Then the man leaned in close. “You don’t want your mother finding out WHO YOU REALLY ARE… do you?”
The color drained from Liam’s face.
The man turned. Slowly.
His sunken eyes met mine, and despite the sickness, despite the years of abandonment and the hard life etched onto his face… I recognized him.
I recognized him.
Derek… The man who stole my grandmother’s last gift.
The man who abandoned us, leaving a screaming, helpless baby in a crib.
I didn’t think. My Mama bear mode activated in full, blinding force.
“What are you doing here?” I marched toward them. “How dare you talk to Liam like that? You know nothing about him.”
Derek sneered. “I know more than you think.”
My Mama bear mode activated
in full, blinding force.
He held out a trembling hand, waving some wrinkled medical papers at me.
“I’m sick. I need treatment. And your son has been helping me. He should help me. I’m his father.”
I turned to Liam. “Is this true?”
“Yes,” he choked out. “He found me months ago. After class. He said he was dying and begged for help. He-he told me the truth: how you refused to give him money, forcing him to steal.”
“He told me the truth.”
My jaw dropped.
“Did he also tell you,” I fixed my gaze on Derek, “that the money he stole before he left us was money my grandmother left me for your future? Did he tell you that he wanted to spend it on golf clubs?”
“I deserved those golf clubs! You had no right to deny me. I was entitled to that money!”
Liam’s eyes flicked from Derek to me, a whirlwind of confusion and dawning horror on his face.
