stand still and wait, when the only thing in the world I wanted was to beat down the door and find my daughter.

Five minutes later, the door opened again.

A tiny girl with a mane of wild blonde curls stepped out, and my heart, which had been in my throat, felt as if it burst. As if it exploded with a balm filling my chest too full, overflowing into my veins. Touching and soothing and inciting where it brushed through every inch of me.

Swallowing hard, I shook more as my gaze met with those sweet brown eyes, love and belief and innocence still shining through.

Without even making sense of it, I was moving, taking two hesitant steps forward, knowing I was supposed to stay.

To wait.

I broke out in a sprint. Awkwardly. My heels clattered against the sidewalk, and my pulse thundered and spun, a frenzy urging me forward.

Claribel stopped at the bottom of the three steps that led to the house. Kallie’s hand was still secured in hers.

A foot away, I fell to my knees. Concrete ripped at my stockings and cut into my skin.

But none of that registered.

The only thing I felt was the desperate ache to hold my daughter.

Kallie.

I choked. Tears fell fast and free, soaking my face.

I reached for her. Pulled her to me. The warmth of her tiny body pressed into my chest. My face got lost in ringlet curls, and I breathed her in, hugging her close, my mouth at her ear. “I missed you, Butterfly. I missed you.”

God, I’d missed her so much it was frightening.

Terrifying.

My body wept with the residual pain and torment crashing violently with this welcomed remedy.

Little arms wrapped tightly around my neck. “Mommy.” She said it so quietly. As if she were testing if it were true. Wondering if I really was there. Then she breathed out her own relief, letting go of some of her fear while she clung to me.

“It’s okay, sweet girl. I have you. I have you.”

Slowly, I climbed to my feet, taking Kallie with me.

Claribel Sanchez inclined her head down the walk. “We should go.”

Nodding, I wrapped my arm tighter around Kallie, my free hand pressed to the back of her head. She buried her face in my neck, and her little heart beat so hard against mine. Frantically, I kissed the top of her head. “I have you,” I whispered again as I followed the social worker down the walkway.

Claribel Sanchez opened the back door of the Suburban and placed a bag inside, one that had not belonged to Kallie two days ago. Part of me wanted to rip it from where she set it on the floor. To throw it to the ground. To trample it into dust. To erase any memories of the past two days.

For Kallie as much as for myself.

Instead, I edged around her and reluctantly settled Kallie in the booster seat, loathed to let her go. I buckled her in and kissed her on the forehead, moved to her temple, then to her tiny nose.

On the tiniest giggle, she lifted her trusting face to me and a smile whispered at the corner of her red-bow lips.

I could feel Sebastian, the gravity of his stare, the power of energy that glimmered in the confined space. I looked up and met his strange grey eyes, saw the heavy swallow that bobbed his throat as his gaze drifted to my baby girl.

Affection.

Love.

Adoration.

My head spun with the magnitude of it.

“Hi, Baz.” Kallie’s timid voice broke into the charged air, her sweet little drawl tugging at me from all angles. A hint of that unending exuberance bled through her greeting.

A soft smile edged Sebastian’s mouth.

“Hey, Little Bug. You ready to go home?”

Her smile grew and she kicked her feet. “I so, so, so ready.”

“Let’s get you out of here,” I said, and I kissed her forehead again, unable to stop, before I finally forced myself to step back and shut her door.

Claribel Sanchez stood there waiting, before she gave me a slight tilt of her head. “I will need to follow up in a couple of weeks. Take care of her.”

“Always.”

She got into her car and drove away.

I started for the front passenger’s door when I
felt
the presence behind me. Mouth going dry, I froze with my hand clamped down on the door handle.

Sickness crawled across the surface of my skin.

He inched closer. My instincts kicked in. My body shrank away, my eyes squeezed tight, and my lungs sealed off.

Cringing.

Cowering.

I hated he still evoked this reaction in me.

Greed and conceit and spite pressed into my senses, and my lungs burned with restraint until I could do nothing but take in a sharp breath.

That smell.

There would never be anything I could do to erase it from my mind.

A noxious spice that under any other circumstances should have been pleasant.

But pair it with something vile, the memories of his body dictating mine—that scent soaking my nose and clogging my throat—and it was as if I were suddenly eighteen again. Just a scared little girl with a voice so many proclaimed adoration for…yet never really heard.

Regret curled my stomach with nausea, and Martin Jennings laughed, low and malignant.

I refused to bend to him. Slowly, I turned around and lifted my chin, my eyes narrowed as I took in the man who’d sought to take everything from me.

Using me up.

All too happy to hang me out to dry.

It was the same second I heard the driver’s side door click open.

A shimmer of violence pitched through the darkening day, a crack of aggression struck the dense air.

From behind me, I could sense every step Sebastian took as he carefully approached, making his way around the front of the Suburban.

Slow.

Purposeful.

Poised to protect.

I latched onto his controlled disdain, allowed it to multiply—to be enough for both of us—and stared at the face I wished I could forget.

My voice wavered, but I held strong. “If you hurt my daughter…in any way…I swear to God, I won’t stop until you wish you were dead.”

Martin Jennings tsked. “So angry, Delaney. Funny, I always thought you a pushover.”

His breath spread across my face as he inched closer. Eyes, so dark they were almost black, glinted with contempt.

