When Renee Rango stepped toward the aisle, I knew I had to react quickly before she pulled the pin on the truth grenade she was using to hold me hostage.

I whirled around and marched down the aisle toward Lincoln. To fuel the authenticity of my anger, I focused on the fact that he showed up drunk.

“You asshole. How dare you?”

“You can’t marry him.” Lincoln could barely stand upright, and his words were one step above gibberish.

In that moment, a memory burst into my head—my dad showing up wasted at my spring formal to drag my mom, who was acting as a chaperone, out of the gym because he thought she was flirting with one of my classmates. I grasped onto that memory with everything I had, even though Lincoln was nothing like my dad. I had to use it to make this seem genuine.

I have no other choice. Every second Lincoln stood in this church was one moment closer to Renee Rango destroying his entire life.

“I don’t know why you think you get to have an opinion, but get the hell out of here.”

Lincoln stumbled forward another step. “I can buy and sell him.”

Why did he have to go there? Why does everything always have to be about money?

“I. Don’t. Care. Because you can’t buy me.”

Before I could finish my sentence, Asa and Ricky rushed by me and shoved Lincoln out the front doors of the church.

I never got to say my true thoughts.

My love is free.

Three

Lincoln

Present day

“Mother was pronounced dead at the hospital a half hour ago. Heart attack. They couldn’t resuscitate her. You fucking killed her. I hope you’re happy.”

My brother’s caustic tone coming through the phone shreds my hope that I misheard him.

This can’t be happening. She can’t be . . .

“If this is some sick stunt you’re trying to pull—”

“You’re the one who pulled the stunt, big brother, and this is what you got in return. Good job. Son of the fucking year. Don’t bother coming back from wherever you ran off to with your whore. Mom wouldn’t want you here anyway.” Harrison’s rage comes through loud and clear before he ends the call, and I’m left with nothing but silence.

Whitney looks at me, all color drained from her face. “Oh my God. Oh my God. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

I hold up a hand because I don’t want to hear her say what I know she’s going to say. That she shouldn’t have come with me. That I shouldn’t have picked her over my mother. That none of this ever should have happened.

Disbelief and anger charge through my system with equal jolts of power. Part of me thinks this is some elaborate ploy by my mother and brother to lure me back and convince me to abandon Whitney, but the other part . . . the other part can’t believe I’ve just lost my only remaining parent.