Skylar.
.
My heart continued to pound like a war drum in my chest, Clyde's words resounding in my ears like a horrible tale I couldn't shake off.
"And did he tell you he holds your mother captive?" It couldn't be true. Conrad would never do that, he just wouldn't. How was I supposed to believe that the man who'd looked at me like I was his whole world, who'd run away from everything for me was holding my mother prisoner?
No. Clyde was lying, he had to be. That's what Conrad had warned me about his nature—cunning, manipulative, always playing angles. But the way Clyde had said it, with the way his eyes glinted with the smugness of a devil who enjoyed inflicting pain on others, like he knew it would shatter me... it planted a seed of doubt I found hard to uproot.
Standing up, I paced th
