Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 118114 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 591(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118114 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 591(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
“Are you sure about that? Seems to me like you may… care about her.”
She was suspicious, but I expected that. “She was an exceptional fuck.”
That splintered her stone expression and she smiled. “I’d prefer if my son didn’t end up like his father over a woman.”
And there it was, why she hated me. I had parts of me that reminded her of him. My father fell in love with another woman, but that wasn’t the only reason Mother killed him. It was just her excuse to kill him. She thrived on power and control and when she killed him, she took his place on Vault’s board. Then everything changed.
No longer nine board members, but five. Two of whom she brought into the organization, Peter Dorsey and the man whose identity I had yet to figure out.
“Tell me, Kai, what makes a killer like you fuck a weak woman like her.”
London was anything but weak; at least she wasn’t until the violent and cruel men, Jacob and Alfonzo, broke her. It was time to end this bullshit. I had one chance at this and if I failed I was sealing London’s fate. “Your cruelty knows no bounds, Mother. And it was stupid of you to ruin a potential asset. I told you she was valuable and to leave her alone, but you couldn’t trust me.”
She leapt to her feet, her composure breaking. “How dare you!” Her face contorted into the bitch sneer that always lay just beneath the surface.
I met her eyes, steady and calm. “I dare because you’re getting old. And you made decisions based on assumptions.” Her cheeks were red and her face a mask of fury, but this was exactly what I wanted, to turn the tables. “She is young and intelligent. A scientist whose father developed a drug you want more of. Sorry, you need more of. We agreed on this after she was brought back from that shit you put her through. We were going to have her take over for her father.” It had been my only way to make certain London stayed safe. Make her valuable to Vault.
“She was useless after her… experience.” I wanted to rip her cold heart out from her chest with my hand. London had been broken, destroyed, ruined after two years lost in that cruel world. “And I recall telling you to bring her in, but instead, you hid her away in a house we didn’t know about.”
I smiled because if I didn’t, I was going to kill her before I had what I came here for. It was time for my ace. “Dr. Westbrook is dying of cancer.” That got her attention. “Doctors give him six months. From my last visit, I’d say closer to three.” The ruptured steadiness began to crumble as her eyes wavered from mine.
“Another scientist can easily take over his work.”
“We could have used her,” I said. “Why do you think I fucked her for a week instead of torturing her like you suggested? Why do you think I came to you and suggested we use her? You agreed. It was so simple and you fucked it up both times.” I slammed my fist into her desk. “I needed her to finish school. I needed her sane. We needed her.” I lowered my voice, pushed off the desk and stepped close to her chair. “But you always need to destroy and break when there are times we need to fuckin’ cultivate.”
“We will—”
I raised my voice. “I had her, Mother!” I took a deep breath and turned to look at the fireplace, feeling as if the flames were slowly eating away at my skin. “She trusted me. She would’ve done anything I asked of her and you completely destroyed that. And for what? Because you were afraid I was getting too close to her?”
“You were. And you did,” she replied, her voice quiet.
“I was fucking her. She was an acquisition. Torture isn’t the only way to make people do what you want.”
She was silent as she considered everything I told her. Whether to believe me or call me out. Perhaps even have me beaten until I broke, but there was nothing to break of me anymore and she damn well knew it. They’d already done their damage to me.
It took everything I had to remain standing where I was when all I wanted was to take the wire out of my pocket and wrap it around her throat; to watch her eyes bulge out of her head while she thrashed around struggling for air. I couldn’t decide if it would give me more satisfaction though to plunge my knife up under her rib cage like she’d done to my father.
The farm made me numb to everything, including my sister, and the hate I had for my mother had lain dormant for years until I began to feel again. Until death suddenly mattered. Until a girl weaved her way into my heart and made it beat again.