Page 102 of The Lilac River

"Can I tell her?" I choked out. "My mom. Can I at least tell her?"

"You can leave a note. A goodbye. That's it." His eyes gleamed like dark glass. "No explanations. No confessions. If you tell her the truth, I’ll know. And it’ll be the end of both of you."

“Where will I go?” Tears careened down my face, gathering pace like boulders in a landslide. “I have no money.”

He reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out an envelope. “There’s five thousand dollars in there and a plane ticket to Maine. Where you go from there is up to you but never come back to Silver Peaks.”

I flinched like he’d struck me.

He smiled wider. Victory.

"You want to prove you love Nash and your mother?" he said softly. "Then you’ll do what’s best for them. You'll take the money and the plane ticket and vanish.

Otherwise, your mother will suffer. I’ll make sure of it."

Without another word, he threw the envelope onto the dirt, turned his back on me and strode back to the house. Like I was already erased.

I stood there shaking until the sun finally broke the horizon, burning away the fog but not the fear. Not the cost. Not thechoice I would carry like a weight around my neck for the next ten years.

Chapter 38

Stronger Than You Think - Fireflight

Nash

Icouldn’t be hearing right.

What Lily had just told me had to be wrong.

No way had the man who fucking created me made sure my future was ruined.

"Say that again."

The words came out like gravel. My throat was dry and burning, my ears buzzing with white noise. Disbelief surged up like bile, tangling with a deep, bone-deep dread I hadn’t felt since the night Loretta left Bertie in my arms and walked away.

I stood up, slamming my glass of bourbon onto the coffee table. The impact made it rattle, amber liquid sloshing against the rim. The room pulsed with tension, like it knew something sacred had just cracked.

Lily rocked slightly where she sat, her arms wrapped around her waist like she was trying to hold herself together with nothing but sheer will. She looked at me like she was terrified I’d shatter into pieces, or worse, explode.

"I’m not lying, Nash," she said, her voice small. Fragile.

"Never said you were," I ground out, jaw clenched so tight it ached. "Which makes this even more fucked up, because I can easily believe he’d do it." The admission made something inside me rot. I forced out a breath, chest heaving like I’d just sprinted across the paddock. "Tell me again what he did."

When a tear slid down her cheek, it tore into my heart like a blade. Sharp. Deep. Brutal. I wanted to reach for her. Wipe it away. Pull her into my arms and never let go. But I didn’t.

Instead, I stood there like a useless bastard, fists clenched at my sides so hard my nails bit into my palms. My whole body vibrated with a rage I didn’t know where to put.

Finally, Lily straightened her spine, trembling like a leaf in the wind. But her voice didn’t waver.

"He demanded that I leave town, and I couldn’t tell you why. The only thing I was allowed to do was leave a note for my mom. He said I was holding you back and if you came to Ohio with me you’d never make it."

Her arms tightened around herself; shoulders curled inward like she was trying to shrink away from the memory.

"He made me leave you, Nash. Made me leave our future."

I staggered back a step, like her words had physically punched me. She wasn’t telling me everything. I could see it, read it in every tremble, every shallow breath.

The poisonous thought of money being involved slithered through my mind, cold and venomous. But darker things crept in too. Sicker ones. Ones that I didn’t want to say out loud in case they were true.