Page 218 of Wicked Proposal

And yet, at the same time, I’d never leave the city. Because leaving would mean losing my son for good. I’d be homeless, reduced to begging on the streets, surfing between Kallie and Reese’s couches on the coldest nights of the year.

Until they got sick of me, too.

And then I’d really have no one.

“Please,” I find myself whispering. “Please, Brad, don’t do this.”

He cups my chin. I want to jerk away so badly, but I force myself to keep still. Because right now, he has all the power, and I’ve got nothing.

Just like back then.

“There’s another way, you know.” He drops in close, his whiskey breath acrid on my nostrils. “A way for you to earn Eli’s forgiveness. A way to keep him.”

Hope sparks in my chest. “What’s that?”

“Come back to me.” He drags his thumb across my bottom lip. “Let us be the family we were always supposed to be. I never liked Yulian’s part of the plan—fucking you until you died. It was a bit much, even for me.”

“You shouldn’t have agreed to it, then.”

“I did what I had to do. But now, I don’t have to play nice with him anymore.” He lowers his lips to mine, speaking right against them. It makes my stomach roil. “You deserve better than a lie, Mia. We all do.” He glances towards Eli as he says this. “Don’t you agree?”

My heart is hammering now. A drum of war. “And how am I supposed to believe you’ve changed?”

“You give me a chance to prove it.” He starts playing with my hair, like he used to do back then. It gives me the chills, but I let him. I’ve got no other choice. “I didn’t hit you tonight, did I? Even if you made me angry.”

“What do you want, a fucking medal?”

“I want you to trust me.” He takes my hand, squeezes it just on the wrong side of too hard. “I want us to be whole. You, me, Eli—our family. Let me mend what you broke.”

I’ve never wanted to run so bad. Every instinct is screaming at me that I can’t trust this man—this monster pretending to be a father to my child.

“Don’t look so afraid,” he tuts. “I won’t touch you until you’re ready. Consent is all the rage these days, didn’t you hear?”

“No offense, Brad, but that sounds like the bare minimum.”

“God, you’re never happy, are you?” He rolls his eyes, steps back from me. “Maybe this will motivate you.”

Then he pulls out a gun.

My blood freezes. “Brad, put that down.”

But he doesn’t aim it at me. Instead, he presses it on the glass, right at the heart of the spider cracks he made. Right towards…

Eli.

“Let’s see if this works better,” he says with an eerie sort of calm. “Either you do as I say, or I’ll shoot the little bastard in the head. How’s that for a deal?”

“Don’t you call him that,” I snarl. “Don’t youevercall him that.”

He taps the gun to the glass. The spider cracks grow wider. “Tick-tock, Euphemia. What will it be?”

I’ve never felt so outraged in my life. Never been so fucking furious. But all of that pales in comparison to the terror of seeing my son—my world—being held at gunpoint in his bed.

“Three,” Brad counts down.

I rack my brain for a choice—anychoice.

“Two.”