Page 95 of Adam
Bullshit.
All this time I thought she’d just loved Cain more. That maybe I was second place.
But no.
Turns out I wasn’t even in the running. She didn’t hate me because she had a favorite.
She just didn’t loveme.
What ifshe lovedmeinstead?
What ifshe loved mejust a little?
Then her eyes landed on me, and just like that, the warmth dropped dead on her face.
Gone was the sweet aunt act. Now she looked at me like I was a fucking stray that wandered in off the street. Like I was some threat, some disease hovering too close to her precious Judas.
Her whole body shifted, as ifIwas the danger. As if I hadn’t spent my whole life choking on the scraps of her affection while she handed the rest of them gold.
Why did Ishow myself?
“What are you doing here?” she hissed, her eyes wide and wild.
“I-I was just …”
“We were playing hide and seek with the boys,” Judas spoke up.
“Games are for children.” Uncle Phillip stepped in. “And you’re no longer a child, are you, Judas?”
Judas shook his head and lowered his gaze. “No, sir.”
“Then get the fuck out of my sight,” he hissed. His eyes were already back on my mother. “I have to talk with my sister.”
Judas marched off, but I didn’t move, like that cold, self-satisfied fuck didn’t just spit venom as if he owned the room.
Philip Manson.
He was our mother’s brother. Judas’s father. A smug piece of shit no one actually liked but my father, because the two of them did their dirty deals behind closed doors and acted like kings. Greedy, self-serving bastards who only smiled when someone else was dying.
“You!” he barked at me. “Didn’t you hear what I said? Get the fuck out of here.”
Shaken, I turned and bolted like hell was on my heels.
But barely a few steps in, my dumbass curiosity yanked the leash. Something in me—some sick need to know—dug its claws in.
I didn’t run to escape. I ran because I was scared.
But fuck if, I was even more scared of not knowing.
I needed to know whether they’d talk about Judas, Cain, or even me.
I tiptoed back to her room. The door was ajar, and I was able to see everything through the opening.
“I told you to stay away from him,” Uncle said, voice steady, almost bored. “I gave you more than you deserved by letting him in, and of course, you saw that as a chance to overstep. Some people really don’t know when to quit.”
“He’s mine,” she rasped, the words clawing out of her throat, breath coming in jagged bursts.
What the fuck?
