Chapter 11
ADRIAN
“Welcome, Detective,” the corrections officer, whose name I do not care to remember, takes my driver’s license.
He scans the damn thing like he’s never seen me before, and then turns, dropping it away to box be held until I leave.
“It’s been a while.” He hands me the paper with my mother’s fucking mugshot and information.
“Better that way.” I give him a nod and then slip through the metal detector. I ignore the fucking smirk on his face. He’s been working the visiting entrance at my mother’s prison for the last decade.
And I never get any friendlier.
I’ve been to plenty of fucking prisons, instigated plenty of interviews, but they’re separate from this. I hate being personally connected to the woman who’s waiting for me, and yet I still come. Every fucking year.
I should be at work. I should be doing anything other than this.
But still, I force myself to walk through the doors as soon as the lock clicks. I follow the shitty painted footsteps along the concrete until I come to the final chain link gate. The officer holds out his hand, and I refrain from slapping the paper into it.
He looks it over, and I stand there, my mind running back to last night—the way Liliana’s eyes darkened when I mentioned her father’s last name.
She was shocked, and something about the way she sank into that Uber, all bent out of shape, gave me a burst of fucking arousal.
I wanted nothing more than to follow her home and show her what I’m really good at.
But knowing this was happening today, I went home.
It’s not good to act on impulses the day before I have to set foot in this shithole.
“You’re good to go, Mr. Shaw.” The officer nods toward one of the picnic tables at the back. Surprisingly, it’s empty. The prison put together some kind of park-like visiting center, and it’s damn near falling apart. The canvases providing shade are fraying, letting the sun and breeze in.
Honestly, I don’t give a fuck. In fact, the more miserable it is, the better.
I slide into the seat with my back to the officer, since my mother will have to take the seat facing the guard.
I drum my fingers on the wood, wishing I could have my fucking phone in here.
My foot taps beneath the table against the concrete, and unlike the rest of the visitors here waiting on their loved ones, I’m not treating my mother to any luxuries like vending machine foods or drinks.
I’m here by obligation only.
She can continue to mooch off my brother.
I wonder if Liliana visits her father. The thought pops in my head, and I immediately frown. I can’t see the woman doing such a thing, but at the same time…
I’m not entirely convinced she didn’t play some part in the murder of Blueson. I don’t buy that she could’ve done it on her own, but there’s something beneath the surface of her that she’s hiding.
Maybe it’s just her past.
Or maybe she knows something.
I should press her for that, I think to myself. But my cock jumps at the idea, and I don’t think the department would approve of the kind of pressing I’d like to do to Liliana Wilson. Fuck.
“Son,” the sharp, grisly word nearly knocks me right off my fucking bench. “Nice to see you made it this morning despite ignoring my phone calls.”
Even in being startled, I don’t look up.
“Good morning, Mother,” I hum, ignoring the surge of old trauma rattling my chest. No matter how many years pass, I still can’t seem to shake the initial uptick in my heart rate or the nausea that rolls through my gut.
And it just makes me hate her all the more.
“You’ve let your facial hair grow.” Her words aren’t soft. They’re simply observational. Astrid Shaw doesn’t know how to be smooth. She doesn’t know how to feel anything at all, actually. She clicks her tongue against her cheek. “How is work?”
“Fine.” I finally look up, meeting dark green eyes that mirror my own. Once again, they’re without emotion—just like wrinkles around her eyes and mouth are expressionless. I know I resemble her, and it only makes me sicker.
She’s the reason I’m as fucked up as I am.
And it doesn’t even take being self-aware to know that.
“So,” she clasps her hands in front of her, her nails unpainted. “You are still being the superhero you always thought you needed to be. Your brother said you still don’t talk to him.”
“Why would I?” I sit up a little straighter. “He enables you.”
“Enables me to do, what, exactly?” She raises her brows at me. “To eat? To have some colored pencils to keep working on my art?”
Art. I nearly fucking laugh. She doesn’t even know what art is.
“I think my brother knows why I don’t talk to him,” I state it simply, my eyes already jumping to the clock hanging on the pillar and then back to her. “He let you murder Dad.”
“It’s been fucking twelve years, Adrian,” she snaps at me. “You’ve seen me once a year since then, and every time you still bring up the past—like that motherfucker didn’t deserve what he got.”
My jaw tightens. “You act like he was the one sleeping with his boss.”
She doesn’t say anything to that.
“If we make it five minutes longer,” I crack my neck. “We’ll have made it a fucking record of how long these visits last.”
She glares at me, her tiny frame hardly that of a murderer. “Why do you keep coming if you hate me so much?”
