Page 28 of Her Rustanov Husband (Ruthless Bullies #2)
The image of Yom looking down at me after giving me that bedroom suite flashed through my mind. Him insisting, over and over, that I could have anything I wanted. When I knew, in my core, that wasn’t true.
I didn’t realize my eyes had filled with tears again until Merry asked, “Why are you crying? I’m telling you we can make this work.”
Another shriek from our phones saved me from answering.
I fumbled mine and blew out a breath when I read the tornado all-clear message: we could leave our shelter—carefully.
“Wah… ih… ee?” We both looked up from our phones to find Chris signing “ What is it?” and pushing out the sounds as best he could after years spent in the throes of his progressive hearing loss.
Ironically, we’d woken him up, but not Bully, who had above-average hearing.
As we climbed to our feet, Merry signed: “Going up. Check house.”
I added, way choppier: “Stay with Bully. Guard dog.”
Chris signed back: “OK, Mama S.”
That was still his sign name for me, even after Merry and I explained we weren’t a couple, no matter what his classmates insisted—just friends stubborn enough to co-parent.
He nodded, resolute. Bully always protected him—ironically, from human bullies. I think he liked the idea of protecting Bully back.
Leading the way up the damp stairs, I pushed open the cellar door to a shockingly sunny day.
The storm had truly blown over.
But I froze a few steps outside the cellar when I saw what it had taken with it.
All the animals were safe at the concrete Gemidgee shelter.
But their home… our farm was scraped raw.
The barn’s roof peeled back like the lid of a sardine can.
The farmhouse was only half there, like some kind of messed-up diorama project that no teacher would ever give a passing grade.
And the outbuilding we’d spent nearly a year converting into an up-to-code café and mini adoption shelter… Paws I shoved again, uselessly this time. He didn’t budge. He only cupped my face in those rough hands.
“There were no early flights to Canada. Ingrid told me.” His gaze cut past me to the wreckage of the same farm where I’d discovered what a true monster he could be. “You drove here. To Merry? Straight into a tornado. Do you know what could’ve happened to you?”
His voice cracked—terrified, like I’d put him through hell.
I couldn’t care.
Panic surged, outsized and uncontainable. “Go!” I slapped his hands away. “Go!”
“Lydia, what…?” Confusion and hurt flickered across his face. Then he dropped his hands. “Okay. I will go. If this is the choice you are truly making.”
“It is,” I insisted, terror blunting my voice. “Go! Please, go. Just get out of my life.”
His jaw tightened. But in the end, he turned to get back into his truck without another word.
And then came a sound that curdled my blood.
High-pitched barks.
Merry’s shout: “No, Bully—don’t! Bully, come back!”
But it was too late. The change in Yom’s expression told me that.
No longer hurt—something else entirely. Like the whiteout blizzards Gemidgee feared the most, rolling in without any warning from a weather app.
Bully raced across the distance from the cellar to plant himself in front of me, shoulders hunched, a rumbling growl tearing out of his chest as if Yom wasn’t more than twice his size.
“Bully, don’t!” I cried out, even though I already knew it was too late.
My son, the boy I lovingly referred to as “my little pit bull,” glared up at Yom and finally used the words I was always encouraging him to opt for instead of barks and growls when he met new people.
“Leave my mommy alone!” he shouted.
Up at the man he had no idea was his father.