Page 33

CHAPTER 33

EDIN

Half a dozen of my teammates are already in the gym when I arrive. One of my favorite things about conditioning is how I can do it on my own terms. There’s not a set time I need to arrive and leave. Which means I can be here earlier in the day and leave before picking up Mo from aftercare.

I love her being here for practices. I love how Coach is so accommodating. And honestly, I think the team enjoys her around. Even in the gym when she’s bossing them around and telling them what they should be doing. After the first time Coach said she was right when she was telling Smithers to work on his legs instead of his arms that day, everyone started listening to my daughter’s instructions.

The satisfied little smile she gave me when Coach sided with her was everything. I’ll never forget that look. She was so damn proud, and prouder still that she continues to tell everyone what to do and they listen. Her sly glances in my direction constantly have me trying not to laugh.

However, I’m aware not everyone wants a child around all the time. I’m so incredibly grateful my team has been so accepting of Mo and I’ve never so much as overheard a complaint that she’s always here. But I also don’t want to get on their nerves. They should be allowed some peace from time to time. The fact of the matter is hockey isn’t run by an eight-year-old. Even if said eight-year-old is a strange little conundrum, who knows what the hell she’s talking about.

I’ve been in the gym for forty minutes when Coach steps inside. It’s not entirely unusual for him to stop in. Sometimes to talk to one of us. Sometimes to work out alongside us. Other times for another reason.

His eyes move around the space and stop on me. There’s something about his expression that has my entire body breaking out in chills. I let the weights rest in the start position and sit up.

“You need to get to Mo’s daycare,” Coach says.

Everything inside of me freezes. Reflexively, I glance at the clock. It’s barely four. “She doesn’t have to be picked up until six.”

“Go now, Edin. Right now.”

I jump to my feet and run out the door. My phone is in my pocket, but I keep it silenced when I have it on me in the gym. I don’t even put the vibrate on because it is far too distracting, and I need to concentrate on what I’m doing so I don’t hurt myself. Coach’s urgent tone has me not taking the time to check my phone for a missed call.

I don’t know what I’m expecting as I sprint to her aftercare center. But as I round the corner and it comes into sight, there’s a small crowd of people on the sidewalk in front of the door with the playground fence behind them.

Two individuals stand out like a beacon—my daughter clinging to Eli with every ounce of strength in her body and my mother, trying to pry her away. Fear grips my chest, and I run faster.

“Don’t touch me!” Mo screams. “Stop trying to take me. I don’t know you. Leave me alone!”

Her words get louder and more hysterical as I get closer. Without thinking, I shove my mother away when I reach them and wrap Mo in my arms without removing her from Eli. She’s got tears in her eyes, but as soon as she sees me, she starts sobbing and wraps an arm around my neck.

“Daddy, she tried to steal me. Miss Megan was going to give me to her. She wants to send me back to Mom. Don’t let her, Daddy. I don’t want to go.”

“Shh,” I murmur. I rest my hand on the back of her head. “It’s okay now. I’m right here.”

She’s still sobbing, her body trembling. “I don’t want to go,” she wails.

“You’re not going anywhere. I’m going to take care of this. Don’t leave Eli, okay?” I look up, meeting Elijah’s eyes as my daughter agrees. Elijah nods as well. “Has someone called the police?”

“I did,” Elijah says.

“Good.” I fish my phone from my pocket and hand it to Mo. “Call Uncle Dak, please. Tell him I need him here and I need him to bring the file. I need to talk to the police when they get here. Can you do that for me? Will you remember to tell him I need the file?”

Mo struggles to catch her breath. She nods, rubbing at her eyes. “Okay.”

My mother is still demanding we hand over my kid. Her voice is like nails down a chalkboard. Once, I might have said the only voice that could spark anger and hate in me like no other was Lydia’s screaming at Mo. Maybe I’m wrong.

I spin around and scream, “SHUT UP!”

My mother is so stunned that she falls silent. I’ve barely seen anything else around us but bodies. Even the flashing lights of police cars barely register in the haze of anger as I storm toward my mother. She has the good sense to back away. I have no intention of touching her, but she needs to get away from my daughter. Far away.

