Page 70 of Conflicted Lies

I didn’t want to be in that life anymore. I didn’t want to turn into her.

Hope was the first woman I met who showed me what true power is in a woman. As quiet as she might be, her presence always called to me with confidence and a lethal edge.

“I need something else,” she finally blurts.

“What?”

“They arrested Teddy!” she cries out, and crocodile tears spill from her eyes as she tries to explain how he’s the victim in the situation. Teddy is her on-again, off-again man who likes to beat her and fuel her addictions. I tried to get her to leave him many times. Even paid for her to go to rehab twice. But I concluded that it’s better to cut some things off. If it’s poison, it’ll eventually infect everything. But I haven’t been able to completely cut her off.Yet.

“Good. I hope he goes to jail.” I smile because I absolutely hate the fucking guy. I’d even considered killing him myself but decided against getting further involved in her life. I can’t control my mother or change her path. But this hatred I harbor for her still festers.

Her mouth opens in shock. I don’t know what she expected from me. I hate that man. The man she claims to love more than her “useless” son. I’ve heard it all. How disgusting I am to her. How I’m less compared to the scum she lets beat her daily. And she holds the resolve that that’s the absolute truth.

I feel the anger rise in me again, sparking to life that small part of me that was a fourteen-year-old boy thrown onto the streets because he wanted something better for his family. I bury that back down, though, because it has no place here. Not in this life of mine.

“Have a good day, Mother. And don’t ever fucking come back here again, begging me to help that man.” I go to shut the door, but she throws herself against it.

“Come on, Braxton. One call from you, and it can all go away,” she says desperately. “You have that kind of power, don’t you?”

“No,” I tell her again. Because she only contacts me when she finds it convenient to have a cop in the family.

“Now, leave before I have you arrested.” I push her back, and this time, when I go to shut the door, she’s too stunned to stop me.

I take a deep breath and look through the peephole to see her still standing there.

My teeth grind. I feel a part of me has been exposed as I focus on the only other presence in the room. Someone who I didn’t want to see this side of me, completely in denial about my roots. Hope and I come from different worlds entirely, and though she certainly isn’t here for my money, it’s the understanding in her gaze that rocks me when I turn back to her. She looks… sympathetic, and it pokes at something ugly inside me.

I don’t want her to see my past. I don’t want her to see me as weak.

What a hypocrite I am, wanting to see all of her but hiding this shame within me.

“I should leave,” Hope says, flicking off the sheets and going to grab her clothes. I step into her path. Her breath is shaky, and she still holds the gun as she stares up at me through her glasses.

She isn’t allowed to go anywhere.

CHAPTER37

Hope

As curious as I might’ve been about Braxton’s past, even going so far as having Ivy dig into it for me, I know I was just a witness to something I shouldn’t have seen. He shuts the door on his mother and then turns around to face me. She was at the door begging for his help, but I could tell from the tense set of his shoulders that he couldn’t stand her.

I’d read that he’d come from rough beginnings. I don’t judge it because Ford and Hawke had a similar background, but I feel like I was privy to something he hasn’t fully dealt with. We all have our own demons to face.

“No, you should stay,” he says as he stalks toward me. I take a step back, landing on the bed as his imposing size towers over me. He’s mad. Not at me, though. But that aggressive thing within him calls to my own, and I hate the fact that I want to exploit it, to have him fuck me into oblivion with that hatred if it’ll make him feel better for even a single moment. My body is more than capable of handling it. In fact, it thrives off it. And that’s the terrifying part of me. Aren’t I a terrible person for getting off on that?

He grabs my ankles and drags me across the bed, so I’m closer to him.

“I should leave. It looks like you have something you need to deal with,” I say.

He releases my ankles, and before I can say another word, his pants are gone, and he’s on his knees, spreading my legs and lowering his mouth directly between my thighs. A moan slips from my lips as I dig my fingers through his curly hair, focusing solely on the skill of his tongue. It’s as if he’s a man possessed as his finger slips inside me, and he grips my waist to pin me into place. I know I’m going to have bruises there.

I like it.

I want him to bruise me. I want him to hurt me.

And I want to hurt him in return.

My hand covers his and I whisper, “Harder.”

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