Page 75 of Renard's Deliverance

“Been dealing with them all my life, darlin’,” she told him. “Not like I knew a lot different.”

“Still doesn’t make it right.”

No, it didn’t.

“So I was working all I could to pay off that debt so that asshole didn’t come after Mom again, trying to keep an eye on her so she didn’t get into more trouble, when this sexy as fuck guy walks into the club.”

He growled. “I don’t like hearing you call another man sexy.”

“Yeah. I get that.” She nodded. She wouldn’t like it if he said that about another woman. “Sorry. Just telling you where my head was at. This guy had money. He gave me a hundred-dollar tip that night. Now, I’ve been around some assholes who thought they were God. They’d flash their cash, meanwhile their families lived in a dive and their kids went hungry. But Stefan was back week after week. And it was more than the money, it was the courtesy, you know? He treated everyone in that club like a human being. Little did I know how good of an actor he was. He seemed too good for that place. When he asked me on a date, I laughed because I didn’t believe it.”

“So he dated you?”

“Not for long, darlin’.” She swallowed heavily as memories assaulted her. There was more to the story, but while she had trust in Renard not to harm her, she wasn’t prepared to trust him with all of her past. “He promised to make all of my problems go away if I became his. Moved me into a nice apartment, paid off all of the debt Mom had racked up, even got her into a rehab place. I had stupidly convinced myself that he was in love with me. That he would never hurt me.”

She shook her head with a bitter laugh. “I can’t believe how stupid I was. I grew up surrounded by liars, assholes, and terrible people and he still managed to fool me. I thought I was street smart, that no one would be able to deceive me like that. For so long I excused his actions, telling myself that he loved me. I always blamed myself.”

“What did he do to you?” he asked in a dark voice.

She’d been too lost in the memories to remember to watch Renard.

And that was a mistake that she shouldn’t have made.

Because he was beyond furious.

His face was pure, stark white and there was a small tic to the right of his mouth. He was scowling so hard that she was certain he would have new wrinkles. Not that that was necessarily a bad thing when the ones he had only made him hotter.

But she didn’t want him having wrinkles because of her.

“Renard,” she said in a low, calm voice. “Renard, honey, it’s over now.”

“Over? What did he do?”

“I don’t . . . I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

“Motherfucker.”

“He’s dead,” she reminded him.

He sat there as still as a statue except for the tic in his cheek and his hands which were clenching and unclenching.

“He’s dead,” he repeated.

“He’s dead,” she told him again.

“Did it hurt?”

“I don’t know, darlin’. But I sure hope so. He was shot.” That was likely all she should tell him. The truth of who shot him was something that no one wanted getting out.

Not without risking the person who shot him.

“Fuck. Fuck.”

“So, I was having a hard time being . . . Stefan’s. And I started to collect pills until the day I felt brave enough to take them all. At once.”

“Fuck.” He groaned the word and she winced at the pain in it.

“I just wanted to escape. Anyway, obviously I wasn’t successful. He found me. Got my stomach pumped by an asshole doctor he had on his payroll. And I lived. Thing is . . . I don’t regret it. I can’t ever regret it. Because the lowest point of my life brought me to Lilac.”

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