Chapter 528

Austin couldn't care less about anything else, as tears streamed down his face. "It's alright. Mom will be alright," he said.

At that moment, he felt his chest tighten as if it were about to explode.

Self-blame, guilt, reluctance, and other emotions tangled together, filling his chest.

He had risked his life to come back.

This wasn't the outcome he wanted.

Memories of the past 20 years with his mother floated in his mind.

He remembered that time in the dead of winter. His mother had draped the thickest clothes in the house over him. Even if she was freezing, she still insisted on going out to rummage through the rubbish, just to raise him.

He remembered that on New Year's Eve, his mother would smile and offer him a warm plate of pasta. That was the only plate of pasta the entire family would have on New Year's Eve, and his mother insisted on him finishing the whole plate.

He remembered that when others were calling him a mutt, it was his mother who protected him. With he