“You can’t keep her here!” my mother insists. “She belongs with her mother.”

“In my experience, mothers are shit!” I snap.

“You can’t hurt me,” she says. “I was always a good mother to you.”

“Right up until I screwed up, and you made it your life’s mission to make sure I remained as miserable as possible for the rest of my fucking life.”

“What’s going on?” an officer asks as he gets between my mother and me.

“He kidnapped his daughter and?—”

“Shut up!” I holler and my mother flinches. “Your lies are serious and nowhere near the fucking truth.” I look at the police officer and am thankful I listened to Coach when we came back from the last set of away games and filed a restraining order. I was right. It didn’t stop her. But I suppose it’ll work by getting her charged with breaking it.

“My name is Edin Levine. My boyfriend is holding my daughter, Morgan Levine. This insane woman is my mother, who I have a restraining order against. She tried to kidnap my daughter, and I want to charge her with everything imaginable.”

Once again, my oblivious mother looks horrified at the allegation.

I turn and point at the camera above the door. “It’s caught on camera,” I provide.

“I didn’t try to kidnap her,” my mother insists. “Edin stole her from her mother and ran away with her. I’m just trying to bring her back home where she belongs.”

The police officer looks at me. “The paperwork will be here to prove that’s bullshit momentarily. I filed for a divorce almost three years ago and also for sole parental rights. Lydia signed both immediately and without hesitation. I haven’t seen or heard from her since. Morgan wants nothing to do with her. Like you, she’s a shitty mother.”

“That’s a lie!” my mother demands. “No mother would give up her child.”

“No. They just throw them away like you did!” I snap.

A hand on my arm has me spinning wildly. Ready to lose my shit. “Easy,” Dak murmurs, dropping his hand from my arm and wrapping it around my waist. I take a deep breath. He hands me the envelope with my custody paperwork, including the paperwork that states he and Sparrow are actually Mo’s legal guardians.

I hand it to the police officer. “All of Mo’s custody paperwork and my divorce papers,” I tell him.

He nods. “Thank you. I’ll have a look.”

“Also, this is Dak Bozik. It’s relevant.”

Dak already has his ID out and offers it to the officer. He doesn’t question it, but accepts it with more thanks.

“Sir, I meant what I said. I want her charged with anything possible. I have a whole laundry list I can give you, though I suspect she’ll get away with it since I was a minor.”

“You can’t do this,” my mother says to the officers coming up on either side of her. She turns to me with fury. “If you loved your daughter, you’d take her home and be a family. How can you say you love her when you have her in childcare that will hand her over to anyone who asks for her?”

I barely hear the last words as if you loved your daughter drives through my head like a pickax. “If I loved my daughter?!” I can hear how high my voice has gotten. “Let’s start with, if you loved your son, you wouldn’t have forced him into such a toxic situation that he nearly killed himself to get out of it!” I holler. The shock on my mother’s face doesn’t stop my words. “If you loved your son, you wouldn’t have tried to trap him in that environment to teach him a lesson . The only reason I’m alive, Mother , is because of my daughter. Knowing she would’ve been stuck with her verbally and emotionally abusive mother—or worse, YOU —kept me hanging on by a thread long enough to get help. Let’s not talk about loving your child. Your idea of loving your child is fucked up.”

“Okay,” Dak soothes and pulls me backwards. “Come on. Let the police take her away now.”

It’s not enough. I need to hurt her like I’ve been hurt. I need her to understand what she did. The misery and horror she caused. The trauma that still hides in my shadow, following me around every single fucking day. I need her to understand the struggle that I fight constantly. With every fucking breath.

It’s not enough to let the police take her.

Dak turns me, wrapping his arms around me. I squeeze my eyes shut and force the tears out as I struggle to catch my breath. No one interrupts us for quite some time. There are voices surrounding us. Police questioning everyone. Murmurs. Shadows elongating as the sun begins its descent.

After several minutes, I take a deep breath and take a step back. “Thanks.”

He nods. “What do you need?”

“Just be here, please.” I look for Mo, finding her right where I left her in Elijah’s arms. Sparrow is there, rubbing her back. A police officer is there, too. I’m slightly afraid of what they’re asking her, but since neither Sparrow nor Elijah look concerned, I feel assured that she’s safe.

