Page 3 of Protected By the Sinner

“Come closer, sweetheart.”

I return to her side, reluctantly. I hate goodbyes, and I know that’s what this is. In her mind, I’m still a boy and she thinks she has to protect me.

She squeezes my hand as soon as I’m near her. “I need to confess everything.”

“Confess what?”

“We’re not your parents.”

“You’re saying I’m adopted?”

It’s been a long time since I considered Landon Sable my father—I even dropped his name and use my mother’s instead: Carmouche-LeBlanc—but in her illness-induced delusion, my mother seems to believe I’m not connected to them at all.

Landon abandoned her as soon as I left home at eighteen. Left the woman who had been loyal to him her whole life with no income, forcing her to fend for herself. I supported her the best I could, though in the early days of adulthood, I barely had enough for myself.

Then, as if fate had set a timer on our lives, the moment I opened my first nightclub in Seattle, she fell ill.

For the last ten years, my mother has been in and out of hospital, and if I hadn’t made a fortune and taken care of her the way she deserved, she would’ve suffered even more.

Could anyone suffer worse than the hell she went through during her marriage?

“Beau, listen to me.”

“You shouldn’t waste energy talking.”

“I have to. He’s not your father, and I’m not your biological mother, even though in my heart, I feel like I am. I was wrong not to tell you sooner, but I was trying to protect you.”

“Protect me?” I try to keep my voice calm. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

My mother doesn’t know what she’s saying. She’s out of her mind—or so I try to convince myself.

Still, her words echo in my ears like a gunshot silenced by a suppressor, hitting the target straight on—because the seed of doubt has been planted.

“You don’t need him anymore, Beau. You’re a wealthy man now. One day you’ll have a family of your own,” she continues, as if that’s all that matters, not the fact that she lied to me my whole life. “But don’t let Landon get close to you again. He’s no good. He’s a monster.”

“If it’s true I’m not your son, why tell me now?”

“Because I need your forgiveness. I’m seeking redemption, Beau.”

Redemption? That and forgiveness are words I’ve never really understood.

She has no idea what I’ve become.

She called Landon a monster because she believes I’m his opposite, which only proves she doesn’t know me at all.

It feels like concrete is flooding my veins, replacing my blood, hardening every fiber of me as memories of our drifting life—never staying in one place—flash through my mind.

Was I living a lie all along? Were all those stories nothing but fiction?

Her trembling hand grips my arm, but I can’t feel pity. The only reason I don’t pull away is because maybe, just maybe, there’s still a sliver of humanity left in me.

“You let me grow up believing you were my parents, even though you knew that bastard deserved to die? Do you have any idea what I would’ve done to him if I’d known the truth?”

“Beau, forgive me.”

At the foot of her hospital bed, surrounded by the rhythmic beeping of machines keeping her alive, I try to hold back the rage.

I want her to take it all back, to tell me it was her sick mind speaking, but deep down, I know she’s lucid. “Tell me everything. I want every single detail.”