“What are you going on about?” He’d snapped. Indifference was replaced with anger, and for the first time since I told him about Caylen, he reacted. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. Because no one would believe you.”

“Are you sure about that? Caylen—that’s his name by the way–is your son. Whether you want to believe that or not, all it will take is a simple DNA test to prove.”

“Yeah? And how do you think you could get me to do that? Tell the police? My father will bury you.”

“You underestimate the way the justice system works these days. It’s no longer politicians who rule the world. It’s social media. It’s drama. It’s scandal. All I have to do is point, and you lose.”

“You’re out of your mind.”

“That’s where you’ve got it twisted. I’m a mother trying to feed her child—a child that you wronged the moment you stuck your dick in mewithout my permission.”

“You’re bluffing.”

“Am I?”

“Even if you aren’t, you’d have a tough time proving the son of a senator rapedyou.”I imagined his face twisting with disgust as ifIwere the one drugging and raping.

“Maybe not. And it may be that the age of consent in Illinois is seventeen… but we both know the twenty-one-year-old son of a senator impregnating an underage nobody, whose father is in prison for murder, and who also accuses him of rape, willdestroyyour father’s career when this goes public. And itwillgo public, Aaron.”

Silence.

It stretched on for so long that I thought maybe I had finally won.

But I was wrong.

The line had died and with it, my last lifeline.

Did I have the strength to withstand such scandal? He was right when he threatened that his father would bury me. And what about my father? Did he even know about Caylen? Only Anna knew of how he came to be. I couldn’t even trust Erin with the truth. Did I want my father to find out from behind prison walls that his daughter had been raped?

I stared down at Caylen lying still against my chest. His eyes were closed and his breathing deep. It was trust that I’d take care of him and protect him while he slept. My shoulders shook as I mentally collapsed, but when he shifted and scrunched his face at being disturbed, I remembered he still needed me to fight.

Back at our apartment, I laid Caylen down for his nap and only when I put a safe distance between us did I allow myself to cry. All the normal feelings of despair and desperation that usually followed loss of hope spilled from me as I sunk to the floor.

How could I fool myself into thinking I could do this? I couldn’t take care of myself. It was selfish of me to bring such an innocent life into my fucked up world. Despite his conception, Caylen had become the light in my world—the one thing I had to hold onto since my mother died and my father’s incarceration.

I loved him more than I thought loving someone could be possible.

What if that meant setting him free?

I cried until I had nothing left. I cried for my parents. I cried for my innocence. And then I cried for my son, who would undoubtedly suffer unless I did the only thing that was left for me to do.

When the last tear fell, I rose up.

I only ever allowed a certain amount of time to feel sorry for myself before I let it go. Sorrow and tears wouldn’t feed my son. I made a bottle for Caylen to have when he woke and then sat down on my lumpy sofa in my box-sized living room and studied the fading paint. The only thing I had to decorate the wall was a family portrait of my father, mother, and me in front of our house. It was one of the few things I had salvagedfrom our home before it was seized by the bank.

I was still staring at the portrait when a single thump startled me followed by the wall vibrating from the force. The thump quickly became a hard rhythm and then the unmistakable sound of a male groan in the throes of passion filtered through the thin wall. If Brandi’s latest boy toy woke up my son, I’d scratch her fucking eyes out.

The sound of their fucking increased to the point of obscenity. I surged to my feet, intent on putting a stop to their good time, when the frame suddenly plummeted to the floor. I stared at the spot on the wall where the frame had been. Brandi and her guest never stopped fucking on the other side of the wall but I no longer cared.

The answer to my problem had revealed itself.

It meant a promise had to be broken.Chapter Three…always a Daddy’s girl.

MIAN“Who are youhere to visit?”