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He reaches into his leather coat, pulls out a phone, and scrolls to the video app. There’s a naked man attached to a lie detector, talking about Delta’s wife, Dolly. I want to fast forward over the part where he fails to recognize my name before realizing the man questioning him is Xero Greaves, but I force myself to continue listening.
When I get to the part where the man says I’m related to Dolly, my heart stutters to a painful stop.
Mom wouldn’t want me dead just because I’m younger. She just wants me gone because I’m a burden and a drain on her finances. Every year, my behavior gets more and more unhinged. My public, online relationship with Xero was bad enough, but I started hinting that I’d killed another man. That, plus the sex tape, was probably the last straw.
I grind my teeth, my nostrils flaring. It sounds so far-fetched, but what do I really know about Mom? She’s controlling, willing to cover up murders, would drug me indefinitely, and won’t stop threatening to send me to an institution.
Xero places a hand on my shoulder, but I’m too far gone to take comfort in his touch. There has to be more to Mom’s animosity than wanting to get rid of a burden.
Every instinct in my body screams at me to go back to Mom’s house and throttle her until she spills the truth.
NINETY-THREE
XERO
I lie in bed, spooned around Amethyst, holding her down as she thrashes in her sleep. She might have taken the news about her mother on the surface, but her spirit is in turmoil.
What kind of parent tries to assassinate their own child, and why? Even Father, who is the worst kind of human scum, never tried to kill any of us directly. He destroyed our innocence and manipulated us into becoming killers, but he didn’t want us dead.
Amethyst throws her head back, narrowly missing my nose. I hug her tighter and sigh. “Sorry, little ghost,” I murmur into her curls. “This betrayal was something I couldn’t hide.”
She whimpers, her legs cycling beneath the sheets as if she’s trying to escape her demons. I tried waking her, but she’s trapped in a nightmare.
I’ve already concealed enough from Amethyst, starting with my plans to escape my execution. Then, when those photos and threatening letters arrived, I put them aside, wanting to shield her from external threats. I might have been able to hide information on Dolly, but I couldn’t allow Amethyst to continue chasing the approval of that woman.
“Xero?” she cries.
“I’m here, little ghost.”
“Xero, wait!”
My stomach drops. Is she dreaming about the time I left her alone in the catacombs, leaving her to navigate a narrow corridor of bones?
“I’m sorry, Amethyst,” I murmur into her hair.
Her body falls limp for several heartbeats, releasing my arms. I roll her onto her back and study her features. Light from my alarm clock shines on her face, illuminating the rapid movement beneath her eyelids.
I exhale my tension in a breath of relief. She’s moved into a different stage of sleep.
Amethyst is just like me. She reacts badly to betrayal. And like me, she will want closure. I already have people watching her mother’s house, ready to inform me when she returns from wherever she’s gone.
Melonie Crowley isn’t just a woman I want to eviscerate. She’s the key to finding Father and the underground facility. Father is also the key to taking down the group of elites who run the Moirai. With them all gone, I and everyone associated with them will finally have our freedom.
I need to step up Amethyst’s training. Knowing that the person behind X-Cite Media has a deep-rooted personal vendetta makes the threat against her more immediate. She needs a crash course in advanced combat and escape techniques.
For now, I’ll let her sleep. Tomorrow, I will show her no mercy.
Hours later, she’s lying spreadeagled on the bed with her wrists cuffed to the headboard. I’ve used rope restraints on her ankles to keep her legs spread, but allow her arms a fuller range of motion. I bite back a groan at the way her breasts bounce with each movement, and the way her thrashing gives me tantalizing peeks of her pussy.
“Explain to me again why I have to do this naked?” she ask through clenched teeth. If glares could kill, ther malevolent green eyes would cast anAvada Kedavra.
I smirk. “More writhing. Less complaining.”
She flashes her teeth. “One of these days, I’m going to chain you to a bed.”
“Is that a promise, little ghost?” I ask.
“You’re such an asshole.” She punctuates the insult with a rattle of the chains.
