I sit with it. Search inside myself for shock, horror, guilt—any of the emotions a normal person should experience when learning that the man who raised them has “disappeared.”
I find nothing. No grief. No revulsion. Only relief.
Greg Bowman spent years making my life miserable. He beat me, taught me to cry silently, locked me in rooms, starved me, and threatened things so vile I can't think about them without shaking. He terrorized my mother and used her addiction as a leash. He tracked me down at my new apartment and split my face open with his fist.
My world is better without Greg Bowman in it.
And if Zeus did what I think he might have done—I’m grateful. Fiercely, unapologetically grateful.
"London, baby?" Mom's voice pulls me back. "You still there?"
"I'm here."
"So, listen." Her tone shifts—higher, softer, laced with that wheedling quality I've heard a thousand times. "Now that Greg's gone, you can come home. Your room's still here. We can be together again, just you and me. Like old times.”
Old times? Does she mean the time when she was still just a drunk instead of a drunk and a drug addict?
"Mom, I don't think that's a good idea."
"Why not? The house is safe now. No more Greg. No more?—"
"I'm not coming back to live there." I keep my voice firm despite the guilt she's expertly stacking on my shoulders. "I can visit. If you need something, I'll help. But I'm not moving back."
She sucks in a sharp breath. "You're choosing them over your own mother."
Them? What does she mean by that? “I’m choosing myself, Mom."
"I know you're at their compound." Her voice hardens. "The Renegade Kings. I know you went looking for your father there."
The hair on the back of my neck prickles. "How do you know that?"
"I got sources." She deflects so smoothly it's almost admirable. "Did you find him? Your daddy?"
"He's dead, Mom."
She goes quiet for a beat. No gasp of surprise comes. No words of comfort. No I'm sorry. She just says, “Hmm. Well. Ain't that something."
Not a trace of sympathy. Not for me, not for my father, not for the hope I carried. That's my mother—a black hole of self-interest surrounded by a thin shell of maternal performance.
"Come home, London." The wheedling returns, higher-pitched now, desperate. "I need you. I just got out of the hospital. I'm all alone here. You can't just abandon me."
Abandon. The word is designed to wound, and it almost works. She knows exactly where to aim—at the guilt I carry for leaving her with Greg, for not being able to save her, for being angry at a woman who's sick.
"I'll visit soon, Mom. I promise. But I'm staying where I am."
"Baby, please?—"
"I have to go. I love you. Take care of yourself."
I end the call before she can launch another assault.
I hold my phone in my hand, screen dark, and I stare at it for a long time.
Greg is gone. Dead? Or running scared? Either way, I know Zeus did that for me. In a perfect world, I'd be horrified.
But this isn't a perfect world. This is Detroit, and Greg wasn't a problem that could be solved with a restraining order. He was a predator who would have found me eventually, no matter where I ran. Zeus removed a threat that would have haunted me for the rest of my life.
I set the phone on the nightstand and lie back on the bed.