Page 73 of Behind the Shadows

The cold metal of my weapon pressed against my palm.

Her gaze dropped to my handbag, and her expression flickered—something unspoken bleeding through. “You’ll never outrun it, Holland. You carry it in your blood.”

“I’m not you,” I snapped.

Her chin jutted up with a knowing. “No, hon. You’re worse.”

For a second, I swayed, her words slapping me in the face, and then I smiled. How could I be worse than the woman in front of me?

“Then I’ll use it to my advantage.” The gun came up, and I held it steady.

An unsteady exhale escaped her, more sigh than sound, as if the idea of me putting a bullet in her head amused her.

The weapon felt heavier than it should have. Heavier than it had in my hands during all the nights I practiced. Heavier than when I’d killed Dom. Heavier than the rage simmering in my chest.

I leveled it at her. My muscles jittered for a fleeting moment and then stilled again.

“Say it,” I whispered.

Kip’s mother’s lips curved, thin and papery. “Say what, hon?”

“Tell me why you did it.” I gritted my teeth.

The oxygen machine hissed between us. The room felt too small, too closed up, and the air was thick with lavender and bleach. My heartbeat thundered in my ears.

Her pale eyes glittered. “You think you’re here for justice?”

I took a step closer, my weapon steady but my lungs locked, and I struggled to breathe.

“I’m here for the truth about why you hurt your son. Why you sold me and my sister.”

She sighed, almost tender—like a mother recalling a bedtime story. “Oh, little girl?—”

“Don’t call me that.”

Her hands twitched on the blanket, the same hands that had once held a child down and carved his skin and drugged him.

“We shaped Kip.” Her voice softened, reverent. “We tamed him. Without us, he would’ve been nothing but teeth and blood. We made him a weapon.”

My throat burned. “You turned him into a monster.”

Her gaze sharpened, cutting through me. “And you love him anyway.”

For a second, the room spun. The gun shook with the weight, and my grip tightened on the weapon. “You’re going to die alone in this bed.”

Her lips curled like shriveled, rotten fruit. “We all die alone.”

I chewed on my bottom lip, and my arms dropped a fraction. “Tell me how it happened,” I hissed.

Her expression hardened, sharp as ice chipping away at bone. “Tell you what, hon?”

My jaw clenched so tight it ached. “Say what you did to me. To my sister.”

A flicker of amusement ghosted over her features. “Oh, Samantha.”

The sound of my name in her mouth was a blade dragged over old scars.

“You were just … so easy.”