Page 161 of Downforce

“I raised him after Severino died.” She beats her chest with the hand that holds the flashlight. “I took care of him and sent him to school and took him to practice. Then he has the nerve to cut me off? Cancel my credit cards? Stop paying for my home?”

Now she’s getting to where her real resentment stems from. From what he’s told me, I know Max hasn’t completely cut his mother off, either. He just removed her name from all but one of his bank accounts and all credit cards. While he continues to take care of the mortgage on one of the apartments that’s in both of their names, he refuses to pay the extravagant rent on the multiple rentals that she’s taken out in different European countries or pay for her luxurious trips around the world.

He’s still paying for her life, but apparently, it’s too scaled down for what she believes she deserves.

“You bitch! You think you can judge me?” she yells when I bring this up. “He owes me. I carried him for nine months, raised him, gave him⁠—”

“Years of emotional abuse even after he witnessed what no child should ever have to see? The death of his father. You mean you did the bare minimum as a parent and then tried to cripple him with guilt and degradation by constantly telling him he wasn’t good enough? That’s what he owes you for?”

I move toward her, itching to put my hands around her throat, when Edwin intercedes, holding the knife almost to my throat.

“Don’t move,” he says.

“Take that knife away from her or I will break you,” Max’s voice thunders through the garage.

I don’t waste time as soon as I hear his voice. I brush Edwin’s arm away and lunge at Max’s mother, surprising her. I knock the scissors out of her hand before palm-striking her in the nose, sending her head back and loosening her muscles so that the flashlight plummets to the ground.

She’s instantly bent over, holding her bloodied nose in both of her hands.

There are voices, loud noises, and chaos behind me, but I don’t take my eyes off of his mother. I don’t trust this witch.

While she’s injured, she’s still a vengeful, unscrupulous bitch who won’t hesitate to grab whatever’s near to try to hit me. A woman who berates, denigrates, and even tries to cause an accident to her own son is not someone to turn my back on.

And just as I thought, it doesn’t take long before she’s lurching at me. Seeking to lash out in retribution for her bloodied nose.

But I was taught self-defense from the time I was a little girl. My uncle taught me how to throw a punch when I was just three. He’d had me perfect it by the time I was seven.

Max’s mother doesn’t stand a chance. Especially not when all of the terrible things she said about him course through my mind.

Those words couple with the look I saw in his eyes months ago, when I walked in on his mother speaking to him like he was a stranger on the street. The empty, detached look he must’ve perfected over the years in order to shield himself from the words she used as daggers to spear his spirit in an attempt to break him.

Her cries for me to let go of her that fade into cries of fear that I’ll kill her don’t stop me.

It’s not until strong arms bracket me from behind. I don’t see who it is that’s holding me, but my body knows the touch. It’s familiar, a signal to my body and unconscious mind that I’m safe.

Slowly, I release the hold I have on her hair. The moment I do, her body slumps to the floor, still conscious but definitely worn out and unable to take much more. I fight off the urge to finish what I started, but instead I turn to the person holding me.

“Travis,” I heave, and then all of the air is forced out of my lungs when he pulls me tight into his chest.

“You’re safe,” he says.

But my heart still races. Max is here. I heard his voice.

Where is he?

I hope he didn’t hear any of that horrible shit his mother said about him.

My eyes fall to a trickle of blood that starts where Edwin once stood. I follow it to a body laying on the ground.

In my periphery, I hear alarms and see the flashing of what I presume are police vehicles, but I laser in on the blood and the person on the ground.

I push out of Travis’ hold and move toward the body.

“Max?”

“I’m here.” I glance over to Max, standing behind a prone Edwin, who is also still conscious but barely.

“Max.” I stop short, my eyes roaming over his body when my heartbeat quickens. “You’re bleeding,” I blurt out before the sirens get louder and the entire world, it feels like, descends upon us.