Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 155900 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 155900 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
He didn’t care that he was laying guilt on her shoulders. He knew she believed he was her only good thing. It was the only way he could twist it.
Grief blanketed her emerald eyes, the gold dimmed with atrocities she’d suffered. “Okay, baby. Okay.”
She climbed onto her hands and knees, and Kane carefully helped her to stand, silently promising her that’s where he’d always be.
Standing for her at her side.
Silently promising that he’d be enough.
This time it was going to be different.
Kane – Sixteen Years Old
“You fuckin’ whore. What did I tell you?”
It was never different. Never, ever different.
Shouts and clatters echoed from down the hall.
“I came right home. I promise.”
“Such a liar.”
“No.”
A heavy thud then the cry of his mother.
And Kane was tossing off his covers and jumping from his bed, fury pumping through his veins and tightening every muscle in his body.
Rage burning a hole through his being.
He wouldn’t stand for it.
Not any longer. He’d remained a coward, locked in his room ever since his mother had made him promise never to intervene again after he’d hit Paul.
But you took care of the ones you loved most.
In the dark of the night, he hurtled down the hall, hastening with the slap he heard smack across her cheek, and he barreled into the living room where Justin had his mother backed against the wall.
He didn’t hesitate.
Years of pent-up anger busted out of where he’d kept it trapped.
He rushed forward and slammed into Justin from the side, ramming his shoulder into his ribs and sending the bastard stumbling.
“Stay the fuck away from my mom!” It raked out of him, the words trembling, but not out of fear. It was purely out of hate.
Justin fumbled three steps, nearly falling onto the ground, but he managed to steady himself. Rebounding. Rising high and wide, the man a fucking giant.
Kane didn’t care.
He wouldn’t cower.
Wouldn’t back down.
“Oh my God, Kane, go back to your room,” his mother begged from behind.
“I’m not standing aside anymore.” He’d said it before, had wanted to mean it, but he’d been too young and small and naïve to actually make it fact.
But now he could feel the shift inside himself.
The crack that had been carved inside him the first time he’d witnessed someone hurt his mother fracturing wide.
Justin laughed a menacing sound. “Think you’d better listen to your mother before you regret that statement.”
Regret.
They were always threatening regret.
But Kane would never regret standing up for his mother.
“Get the fuck out of our house,” Kane spat through clenched teeth, trying to keep his cool when he felt himself splintering apart.
His mother gasped and Justin laughed again, and his voice took on the same condescending tone he always used with Kane. “Or what are you gonna do about it?”
Kane didn’t bother with a rebuttal. He launched himself at the latest beast who’d been beating on his mom, figuring he’d show him.
Only Kane didn’t make it all the way to him before a meaty fist came up and struck him in the stomach.
Pain exploded, and the breath was knocked from his body.
He bent in two, trying to stay upright, to find his footing and go back for the monster.
But Kane had no time before another fist smashed into the side of his head.
A roar of agony burst out of him, and he stumbled to the opposite side. A dark bleakness throbbed at the edges of his sight.
Pulling him toward surrender.
But he wouldn’t.
He had to fight.
“No, Justin, no,” he heard his mother whimpering, and he forced himself to straighten when he sensed Justin going back for her. He threw himself onto the asshole’s back and locked his arms around his neck, trying to choke him out.
Holding on so tight.
With all his might.
For his mother.
For his mother.
His mother who was currently on the floor, weeping with her mouth gushing where it was split. Through it, she met his gaze and gave Kane a silent shake of her head.
Telling him no.
That she wasn’t worth it.
But she was.
She was worth everything.
She was the one he loved most.
Kane tightened his hold, not even caring if he actually strangled the motherfucker to death.
Maybe hoping that he would.
Justin spun around in a circle, his disgusting, giant hands pawing at Kane’s arms as he tried to break free. “You little fucker. You think you’re gonna get away with this? Disrespectin’ me?”
Justin threw himself back and smashed Kane’s back into the far wall.
Kane grunted, and he tried to maintain his hold and not let the fresh round of pain battering through his body make him falter.
Kane might not have been a scrawny kid anymore, but Justin had at least eighty pounds on him, and he was losing ground.
Justin grabbed him by one wrist, twisting it back and spinning out of Kane’s hold all while keeping him nailed to the wall.
With the other hand, Justin struck him in the stomach again.