Free Irreplaceable (Underneath it All Series: Book Three) (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) by Ava Claire Page A

teeth looked like fangs. I realized it wasn't lipstick at all.
    Her lips were bleeding.
    She took one step forward and I jolted backward, crying out when the tower of cans I built went tumbling to the ground. I felt the crash in my bones.
    “Mommy." My voice disappeared as she stood there, hair still hanging like a dark sheet over her head. I realized that she reminded me more of a ghost than my mommy. The Mommy I knew would be yelling at me by now. Screaming for me to clean up the GD mess. But she didn't say a word.
    "I'm sorry," I squeaked, my heart beating faster than it ever had. Beating right out of my chest. "I'll clean it up-"
    "What were you out here doing, boy?"
    Her voice wasn't right. It was barely above a whisper. At the same time, it boomed from her split lips like a monster’s roar.
    It was scarier than anything that ever lurked under my bed.
    I wanted to run. I wanted to scream. Instead, I stood there and tried to keep my voice steady. "I—it—I was playing a game."
    I gasped when she brought her right arm up, extending it all the way out before she bent it at the elbow. She slowly swept her hand through her hair, pushing it out of her eyes. The minute I saw her eyes, sadder than they'd ever been after the thrill of her magazines went away, I knew I should have run.
    I expected her to tell me to open the window and jump out of it. To get out of her face before she got really angry, but she did neither.
    "A boy should have real toys," she said hoarsely, her eyes looking at me like I wasn't there at all. "You deserve a better mother, Jackson."
    I forgot that I was afraid, I forgot that this...ghost was not my mommy. I plowed through the cans and threw my arms around her waist. I didn't stop squeezing until she gripped my arms and untangled them from her body. That's when it hit me that she was smaller than I remembered and my fingertips could touch if I stretched. When was the last time she'd eaten?
    My stomach grumbled when the word 'eat' fluttered through my mind. We were almost out of cereal. There was barely enough milk for another bowl.
    Before I could ask if she was hungry or if she wanted to go to the store, she awkwardly patted the top of my head and shuffled back to the bedroom.
    She didn't even bother closing the door.
    Something was very, very wrong with Mommy.
    *
    E ven from several feet away, I knew that whatever call Sadie received was far from good news. Rose was beside me, her infectious, warm energy dimming. “What’s-”
    Sadie turned back to us, the arm she had propped against the wall dropping to her side like the blade of a guillotine slicing toward oblivion. When the sister’s made eye contact, Rose thrust the bucket of chicken at me and flew to Sadie.
    “Is it Mom?”
    Sadie didn’t utter a word, but her face was far from silent. The soft and powerful beauty that had rendered me speechless when we first met was back in full force with one key difference—there was no softness, no gentleness anywhere to be found. She’d buried all of it, leaving only the porcelain mask. Even after Rose snatched the phone away from her and started asking whoever was on the other end questions, there wasn’t a single crack in Sadie’s defenses. All hell was breaking loose and she was retreating inside herself. Deep, quiet, and alone. The loneliest place a person could be. I knew that for a fact, because it was the place I retreated to whenever my own parents or memories of my childhood confronted me.
    Parents. Even that word didn’t fit. Parents were people who tucked you in bed. Embarrassed you in front of friends. Showed up at games to cheer you on. Kissed boo boos. Got teary when you walked across the stage with your high school diploma in tow, headed towards adulthood.
    What I had was a father I knew nothing about, except that he knocked my mother up and hit the road. I used to tell myself a different story: that he was a traveling salesman and had been kidnapped by some psychotic customer;