Free Trust Me: Matty and Kayla, Book 3 of 3 (The McDaniels Brothers 7) by Christine Bell

how did they make it look like cancer? Someone poisoned her food or?"
    "Look, we don't have to hash the details out. You wanted to know why, and I told you. Don't put yourself through this. I already have to live with the guilt of remembering what this did to her physically. There's no reason you should too."
    "I won't ask anything else. It feels like I just need to know. For closure."
    "Licorice. She always had a sweet tooth. One of the guards was paid to turn the other cheek when contraband like that came in."
    I needed to go. Call it quits before I exploded. My whole body was trembling from the effort of holding still when I wanted to claw his evil face off.
    And still, I pressed. "And the doctor who diagnosed her with cancer?"
    "Paid him to look the other way, file his reports and keep his mouth shut. Nobody looks too hard at prison deaths."
    It was the shrug that did it. Like, “What can you do? Sometimes you have to poison people to death, am I right?”
    One second, I was standing across the ring from him. The next I was flying through the air, foot first, howling with rage.
    The first shot, a scissor kick straight to his jaw, sent a rush of sheer adrenaline through me. It made the most satisfying sound, a crack that echoed through the silent space. He stumbled back and I kept coming, fists flying as I let loose a tight combo, cheek, chin, cheek, pap- pap-pap .
    I bounced back on my heels, my erratic breathing the only sound in the room as he shook his head to clear it and swiped gently at the blood trickling from his nose.
    “You got that out of your system now, kid? Because I’m about done. I know you’re hurt, and we can work through that together. But if you hit me again, the next one’s gonna cost you.” His voice was deceptively soft but the words penetrated my haze of fury and I smiled at him.
    “I’d love to see you try it, old man.”
    He took a step toward me and then stopped in his tracks, gaze flickering to my chest and then back to my face. The snake-like gleam in his eyes faded, leaving behind genuine shock as he stumbled back, this time, without my help.
    "Are you fucking kidding me right now?"
    Stomach churning, I reached down and laid a hand over the collar of my blouse. It must have lost a few buttons when I’d gone after him, because it gaped open, leaving the black wires taped to my chest exposed.
    “You stupid little cunt,” he whispered, and pressed a hand to his heart. He stepped toward me, the violence in his expression enough to send a chill through me, but he didn’t get far. The door burst open and four men clothed in all black with the word SWAT emblazoned on their vests rushed into the room, shouting various phrases, ranging from, "Put your hands up” to, "Step away from the girl".
    Far louder than all that noise to me, though, seemed to be Mick's words. "How could you? I did everything for you." His eyes blazed with accusation as he shook his head slowly, and raised his hands high.
    I swallowed the lump in my throat, refusing to let myself think of anything but the now. And right now, no matter what had happened in the past, Mick Flynn was an unrepentant career criminal who would sell out his own mother if it benefited him. Just because he had a kernel of decency that forced him to support me growing up and didn't let me stay with my molester of an uncle didn't make him a person who deserved my love or compassion. I’d let my feelings of gratitude hold me to his side far longer than I should have.
    "I'm sorry it had to be this way, Mick." That much was true. I was sorry that he had done it. I was sorry things ended this way. "But I'm a Flynn, after all. You didn't think I was going to let you get away with murdering my mother, did you?"
    The SWAT guys got to him then and shoved him to his knees in front of me. I felt a pair of hands on my shoulders and a second later, was whisked from the ring with a blanket wrapped around me.
    "Are you all right, miss?" A low, calm voice