“I think maybe it’s time we give you back Mo’s custody,” Dak says quietly.

I swallow and close my eyes, still trying to regulate my breathing to some semblance of normal. “What if…”

“I’m always going to be here, Edin. Always. Nothing will change that. Eli’s here too.”

We never officially moved Mo’s custody back to me. Not even when Lydia signed over all her rights to me. That only became the default when there was no protest against Dak’s guardianship. I never actually left Mo to Dak’s care without me. It was a precaution, so I was assured no one could send her back when my therapist learned I was mentally unfit to take care of her.

But I never left. I was there every single day. All the really hard days and the days when I started healing.

My fear I could fall back down that hole again is the reason I never took guardianship back. It was a just in case precaution. Even when Mo and I moved out, the only paperwork I ever showed her school or aftercare was the court order saying I have full custody of Morgan so I could put Lydia on the no-pick up list.

I nod. “I know, It’s just… I feel better knowing she’s never going anywhere because you have legal guardianship of her. No matter what happens to me, she’s going to be safe.”

He grips the back of my neck. I’m so startled that my gaze snaps to his. “Nothing is going to happen to you. You have a whole family of people who love you, Edin.”

I frown.

Dak shakes his head. “Look around.”

I really don’t want to, but when I do as he says, I realize it’s no longer just the small group that had been here when I arrived and the addition of the police. My team is here. Coach is here. Many of my frat mates are here. Zeke and some of the cheerleaders are here.

When my eyes meet theirs, they smile. Not the happy, excited kind of smile. The kind that’s there for encouragement and support.

I drop my face into my hands for a second, trying and failing to keep in the emotion of seeing them surrounding me, making sure I know I’m not alone. For years, I felt completely alone. Battling all on my own with no one to fucking care. No one there at all. It was just me struggling. I didn’t even share the depths of my struggles with Dak because I knew he’d have stayed in our hometown and that wasn’t fair to him. He shouldn’t have to give up his future because I was stuck, and so I was alone. Completely and utterly alone.

There are more people here than I ever imagined there would be. I didn’t even know I knew this many people. I’m sure there are just gawkers and onlookers in the crowd, but so many of the faces close by are ones I know. Ones that are here for me.

I wipe my face again and look up.

Dak grips my arms again, bringing my attention back to him. “We will do whatever it takes to make her go away. Do you understand?”

“I wish I could charge her for the past, too,” I mutter, digging my palms into my eyes.

“Maybe we can. We’ll find a really good lawyer and sue her for damages.”

I meet his eyes, expecting a teasing smile, but Dak’s serious. “That’s a thing?”

“Honestly, you can sue people for anything. So trust that we’ll make this happen.”

“I don’t?—”

“First, lawyers don’t always get paid unless you win. Your parents have money, so when you win, you pay them from your winnings. Second, stop worrying about money. If I could have sued her on my own without you being involved, I’d have done so years ago. To satisfy my own anger at what she’s put you through. Believe me, Edin, I looked into it, and it wasn’t possible to do without you being involved.”

“You’re serious?”

Dak rolls his eyes. “Yes, I am. I hate that woman. I hate how much she hurt you and Mo. If I could, I would absolutely bury her in court. All you need to do is give me the go ahead and I can make it happen now.”

I search for my mother. It takes me several seconds to find her. She’s sitting in the back of a cruiser with the door open, still arguing with the police.

“Does she really believe she’s right?” I ask. It’s rhetorical. I didn’t mean to ask the words out loud.

“I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter.”

I nod. “Yes. I want her in jail for the rest of her life. I don’t care if we can’t make that happen, but that’s the goal I want. To ensure she’ll never come near me or Mo again.”

“Great,” Dak says, squeezing my arms. “This is going to be really fucking satisfying.”

I’m not sure if he’s right, but at the very least, if nothing else, it’ll make her understand I’m no longer the teenager she forced into a shitty situation. She can’t control me anymore. She has no authority over my daughter. Maybe now she’ll know how much I hate her for what she’s put us through.

I will never forgive her.