Page 112 of Killer Confections

My heart melts and I give her another slow burning kiss that leaves her breathless when I pull away. She blinks at me with glossy eyes, her cheeks staining red. “What was that for?”

“For being you,” I shrug. “For accepting every part of me and not making me feel like… like a monster.”

Her eyes turn pained as she tangles a hand in my hair. “You’re not a monster. Whoever made you feel that way has a nasty heart.”

“He really did,” I nod. “Which is why I beheaded him.”

She pats my cheek. “Testing your luck there. Still don’t care to hear about it.”

I chuckle. “Fair enough. Assassin's work isn’t good dinner conversation anyways.”

She elbows me with a smirk. “Let’s give your mom her food and head home so we can call your brother and Addie.”

Right. Fuck, she won’t let that go.

I may need a better distraction while I try to figure out just what my brother is plotting.

We walk up the front porch steps and before my knuckles can touch the door on the first knock, it’s ripped open. Loxley startles beside me at the tall, lithe woman in the doorway. Mom’s dark hair is in a high ponytail and her ice-blue eyes are creased in the corners. Deep frown lines form between her brows and she looks paler than the last time I saw her.

She’s wearing a loose white shirt that flows in the light breeze and her pants are a beige color. She looks every part of the innocent older woman who lives in a cottage.

Deceiving as hell.

A fucking snake in the grass.

I thrust the food out to her. “Hey, Mom. I thought you might want—”

She doesn’t spare me a glance as her sight shifts to mywife and her eyes widen. “Loxley?”

My wife blinks, her eyes flicking to me briefly. “Hi? I don’t think we’ve ever met. Have we?”

Mom waves a hand. “No, we haven’t, but there wasn’t a day that passed that I didn’t hear Atlas talking about you.” She leans in, cupping her mouth. “The walls werethin.”

Loxley chuckles uncomfortably, and I roll my eyes. “The walls were heavily insulated, but it never seemed to matter with our abusers watching our every move.”

Mom’s jovial mood quickly dies as her face falls. That mask slips right off at the first jab. She’s gettingsoft.

“Is that any way to speak to your mother?” She hisses.

“I wouldn’t know,” I shrug. “I never had one.”

She inches forward, pointing an accusing finger at my chest. I’m ready for the screaming match, the cursing and crying, thehatred.

But it never comes.

Because my wife steps in front of me, blocking my mother’s war path with a stare that could freeze hell over. She grabs the food from my hand before thrusting it roughly into my mother’s hands. “We came to bring this. I think that’s enough for tonight.”

Mom’s jaw ticks. “He killed his own father, you know? Sawed his head off while I watched. He’s going to do the same thing to you. Just give it some time.”

I seefuckingred.

I gently move Loxley out of the way before stepping in front of her. Peering down into my mother’s bitter and spite-filled eyes, I don’t even give her the satisfaction of being face-to-face with me. She’s so beneath me it’s laughable.

I remember being a kid and terrified to disobey her. Scared to turn a corner in my own home and accidentally run into her. My father ruled my nightmares, but she took the days away from me. I would get random day terrors that would leave me paralyzed with fear until I would come to, shaking and sobbing.

She ruined my childhood.

And she knows it.