A sneer curled his mouth. “You’d always been so anxious to please. Stumbling all over yourself for a little praise. You surprise me.”

Every cell in my body squeezed as memories of the mistakes I’d made surged forward.

Taunting.

Reminders of a past I had never wanted to live.

“You don’t know anything about me,” I spat, holding my ground while I felt as if it might crumble out from beneath my feet.

Memories of myself as a teenager swamped me. Growing up, every path I’d ever traveled had been with my mother at the reins. Leading me. I strove to conform to who she wanted me to be, always hungering for her attention. Anxious to make her proud. Desperate for a soft touch or a gentle hug or some kind of affection, rather than bearing the brunt of all her hateful dissatisfaction.

Sadness closed over me.

Both she
and
Martin had used that to their advantage.

Took advantage of me.

She had allowed him to take over everything in my life. Changing my image. My name. The songs I sang. I had been nothing more than his pretty little puppet, there to do with as he’d wished, which quickly included him claiming me as his own.

Just an ignorant lamb willingly led to the slaughter. Blind to what was waiting around the corner.

Until I’d discovered what was lurking behind it.

I could feel Sebastian edge forward. Tension wound in the force of his breaths, and Martin’s gaze darted over my shoulder at him, before it flitted back to me. He sent me a mocking smirk.

“I see you’ve gone digging through the trash for a little of that attention you’ve always been so desperate for,” he taunted with a chuckle. “Such a shame. A
waste
.”

The last dropped with slow insult, and I could feel Sebastian’s rage pulsing at my back, the man at war with himself to keep from attacking.

Air shot from Martin’s nose, and I knew he felt it, too.

“By all means, Mr. Stone, come at me. There would be no better way to end this day than watching you get hauled away in cuffs.”

“Stay away from us,” I warned through a barely heard whisper.

Martin laughed. “Do you really think you won today, Delaney? You think this is over?” His voice dropped. “Had you forgotten?”

Dread prickled across my skin.

Dark eyes glinted malevolent satisfaction and his mouth twisted in a morbid sneer as if he found glee with it. “Besides, I’m just getting to know
my daughter
.”

My daughter
was uttered on a deviant’s tongue, yet came off with pure disdain. I wanted to puke.

“What do you want from us?” The words cracked. I knew it sounded as if I were begging.

Sebastian wound his arm around my waist, his hand firm across my stomach as he pulled me against him.

“Shea, don’t,” he urged, attempting to drag me back and keep me from getting sucked into the cesspool that was Martin Jennings.

Offhandedly, Martin lifted a shoulder, ignoring Sebastian, his tone deceptively sweet. “Come now, Delaney. Did you really think I wouldn’t return for you? I promised I would. And I never break my promises. You do remember what you cost me?”

He looked at me pointedly. Reminding.

But the underlying reminder wasn’t about how much money had been lost by my desertion. But what he’d planned to do with that money. Money effectively stolen from me because of the contracts I’d been pressured to sign. Contracts where almost all royalties went to Martin and my mother. My eighteen-year-old naivety had once again gotten the best of me.

Lester Ford was a name I’d wanted to forget. For years I almost had. But briefly hearing his name on the news about a year ago had caused everything inside me to seize. The announcement the Tennessee tycoon was throwing in a bid to run for governor tripping up my feet.

Ignorantly, I’d pushed the importance of it aside. Pretended some more.

Anger pressed at my chest. “I owe you nothing.”

He laughed as if I was ignorant, then glanced at the blackened back window of the Suburban. “Don’t forget she’s my daughter, too.”

It came across as another threat, this revolting man using my child against me.

Expendable.

A belonging.

A possession.

Just as my mother had treated me. The same as she’d passed me on to him.

Sold me, really.

I’d just been too blinded by my desire to please her to see it for what it really was.

But I wasn’t that frightened girl anymore.

He lifted his chin in a gesture toward Sebastian. “And you can’t imagine the pleasure it will bring me to take down the two people who owe me most in one fell swoop. I suppose I should thank you for slumming it with this piece of trash, Delaney. I couldn’t ask for a better scenario.”

He leaned in close as he mouthed at my ear. “I
will
guarantee your silence.”

I choked and Sebastian growled.

As Martin backed away, his smile curled the hairs at the back of my neck, fierce and shameless and somehow knowing. He turned on his heel and stalked toward the house.

There was no question he’d not forgotten
my
promise, either.

The shaky, foolishly bold promise I’d made when he’d come to the hospital the day Kallie was born.

The one stating I would expose both him and Lester Ford if he didn’t let Kallie and me go, implying I had securities in place that would destroy him if something happened to me.

He’d promised I was nothing but a fool for thinking I had any control, and he’d be back for me when the time was right.

Maybe he knew I’d been bluffing. Doing anything in my power to protect my daughter.

Still, I was certain we’d danced around those threats for years. Each of us reliant on what one held over the other.

But why now?

“We’ll fight you,” I claimed on a broken shout.

Martin stopped. Slow to look over his shoulder.

I did everything I could to steady the words, to keep from conceding and yielding the way I’d always done. “And I promise, I’ll do everything to make sure you go down in flames.”

He began to turn back around, when I said, “And my name isn’t Delaney. She died a long time ago.”

The smile on his face appeared satisfied, and he shook his head as if pleased, muttering as he walked way, “You surprise me again, Delaney Rhoads.”