Chapter 109: Chapter 109

Lysander’s pov

Before my mother could even reach me, her open arms reaching out through the harsh glare of the headlights, Drake’s broad frame slid between us.

He caught my mother by her wrists effortlessly, stopping her dead in her tracks two feet away from me.

"Let go of me!" my mother gasped, her voice shrill, pitching into a frantic, panicked shriek as she thrashed against his iron grip. "Who do you think you are?! Let go of my son! I need to talk to him!"

She glared up at Drake, but he didn’t even flinch. His red eyes glowed faintly as his massive shadow completely swallowed her disheveled form.

"You will speak to him right here," he said softly, "Or you won’t speak to him at all."

"How dare you?!" she spat, her face pale and blotchy, her eyes wide with wild, frantic desperation. "Who are you to stand between us?!"

"He’s right, Mom," I interrupted, stepping out from behind Drake’s shoulder.

My mother froze, her breath catching in her throat as her eyes snapped over to me.

"It’s true," I said, my voice steady despite the rapid pounding in my chest. "Whatever you have to say to me, you say it in front of Drake."

Drake glanced back down at me, his dark gaze softening for a fraction of a second before he turned back to her. He released her wrists, stepping back beside me, his large hand settling firmly at the small of my back.

"Follow me," Drake commanded, cold and sharp.

He didn’t wait for her response. He turned on his heel, guiding me toward the side entrance of the club. Two heavy line guards immediately flanked my mother, ushering her through the reinforced doors right behind us.

We didn’t walk into the main club floor. Drake led us down a quiet, soundproofed hallway lined with dark leather panels until he pushed open a heavy oak door into a private VIP suite.

The room was dim, illuminated only by ambient crimson light casting long shadows across plush looking sofas and polished tables.

Drake stepped back near the bar, folding his broad arms over his chest. He didn’t say a word. He just watched her with a glare.

Right, I forgot he didn’t like her.

My mother stood near the center of the room, her heavy handbag dangling limply from her arm. She looked from Drake to me, her eyes wet, her lips trembling so violently she could barely keep them together.

Then, her knees buckled.

She dropped heavily onto the floor, the thud of her knees hitting the rug echoing in the quiet room. Before I could move, she scrambled forward on her hands and knees, dragging herself across the carpet until she was right at my feet.

She reached out with trembling, frantic fingers, grabbing the fabric of my trousers, holding onto the hem like a drowning person clutching a lifeline.

"Lysander..." she sobbed, bowing her head until her forehead touched the leather of my boot. "Please... please forgive me. Please, my sweet boy, forgive me."

I stumbled back half an inch, completely taken aback by the sudden display. "What?! Mom, what are you doing? Why are you doing this? What happened?"

"I know," she rasped out, her voice breaking into a gut-wrenching wail. "I found out! I overheard Darius and Gideon talking in the study... I heard what happened in that house! What they did to you! What they planned to do!"

My body went completely rigid. The air in my lungs turned to ice.

"I didn’t know," she wept, her fingers clutching my trousers tighter, tears soaking into the dark fabric of my clothes.

"I swear to God, baby, I didn’t realize how much you were put through! I didn’t realize what monsters I brought into your life! I went back and confirmed it... it was all true. Everything they did to you... and I was so blind. I was so wrapped up in my own world! I’m so sorry, Lysander. I am so, so sorry."

I stared down at her, my mind spinning into a sickening vortex of old memories and raw pain. The years of hiding in my room. The quiet threats from Gideon. The suffocating terror of living under Darius’s roof while my mother smiled at dinner parties, completely oblivious.

My throat felt dry, choked with a thick, burning lump. I shook my head slowly, stepping back, but her hands followed me across the carpet.

"I... I don’t know how to go about this," I whispered, my voice shaking.

Desperate for guidance, I turned my head, looking back at Drake standing in the shadows by the bar. He hadn’t uttered a sound. His face was a calm, unreadable mask, but as my eyes met his, he offered a tiny, slow nod, letting me make my own choice.

I took a shaky breath and turned back to my mother, who was still weeping at my feet, her hands clasped together in a desperate prayer.

"I’m a terrible mother," she sobbed, wiping her wet face with her ruined sleeves. "I’m a bad mother! A mother is supposed to protect her son, but I didn’t! I didn’t protect you because I felt you were safe with them!"

A bitter, razor-sharp laugh tore out of my throat before I could stop it.

"Safe?" I spat, the anger finally bursting through the numbness in my chest. "Safe with them?! Yeah, well... guess what, Mom? I’m gay. So how about that, Mom? How about that?!"

My mother flinched, but she didn’t let go of my hem.

"How about that, Mom?!" I yelled, stepping closer, my chest heaving as years of buried resentment spilled out all at once. "When you got married to my father, he’s a gay man! You left him, divorced him, only for you to get married to Darius thinking he’s straight! Well, guess what? Everybody around you is gay! I’m gay!"

I braced myself. I clamped my teeth together, waiting for her to blow up, waiting for her to explode with the familiar disgust and outrage I had feared for years.

It never came.

My mother looked up at me through a haze of tears, her red-rimmed eyes filled not with anger or disgust, but with a profound, crushing sorrow.

"I know, baby," she whispered softly, her voice breaking as she looked up into my eyes. "I know. And I am so sorry if I ever made you feel like I wouldn’t accept you with your sexuality. It doesn’t define you. You are my son, and no matter who my son is, I will always love him. I am so, so sorry that I didn’t make myself safe enough for you to come to me in your time of need, when you were in trouble, when you were put through all those terrible things, and I was just so clueless and wasn’t interested. I am really sorry. I know it will not be easy for you to forgive me, but I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to lose you in my life. Please... please forgive me. I have divorced Darius. I don’t care what happens to them anymore. I just want my son back."

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