“I don’t know.” I hold her gaze, unable to fully answer it. “I guess I just don’t want to let you forget that you took the one person in my life that mattered.”
“Your dad was a piece of shit,” she spats at me. “He only cared about me following the rules he set for me.” My mother leans in, her gray hair spilling over her shoulder. “You know what I think the real problem is, Adrian?”
I swallow hard, trying to ignore how my heart jumps to my throat. “What’s that, Mother?”
She leans away from me, her eyes going icy despite the smile on her face. “You’re just like him.”
“Wow,” I snort, shaking my head. “I’m so fucking offended.”
My mother folds her arms across her chest. “You can go now.”
“Damn,” I nod to the clock. “Looks like we’re going to beat last year by two minutes. Guess you can write that in one of your letters, I’m going to throw in the trash.”
She rolls her eyes at me. “You know what’s going to happen to you, right?”
“You a psychic now?” I ask as I stand to my feet, stepping one leg over the bench.
“No.” She stays seated, and I know she’ll make the guard come and remove her. “But I know you’re going to meet a woman someday who’s going to rip that need for control right out of your big, scathing, power-hungry hands.”
I freeze, unsure of what it is about her words that causes me to stop—or get fucking unnerved. “And what would that even look like?”
She laughs, her tone dry. “It’d look like you getting buried right next to your father, if you can’t learn to keep her happy.
” Her lips curl into a mocking smile that make me feel like I’m seven again, a victim of her taunting.
“The best men are the ones who serve their women as much as they serve themselves.”
“Yeah, well,” I clear my throat, refusing to let the reaction linger. “You sure served Dad when you beat him to death with your cast-iron skillet.”
“I gave the fucker what he deserved.”
“Yeah, parole board will love that answer.” With that, I give the guard a head nod, and he hands me my paper so I can exit.
I leave my mother sitting exactly where she belongs and make my way back through the maze of painted footprints to the exit gate. I wait for the buzzer to sound, and then slip through the opening as soon as I can.
Astrid Shaw can think that she was eliminating a piece of shit man from the earth, but as far as I’m concerned, she belonged in the hole right there with him. My father wouldn’t have had to control her if she had just kept her legs closed.
Fucking whore.
I grit my teeth as I set the paper with her mugshot back down on the desk and wait for the officer to grab my license.
“Looks like it went about as good as it ever does,” he chuckles as he sweeps the paper up and places it into a basket. “We make bets on you, you know.”
My eyes snap up from a knuckled grip on the edge of the desk. “What’s that?”
“Yep,” he smirks at me. “Exactly what I said. One of these days, you’re gonna blow right there in the visiting center, and you’ll end up getting yourself a set of handcuffs,” he pauses, holding out my license, “Detective.”
“Well, that’ll be the fucking day for you then, won’t it?” I smile at him, shove my license back in my wallet, and head for the exit, punching the lower bar as I step out.
My entire body is alive with nerves, my head swimming with the few words we exchanged. It goes like this every fucking time, and every time, I’m left wondering if there’s some kind of truth to her words.
I am a bit of a monster myself.
I know that. But never once have I done something that ended in a crime that could land me in jail, like her. And as far as I’m concerned, I’ve yet to meet a woman who doesn’t need to be controlled.
Or protected.
I pause at the intrusive thought, my door on the handle of my unmarked SUV. Never once have I ever been concerned about protecting women. Sure, it seems like I am with my job title, but really…
I just like putting people like my mother where they belong.
It’s not about being honorable. It’s just about ridding the fucking streets of the filth that doesn’t belong there, especially women like her. They think because they have tits and a pussy, they can get away with whatever they want.
And I will not let that happen.
I slide into the car and flip up the console, fishing my phone out of the mess of papers. I check my notifications, though I’m not really expecting to find any.
But sure enough, there’s a missed call from Parker.
I dial him back and put the phone to my ear, listening to it ring a few times before it finally connects.
“Hey,” Parker sounds painfully bright.
“It’s a Saturday,” I say flatly. “We aren’t working the weekend, remember? Nothing is coming from the Blueson case.”
“Yeah, I know,” Parker says the words like I’m an idiot. “But I did a little bit of checking, and as it turns out, Blueson definitely has a connection to Liliana Wilson.”
My stomach lurches. “What? Was he fucking her?” Because I’ll murder him a second time, if he was.
“Uh, no. I highly doubt that.” Parker’s voice is utterly devoid of humor. “He’s the partner of Richard Longley’s defense attorney.”
I wince. She might be more like my mother than I thought.
And I’m disgusted by it, though my cock is still hard.
I guess my dick is into disgust now.