Page 52 of His Dark Purpose

I know.

She held the words back again, her unease ballooning as she identified Seth’s number. Her fingers trembled as she pressed the button to call it.

There always seemed to be a need for an explanation from someone at the moment. Her thoughts were like a pendulum, swinging from misery to joy, then back to chaos.

Heaving in air, she brought the phone to her ear and waited while the line connected. The sound of the dialing tone burst into life by her ear, dominating her senses as her free hand clawed at the bedding.

Calm down,she willed herself, gazing around the commotion that was Kyle’s once pristine bedroom suite. She’d landed and torn his immaculate world into pieces. Reaching for her hair, she tugged her fingers through her tangled tresses.I can’t wait to get myself cleaned up.

With the exception of the one remaining knot, she was finally free of Kyle’s bondage, and as soon as the business with Seth was ironed out, she was determined to get in the shower and freshen up. God only knew how long she’d been stuck there, tethered to his bed. Despite baring his soul, Kyle had a lot to answer for.

“Come on, Seth,” she whispered, her gaze darting to the bathroom door to check Kyle hadn’t returned. “Pick up the phone. Let’s get this sorted.”

She swore the noise of the tone grew louder as she waited, her nervousness heightening with each fresh ring. It took a moment before she realized the tone was being echoed by a new noise beyond the bedroom door. Concentrating on what she could hear, her heart threatened to leap into her throat as she finally recognized what it was—the sound ofanotherphone ringing.

She barely had time to register what that meant before the line went dead, and the bedroom door creaked open a fraction. She held her breath, pulling the covers to her chest as time suspended around her, and there, emerging from the shadows of the hallway, was her eldest son.

Chapter Eighteen

Showdown

Seth

Seth had been lurking around the corridor, trying to decide what to do. The asshole who owned the mansion he was standing in was the same dick who’d visited his father that day on Aspen Way—the same jerk who’d kicked them out of the house soon after.

His memories of that time were vague, but he’d been old enough to understand what had been going on. His dad had been permanently broke, and no matter how hard his parents worked, there was never enough money. Meanwhile, the prick who’d owned the property—who presumably never had to worry about how to afford food or heating—had decided to evict them.

Seth’s gaze narrowed as he recalled the trauma. His dad had only just passed away when the order to leave had arrived, spiraling his mum into despair she hadn’t ever really recovered from.

So why would she want to be with Kyle?

Surely she knew who he was? It hadn’t exactly taken Seth long to figure it out.

The conundrum knotted in Seth’s head, forcing him to lean back against the painted wall. Light had risen from the horizon a little more than an hour before—he’d watched its leisurely crawl from the spa—but the hallway outside the bedroom where he found himself didn’t have the benefit of any windows and was still largely in the preserve of the shadows.

He’d contemplated marching into the bedroom and confronting his mum, but he assumed both she and her lover boy were in there, and he didn’t have much appetite for a fight. Reflexively, his hand slipped to his back pocket, his fingertips trailing a line over the blade still stashed there. If he didn’t want to fight, why was he still armed?

His brow creased as his fingers ignored the knife and moved to retrieve his phone from the other pocket instead. He supposed prison life had conditioned him to always be prepared for violence, and given what little he knew about Kyle, he couldn’t help but think it was the right approach.

All he could say with any certainty was Kyle was rich. Wealthy enough to own their old house on Aspen Way and Brock Hall, and apparently, he’d taken a liking to Amy Kendal. There was no other information about him, nothing about how he’d accrued his incredible portfolio of property or what his interest in Seth’s mum was.

Seth glanced around the gloomy expanse of the passageway.“Whyhim?”

Maybe his mum had been so desperate, she’d lapped up Kyle’s slimy advances? Seth didn’t like it, but he guessed he didn’t blame her. She’d had so little for so long that even an ounce of his attention must have been like gold dust. No doubt he flooded her with fancy meals and jewels, and ego loaded, she’d swallowed down everything he’d had to give her.

His free hand balled into a fist at the hideous analogy. It wasn’t that Seth wanted his mum to stay single and miserable forever—far from it—but why choose to share a bed with the same man who’d made her children homeless?

However hard he tried to be forgiving, he just couldn’t understand her reasoning.

Opening his phone, he flicked into his mother’s contact and hesitated. Staring at her name on the screen, he held his breath. She still hadn’t responded to his messages.

What does that mean?

He wanted to call her and ask, wanted to demand an answer to the questions rumbling around his head, but he still wasn’t sure he was ready to face the man she’d shacked up with. Pulling in a deep breath, he closed his eyes. How was he going to handle the next few hours? Barely a day out of custody, he’d burned through most of the cash his brother had sent him, and thus far, all he’d been able to achieve was a new charge of breaking and entering.

Shit.

That was not how things were supposed to have gone. He should have been resting, ready to plan his life of liberty. As it was, he was still loitering in the plush confines of Kyle’s swanky pad—a place he’d explored at some length in the last couple hours.

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