Page 36 of Sinful Chains

My heart sank when my eyes landed on a tissue box next to the TV.

Mama sat in here and cried for her baby. Parents aren’t supposed to do that. Mothers shouldn’t ever have to bury their children.

Tears welled in my eyes, hot, salty, and blinding. I gritted my teeth and tried to swallow them down, but it was useless. They spilled over, and my shoulders shook as the sadness freely poured out of me for the first time in months.

I hated this so much.

The questions.

The answers, or lack thereof.

I knew more than my parents did, but I didn’t know everything, and what I did know, I couldn’t share in a million years. They wouldn’t be able to handle it. I was barely handling it myself.

I took one last look around my brother’s old room and steeled myself. I had a new resolve.

Storm was going to give me the answers.

Because he had already given me something valuable, a tool I could use to get whatever I wanted —power. Control.

I’d make him tell me, and dare him to refuse his princess.

Dinner was delicious, but silent. Mama barely ate, which explained her thinness. Daddy dined in his recliner in front of the TV, something he never did when we were growing up, and I picked at my pork chops, my appetite barely strong enough to get me through the first one.

“This is delicious, Mama.”

Several seconds passed before it seemed like she heard me. “Yes. I made your favorite.”

I cringed internally, because she’d gotten it wrong. This wasRevere’sfavorite meal.

I couldn’t take this anymore.

After another few minutes of picking at my food, I excused myself and went to the kitchen, washing the dishes and wiping down the counters before I hugged and kissed me parents.

They were basically…zombies. And while I understood it, being around them, being in that house, was way too painful. I had to get out, to catch my breath before I suffocated.

It was almost dark when I stepped outside, and eerily still for a Miami evening. My parents’ street usually bustled withactivity, but there wasn’t a single shrieking child riding a bike or tossing a ball. No souped-up car thumping bass.

Strange.

That’s probably why I noticed a car parked down the block, engine off, with someone sitting inside. I couldn’t see their face, but I felt their gaze on me. Watching. Waiting.

A chill went up my spine.

I turned at the end of the driveway and walked faster to my car, my heart pounding in my chest.

It was probably nothing. People parked on the street all the time.Iwas parked on the street.

But I couldn’t be sure, and that worried me.

Chapter twelve

I fucking hated thisboardroom.

It was old as hell, for one thing. Dusty. Air always stale and thick with the aroma of old leather chairs and strong coffee. The long oak table stretched between us like ground zero of a war zone, deans and provosts perched in their seats shuffling papers and murmuring to each other about shit we distinguished faculty had no control over. This was supposed to be a run-of-the-mill budget meeting, but it was anything but.

Egos were clashing.

And it didn't help that half these motherfuckers had been part of thedisciplinary hearings a few years back, sitting at this very table listening to me talk about the shit that gets my dick hard. I stood ten toes down on my truth, because I wasn't ashamed, but nobody wants folks in their personal business like that.

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