The Carrero Effect - Falling for the Boss (Billionaire CEO)

Chapter 31

Twenty minutes after I finally hang up on Sophie, I’m sitting on my bed staring at the cell. Numb and raw at the same time. My heads reeling. Somehow my body and mind are detached.

Someone has beaten my mother to within an inch of her life, left her for dead in her own apartment. My old home.

Again!

Sophie found her; a young teen from the homeless shelter that she’s taken under her wing and let stay with her. The poor thing had been the one to find her, get her help. Just like I had so many years ago. She never changes.

I get up and walk to Sarah’s room, desperate to share my internal agony and find some calm in the chaos but discover it’s empty. They’re not even home; just the radio playing on low and I snap it off in irritation. I sigh and walk back to my room with spreading pain. My brain running through a memory of my mother this way once before, and I choke it back down. Refusing to feel it.

When is she going to stop doing this crap to me? Is it not enough to go through all of this once? No. She has to keep going back, over and over, to the same kind of abusive relationships. Like a moth to a goddamn flame.

Her choice of men my whole life is just one long bad memory of violence and abuse. She has a type and she attracts them, repeatedly. She never, ever, stood in the way of them, never stopped what they did. She chose her men over me so many times, letting them in, letting them hurt us both, and never once did she put my needs first. Not even her own needs, and here she is doing it all over again.

She is caring for a fourteen-year-old girl and has just subjected her to the same sight I had seen at ten years of age; a sight which led to my being in a children’s home for almost a year. Child services invading our life and taking me from an abusive environment and sending me to one that in my eyes was far worse — in a children’s home. Only to return me when she promised that her life was different. That particular lover long gone, but we both knew a new one was around the corner any day. I learned to lie after that, to help cover up who she really was. That year in a home taught me that there are far worse people in the world than my mother when it comes to parenting.

I stare at my suitcase and can’t stop the crushing weight consuming me.

I’ll have to go back there. I’ll have to go home to Chicago after being away for almost six years.

down open my mind and let it all pour away. I’m desolate and scared. An internal agony, threatening to consume me, vibrating inside my stomach. I never thought I would be in this place ever again. I’m scared and fear is not something I ever wanted back

Jake’s number. It’s impulse, something I do without a thought. He always knows how to make me smile, how to make me feel better. Just his voice on the other end will make me calmer. I need to tell him I’ll be gone

sounds cheerful and it tugs my heart into chaos even more so, picturing his smiling face and beautiful, clear

Back to Chicago.” My voice is shell shocked and small. I can’t pretend right now, I’m too raw to try. I

voice causes a solitary tear to slide from

shouldn’t have called him. He sounds

lie. “My mom’s in the hospital … an accident.” I can’t tell him that she’s let another abusive man destroy her life and left her half-dead, open that can of worms and

my sweet Jake. I want to run into his arms and let him hug me, like

have to do this alone.” I want him to come with me, so badly, but knowing what he would see, the questions he would ask,

and take you to the airport. Just pack, okay?” He’s reserved about it

appear to him. I hope it’s more in

I’ll come if you want me to?” his husky statement makes me even more overly emotional and vulnerable. And it hits me in my

know. I just can’t, Jake … there are things …” I stop myself. I was about to say too much; things he should never know about from my past life. He would

and I’m scared he’ll go. I can’t let him go just yet; my hands have started trembling

panic, not sure how else to stop him from

and he’s being gentle with me. It’s too much and the rip slowly tearing across my chest intensifies. A small sharp pain slicing through. I can’t hold it in, and I break down completely, unable to hide my

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